Reaching a decision, Maarten Gansevoort slipped off his blunt-toed shoes and crept on stockinged feet towards the inner door. He knew every board in the house he’d built, and not one of them creaked under his weight. He reached the bedchamber door and crouched down. The handle was only a smooth dowel that ran through from one side of the sliding latch to the other, and hadn’t been pegged in place. With much hesitation and care, he pulled the stick clean out of the door, leaving a round hole to which he applied his eye.
He could see quite clearly. The chamber with its shuttered windows, lit by candlelight. The big bed that he had made himself for his first marriage, spread with the cream quilt that Mercy had brought as part of her trousseau. Mercy standing at the side of the bed, facing the door, the stranger’s bare arms about her from behind. He had evidently removed his clothes, though Maarten could see little of him. Mercy’s own clothes were in disarray, her bodice unlaced, her shift pulled down from her shoulders, her big freckled breasts bare and cupped in the stranger’s groping hands, her plump brown nipples being plucked and flicked and pinched. Her neck was twisted at an angle and there was a look on her face of such painful need that Maarten Gansevoort caught his breath. Her mouth formed a quivering ‘O’ as if she were moulding it about some virile member. She writhed her sumptuous hips, grinding her ass cheeks into the stranger’s crotch, and covered his hands with her own as he mauled at her.
Nicholas Scratch licked at her white throat, chuckling, then turned her in his hands and pushed her to her knees. Suddenly his body was visible, the unblemished body of a muscular young man, perfect in every way. His stiff stood up rampantly erect from a nest of black curls, dark with blood against the paler skin of his thighs and belly. He took himself in hand and laid the other hand on Mercy’s head as if in blasphemous blessing. But all he was doing was pressing her lower. She put her face to the fat pouch of his scrotum and kissed it fervently.
Maarten Gansevoort loosed the drawstring of his breeches and slipped his hand inside his clothes, ashamed beyond words, yet aroused so much he could no longer wait. His own member was hot and sticky and as hard as smoked meat. He stroked himself, feeling his balls clench, feeling the length in his hand grow thicker and longer with every beat of his heart. To see his wife kneeling obediently before a stranger, to see the plump out-thrust of her skirted behind, the eager caresses of her hands upon his hard thighs, the flash of her tongue as she licked all the way up his cock and then took it in her mouth, slipping it deep into her throat – it was unbearable. The slurping noise she made as she sucked him, the look of satisfaction on the stranger’s face, the way his hand twisted in her hair, the bob of her head as she rose and fell upon him with unholy appetite …
The stranger’s eyes lifted to the door. His expression slipped from pleasure to triumph. Then the door cracked its latch and slammed wide open, back against the wall, splintering its hinges. Maarten Gansevoort was revealed kneeling in the doorway with his breeches open and his stiff in his fist.
Mercy’s eyes opened wide, and for a moment she detached from the false idol to which she was giving worship, leaving it plum dark but shining with her spittle. Maarten felt as if the floor must open up and plunge him into the fiery pit of hell at that very moment.
‘I see you’ve come to lend us your blessing, friend,’ said the stranger, greatly amused. He gestured. ‘Enter.’ Then, when Maarten only gasped and goggled, his voice hardened to a silky command. ‘You must be half a witch already, Goodman Gansevoort. There is a broomstick between your legs and I see by your face you have been riding it hard. Join us now. On your knees.’
His dignity gone, without any other recourse, Maarten shuffled forwards on his knees almost to Mercy’s side. His whole body was aflame with shame.
‘See now. Your wife was just about to take Communion,’ said the stranger, directing her back to the glistening plum of his cock.
With deliberate showmanship he delved deep down her throat, pumping long and smooth, pulling out to show his full length all wet from her suckling, then plunging in once more, all the time Maarten watching, unable to tear his eyes away. He knew when the stranger came off because Mercy nearly choked, eyes watering, nostrils flaring, struggling for breath as her throat worked frantically to receive his outpourings. When Nicholas let her go her mouth came away as milky and sticky as a nurseling’s.
‘Kiss her,’ the stranger ordered in a voice both quiet and implacable.
Maarten leant in, his lips finding hers. She was still gasping for breath. Her mouth was soft and wet, her tongue slippery under his, and he was shaking so hard he felt he might collapse. He could taste it – the stranger’s spend – sharp and salty, and he wanted to die for shame. Then her hand fumbled past his and found his cock. She stroked it as if comforting a frightened and frantic animal, and he groaned into her mouth even as tears spilled down his cheeks.
‘Now stand up Goodman Gansevoort, and prepare your wife for me. Remove her clothes and lay her upon the marriage bed.’
Maarten’s eyes met hers. He read in them regret and fear, but above all a terrible selfish need. It was too late for her to hide her desires from the man she had pledged herself to. Her promise of faithfulness was worthless. She nodded almost imperceptibly, urging him on in the debauchment of their vows. So he rose and drew her to her feet, and completed the unlacing of her bodice, the discarding of her petticoats and shift, revealing to her master the full curves that he had thought belonged to him alone, the creamy swells of hip and buttock, the copper tangle of her puss. His hands quivered as he caressed her warm skin, feeling her gasp and heave to his touch, all for another man. Then he pressed her back and laid her upon the bed, climbing up beside her.
‘Touch her,’ whispered the stranger. ‘Touch her slit.’
Her thighs were already loose; when he slipped his hand over her mound they parted wantonly. Her eyes were not on him; her attention was raptly fixed upon the stiff of the stranger, which stood as engorged as ever. It had not drooped for a moment after the man’s first crisis. Maarten parted the petals of her puss with his fingertips.
‘Is she wet?’
‘Yes.’ Maarten cleared his throat. ‘She is, sir.’
‘Put your fingers in her quim. Tell me how she is.’
He obeyed, half closing his eyes. ‘She is soft, and wet and hot. She sucks at my fingers.’ Mercy moved under him, moaning. His own cock, a goodly length by most accounts but meagre fare against his guest’s weapon, was as hard as wood.
‘Is she ready for my quimstake, Goodman Gansevoort?’ The stranger ran his hand lovingly up his beam. ‘Push your hand in deep. Is your wife ready for me?’
‘Ah. Oh yes.’ Mercy’s wet grip undulated around his fingers. He could smell her sex.
‘Then go kneel behind her head and hold her wrists.’
Maarten took his place as he was told, drawing out her arms over her head. Her big firm breasts heaved, the nipples pointing at the roof beams. He wanted to touch them, but he had not been given permission. So he watched as the other man knelt between her splayed thighs, scooped his hands around her waist, lifted her backside from the bed and impaled her slowly upon his cock. Her back arched almost beyond endurance, Mercy wailed. Maarten pinned her wrists to the coverlet, keeping her stretched, sweat running down his temples as he watched her take her pounding. It was a display of such strength and endurance that his heart was in his mouth. That length of meat rammed into her, deep and rhythmic, pushing her body to its limits. Nicholas Scratch’s face was wreathed in a triumphant smile, candlelight dancing in his eyes, every stroke both a master’s punishment upon a runaway servant and a reward for her shameless concupiscence.
She was more beautiful in that moment than he had ever seen her, and that realisation hurt him to the core. It was as if he were seeing the real her for the first time, as if she’d kept the best part of herself hidden from him. He would have liked to have spent his seed in her open mouth or poured it out as an offering on her wobbling breasts.
He would have liked to have done it as the stranger filled her with his cream, but he knew himself unworthy, so he only watched as Nicholas Scratch showed his appreciation with a facility that no mortal man could ever possess. He came with teeth bared and his throat stretched, barking his triumph, and he did it over and over again, as often as Mercy did, jetting into her wet cauldron and laughing with satisfaction as she was reduced to heaving, wailing, incoherent exhaustion. Then he dropped her to the bed and stood back, stroking a cock that stood as proud as ever. ‘Turn her over,’ he said. He hadn’t even broken a sweat.
‘What?’
‘I wish to sodomise your wife. Have you ever tried that, friend?’
‘Of course not,’ he whispered. ‘It’s a sin.’ His heart was hammering.
Nicholas Scratch smiled. ‘Roll her.’
So Maarten did, and Mercy did not try to resist. She buried her flushed face in the rumpled quilt. Her behind was as pale and round as a full moon.
‘Spread her thighs.’
He did. The smell of sex was thick and heady and made him want to plunge himself into her swollen slit. Shame and lust roiled in his ballocks, threatening to spume forth.
‘Now kiss her brown eye for me.’
Maarten looked up, startled.
‘Do you think I’m going in dry, friend? That’s hardly the action of a gentleman. Get her wet and open. Use your tongue.’ His smile had not lost its menace.
So Maarten obeyed, bending to press his face between her cheeks and kiss that which he’d never touched before, tasting her sharp meatiness, testing the muscular pucker of her hole. He had no masculine dignity left to guard now, after all, having given his wife up to the stranger. He had only shame and submission and a wild, sickened arousal. Still he was shocked by how easily she opened to his tongue, as if she had been waiting years to surrender her most filthy self to invasion. He could not push his tongue in far enough to fill her. He rose gasping from her slippery cleft.
‘Good. Now, Goodman Gansevoort, you must moisten me too.’ Nicholas Scratch ran his thumb over the turgid head of his cock. ‘Come here.’
Maarten’s head swam. If sodomising a woman was a sin for which one might burn, turning to a man would be to invite the very wrath of God. And to suck this fiend for the purpose of buggery and adultery combined …
Maarten’s cock twitched even as his stomach roiled. He wet his lips. Eyes burning, he crawled into position and opened his mouth, for the first time in his life, to another man’s member. It was solid and hot and slightly sticky; he tasted first his wife’s familiar tang, then the alien taint of a man’s seed. He shut his eyes and sucked. His stiff throbbed.
‘Good.’ The stranger’s voice was almost tender. ‘This is what you are good for, is it not? Now, friend, put me to your wife. As if I were a bull to a virgin heifer: you have done such things before, I’m sure. Guide me to her with your own hand.’
Turning to Mercy, Maarten saw that she was watching over her shoulder, taking in all his humiliation avidly. Nicholas got up behind her on the bed and Maarten took that thick length in his unsteady hand and angled the cock to the dark well of her anus, prick and ass cleft both lubricated with his saliva, her hole pliant and receptive, blossoming open under his duress. She wailed as the stranger’s cock penetrated her, and the sound made his heart soar.
‘Now watch, friend. See how it is done.’
He would have given anything to have been the one fucking that upturned ass, gripping those pale hips, shafting that tight forbidden hole. At that angle her bottom looked as round as a pumpkin, her waist tiny, her hair a tumbled harlot’s mess. But he could only watch. She was all receptive femininity, but she was responding to a greater male than he.
‘Yes! Yes!’ she screamed in her ecstasy.
He watched as Nicholas fucked her then pulled out, leaving snail trails of pearly spend upon her quivering ass. Mercy collapsed face down.
‘May I?’ he whispered, bewitched by the pink gape of her still-dilated hole. His cock was a rod of iron in his hand.
Nicholas shook back his hair. ‘No. But you have one last task. One you are worthy of. You may clean her up, Goodman. Clean my seed from your beloved wife, with your tongue.’
Eyes blurring, he bent to his appointed task. His wife oozed another man’s cream from both orifices, and he could do nothing else than lap it up. His tongue got lost amongst her deep soft folds. The taste and the slippery mess of it were unforgettable, burning his mind. It disgusted and excited him to the depths of his soul. He could not understand his arousal or bear to think about it, but nonetheless it was stronger than his Christian conscience. When he felt Nicholas’s hands on his backside, pulling down his loosened breeches, he sobbed in relief. Of course this was how it had to end; this was the ultimate humiliation. Having already surrendered his wife without a fight to another man, having lusted over her dishonour, having helped that man in plundering her body in the foulest of ways – this was the deepest sin that was also its own chastisement. He felt his buttocks being parted by firm hands. He felt the wetness as Nicholas spat onto his anus. He felt the blunt probing of that cock – that perfect, inhumanly virile cock – and he did not clench against it as it bored into him. He groaned out load, not bothering to disguise his pain or his surrender: he had no pride left. On hands and knees, sweat springing out from every pore, he yielded, deep rhythmic groans issuing from his chest. He was aware that Mercy had twisted over beneath him and was staring.
Of course, he told himself, it must be most gratifying to her, to see her wretched husband fucked by her lover. His prick jerked, dripping.
He was aware that she had reached to grip the stiff prong of his hanging cock and fondle his balls. The tugging on his stiff was an immense relief. He felt himself opening out internally, the rush of blood through his veins, and – even as a part of him was appalled that he should stoop so low as not just to be buggered, but to enjoy his sodomisation – he let loose in a gush, spurting over his wife, adding the sin of Onan to every other.
Then he collapsed forwards over her, his legs too weak to hold him against the pounding from above. Nicholas Scratch bore him down, thrusting ruthlessly, then erupted inside him, his semen as cold as the icy depths of hell.
She looked into both their faces as the two men came. Her husband’s face was twisted, almost unrecognisable, his eyes closed as if to hide his soul, but her master’s face was wide-eyed and exultant. His participation in the pleasures of the flesh would always be halfway to a joke for him, she thought, an ironic critique of his original nature. But they were both wonderful, and the sight of them together made her sorely used quim tingle. In their spasms they pitched forwards over her, and as the weight of both men slammed down they were so heavy that Mercy thought the breath would be crushed from her chest.
But then her master threw back his head, laughing, and turned to light: a cold blue celestial light that filled the room, illuminating in that brief moment everything. The cobwebs hanging in the corner. The rat droppings by the skirting board. The knobbly knuckle on her left hand where a cow kick had broken the bone years ago. The slackening billows of her belly, and the dirt in the ingrained lines on Maarten’s flushed face. Every dust mote hanging in the air; every particle of their frail mortality.
Then in another heartbeat her master was gone and they lay once more under kindly candlelight, alone in their marriage bed.
Maarten made a noise of shock and tried to look over his shoulder, but Mercy threw her arms around him. ‘He’s gone, husband. Gone.’ He let out a long breath. She held him tight to her, talking softly and slowly as she might to a frightened child. ‘Away over the black tree tops and under the moon, gone to fright the sheep in the fields and curdle the milk in the byres, gone to pinch the flesh of maidens black and blue, gone to whisper in the ears of sleeping men and find who will listen to him and open their eyes. He dances under the full moon on the hilltops among the stones raised by the Indians, and comes at the call of those who dare face h
im. He is here, and then he is gone. He opens our guarded souls like a man prising oysters. For he is the light-bringer, and what he illuminates is our secret selves, our hidden dreams, those things we do not admit even to ourselves. He takes away our pride and gives us truth in exchange. Not shame, husband, truth. It is up to us whether we can live with it.’
She paused, her heart pounding in her throat, but Maarten did not reply. He lay slack and heavy against her, his breathing slow. She bit her lip. He had fallen asleep, taking the easy plunge into darkness, fleeing from the light and the shock. It might not last long, but at least he had neither sprung from the bed, nor struck her, nor raged against himself, nor fled in horror and recrimination. He had fallen asleep, exhausted. And that, she told herself, was a good omen.
The Red Thread
WHEN I AWAKE the boat and all its sailors have gone. I am completely alone. I scramble up the scrubby hillside behind the beach and look out across the dark waves. Yes, there is the black sail, diminishing into the distance. I wave my arms and scream and call him back, but it’s no use and I know it. They haven’t forgotten me; I was in full view on the sands all the time. The Prince of Athens has abandoned me on this island.
I put my head in my hands and weep.
I had grown up with the fact of Asterion’s imprisonment. It was an unquestioned part of my small world: the monthly presentations of the tributes, the nightly feedings, the sudden muffled sound of him roaring in frustration or fury from beneath any random floor of the palace. It was not something that seemed strange to me as a child, or that moved me either to fear or to pity. In fact I liked it. People tell me that even when I was very small I used to lean over the edge of the central well, the one point in the palace where one could look down into the basement below, and watch for him. It was the one place he could look up from too, to see the blue sky and the sun, or the stars after which he was named. Everywhere else, the Palace Below was in darkness. So he would often be visible in the crescent shadow, squatted on his haunches, gazing back up at us.
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