Chapter Six
The journey back to the inn was completed in silence. He could feel Megan's determination to give him satisfaction.
It incited both anger and hope: anger, that she failed to understand a eunuch's limitations; hope, that she prove he could find gratification as surely as any other man could.
A young stableboy held the horse's head while he lithely jumped down out of the carriage. For the first time he was glad that he had to daily exercise to build muscles or else turn to flab as so many eunuchs did.
His strength would allow him to bring Megan many more orgasms.
Turning, he offered her his hand. She glared in the direction that the stableboy stood.
He did not need to look to know that the boy gawked at the Arab who wore a robe like a woman.
"Megan," he said softly.
She reluctantly tore her gaze away from the stableboy.
"I am used to arousing curiosity," he merely said.
Megan gave him her hand. Her frown did not diminish.
The dim interior of the inn was oppressive after the bright sunshine outside; the smell of boiled cabbage and beef nauseated him after the freshness of spring air.
The innkeeper who had greedily procured him a whore was not at his station. Raised voices drifted out of the pub.
A chambermaid had straightened his room while they were gone. The bed was made; the ladderback chair stood by the fireplace; the water pitcher sat inside the stoneware basin.
It was as if he had not pleasured a woman and been pleasured in return.
He locked the door.
Megan waited for him by the bed. "I trust you to give me pleasure, Muhamed."
But he did not trust her to give him pleasure, she did not need to add.
No woman could give him what he ached for.
She would not be satisfied until he proved it to her.
"Take off your clothes, Megan."
Megan did not gaze away from him as she removed her clothing. The color of her eyes was indistinct in the dull light; the fire in her hair doused.
"Sit down on the bed," he said harshly.
She sat down on the edge of the bed.
Silently he removed his turban and jerked his thobs over his head. The act was familiar, his intentions were not.
Megan dropped a pillow to the floor; he knelt in front of her.
He did not have to tell her to spread her legs.
Gently he cupped her breasts, swollen and tender, shrouded in shadow instead of sunlight. Hunkering down, he touched her vulva, her clitoris that was still engorged, her nether lips that glistened with moisture.
Untouched by the beauty and the brutality that was Arabia.
She easily took one finger, two…
He stared at the taut ring of her flesh and the dark intrusion of his hand. Moisture leaked from her body, a pearly essence. Slowly, he pulled out until just his two fingertips were buried inside her. Carefully, he pressed his third and forth finger into the gap he caused, fluting them to fit her shape, her size.
She winced, but did not deny him.
Megan would not deny him anything, and he did not know why.
He glanced up at her breasts he had held and her nipples that he had suckled. And was overwhelmed by need.
Swooping upward, he took her left nipple in his mouth. Her heartbeat pounded against his tongue; a matching pulse throbbed against his fingertips.
A woman's vagina was made to birth a child. A woman's breasts were made to give milk.
But there would be no offspring from their union.
He suckled, giving her the succor she needed. That he needed. That they needed, together.
He pushed four fingers inside her, first knuckles, second knuckles… stretching her as a child never would.
Megan contracted around him.
He circled his thumb around her clitoris, savoring her hardness on the outside, her softness on the inside.
A cry spread through Megan's chest, vibrated against his lips and tongue, labored up through her throat and out of her mouth.
Pleasure. Pain.
Her orgasm crushed his fingers, forcing him to share both her pleasure and her pain. A drip of preparatory moisture was squeezed out of his verge.
Cool fingers cupped his ears; heat riffled the top of his head-her breath. She buried her face in his hair, nose and lips pressing against his scalp as he suckled her and milked from her the last spasm of her pleasure, a gentle flutter around his fingers.
They sat for long moments, his fingers inside her, her nipple inside his mouth, connected in a way no erotic treatise could adequately describe.
Reluctantly, he released her nipple. The heat weighting his head lifted; the fingers cupping his ears slid down to his cheeks.
There was no stubble to prick her fingers, nor would there ever be.
He lifted his head and met her waiting gaze.
"I had a son," he said.
Her fingers tightened around his jaws; her vagina nipped his fingers.
"Not of my flesh," he explained harshly, "but a boy who was placed into my care when I was twenty-seven years old.
We"-he would not reveal another's secret exile, it was not his story to tell-"came to England nine years ago. Last week he threatened to kill me if I hurt his woman."
His pain was reflected in her eyes. Or perhaps it was fear he saw, that another man had felt it necessary to threaten him lest he harm a woman.
"Words said in the heat of anger should be forgotten," she merely said.
"They were not said in the heat of anger." He flexed his fingers inside her; Megan reflexively tightened around him. "He would have killed me. I do not blame him. He did what he had to do."
"Were you a… a threat to this woman?"
"Yes."
The pulse beating inside her sped up.
"Why?"
"Because I was jealous." Remembered rage and pain swelled over him. "Because I wanted what he had, a woman of my own."
"But you didn't harm her."
"No."
Or had he?
Were the two of them together, or had he irrevocably come between them?
"Does he-do you-live around here?"
"He lives in London."
"Is that why you are in Land's End-to get away from this man and his… woman?"
He opened his mouth to tell her the truth.
He couldn't.
"In Arabia, there was a woman in the harem… a woman who married a eunuch," he heard himself say. "He had no verge, no testicles. Yet she claimed that he was capable of orgasm. She said that he would go into a rutting fever… and she would hold a pillow over his head when he obtained his peak to prevent him from gnashing her breasts with his teeth.
She and the other women laughed, that a eunuch could be reduced to such ignominy."
He heard again the laughter, the jeering taunts.
He wasn't like that, he thought on a surge of agony.
He would show her he wasn't like that.
He didn't need a woman to bring him release, other than through her own release.
Megan's flesh sucked at his fingers when he withdrew. He gave her his verge, sinking so deeply inside her that there was not room for thoughts of Arabia or eunuchs.
Her gaze held his, accepting him, accommodating him.
Closing his eyes, he pulled back out, and rammed into her. Again. And again. And again.
Until his skin burned with sweat.
Until his knees ached.
Until his verge throbbed in agony.
Until she cried out, first in pleasure, then in pain, and he still could not gain release.
Soft arms wrapped around him. Held him. Immobilized him.
He leaned into Megan, trembling, wanting so badly that he wanted to howl. Sobbing for air, he buried his face in the crook of her neck.
Soft fingers feathered his hair, pressed him closer. "Tell me how," she whispered.
How could he tell her?
/> It was unnatural.
A man should not need more than a woman's vulva.
"Tell me," she persisted. "Please. Trust me, Muhamed. Trust me like I've trusted you."
He pressed harder into her neck, her vagina, wanting to lose himself inside her, unable to do so. Because of one man's decision. Because of an entire culture that perpetrated a practice that destroyed lives rather than desire.
"A man has a gland inside him that can be caressed," he said raggedly.
Megan stilled-even the pulse that rapidly pounded against his lips seemed to halt.
It had dawned on her that there was only one place that a man could be internally caressed.
"How would a woman be able to identify this gland?" she asked unevenly.
He repeated what he had heard other eunuchs say, creatures who were not supposed to want sexual satisfaction but they did. "It is said to be the size and shape of an unshelled nut. They call it the third almond."
"I want to please you, Muhamed. I want to give you the same pleasure you have given me."
He pulled away from the comfort of Megan's arms. "It is not the same," he said harshly.
"You are afraid."
Yes, he was afraid.
He was afraid that the climax she had given him would never be repeated.
He was afraid of losing what little masculinity he retained.
"It is unnatural," he grated.
Why didn't she see that it was unnatural?
"Muhamed, satisfaction is not unnatural. What they did to you is unnatural. Men loving women only so they can bear their children is unnatural. But not this, Muhamed. You said you receive satisfaction through my pleasure. Let me share yours. Let me know that I can please you, as you've pleased me."
"They laughed," he said harshly.
"I would never laugh at you."
No, Megan wouldn't laugh at him.
Gently, he withdrew from her and stood up, bones creaking, knees aching.
Megan grabbed a pillow. Dropping it to the floor, she kneeled in front of him.
He stared down at the top of her head; her braid hung down her back. She looked like a schoolgirl.
Her hands that wrapped around him did not belong to a schoolgirl; they belonged to a woman.
Fire danced along his verge, the caress of her fingers.
Glancing up, she caught his gaze. "This is for me, too, Muhamed. I've never had the opportunity to touch a man's body. I will always treasure the fact that you trust me enough to let me do this."
Head lowering, she circumvented his response by the simple expedient of taking him into her mouth.
He wished he could see her face.
He wished he could hold her body.
His groin tightened.
He blindly grabbed-a woman had such a vulnerable neck-and felt the laving of her tongue deep inside, as if his member did not stop at his pubis, but wound up inside him.
She suckled him.
He slid his thumbs up, simultaneously feeling the hot suction of her mouth and the muscles in her jaws rhythmically contract, expand, contract, expand.
There was pleasure in having a woman suckle a man's member, but there was also uncertainty. In a woman's mouth, he was entirely at her mercy.
She could hurt him, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.
Had she felt this same sense of vulnerability when he had taken her into his mouth and suckled her? he briefly wondered.
Did all women feel this sense of vulnerability when a man took them-whether with fingers or verge-and they were entirely at his mercy?
Had Megan felt this vulnerability?
Lungs sucking in air, he threw his head back, his whole world reduced to Megan's lips, Megan's tongue, and the sharp threat of Megan's teeth.
He was melting, yet he had never felt more hard.
A gentle pressure nudged his thighs. His heart jumped-in anticipation, in dread.
He did not want what she offered.
He wanted to be like other men, to take his release as other men took theirs.
Trust her, she had said.
He had never trusted anyone, not since he was thirteen.
How could he trust this woman?
How could he not trust her?
He parted his legs.
She found him, prodded him. Her finger was slippery wet- from her own body?
He squeezed his eyelids together, emotions roiling, muscles clenching. Denying her access. Denying the unbidden thrill of pleasure her touch engendered, probing for entry.
She would not be denied.
He gasped, feeling her become a part of him. And gasped again when she found the gland he had spoken of.
A bolt of lightning shot down his spine and out of his verge. Light flashed behind his eyelids; voices echoed inside his ears.
The son of his heart: I will kill you….
The woman he had loved: Have you never, ever wanted to find love in a woman's body?
Megan, the woman who through her selflessness was demonstrating that he knew nothing of love, and never had: / do not understand what it is that you want from me.
He gritted his teeth to hold back the pressure that squeezed his chest and overflowed into his throat.
This was what he had wanted.
This was all he had ever wanted.
A woman who would not cringe at his body, as he cringed from it.
A woman who would take what he could give her, and not belittle him for what he could not give her.
A woman who cared about the needs of a eunuch.
The flickering lights behind his eyelids coalesced into one blinding white light. His world shattered, the past that had been forced upon him, the present that now brought fulfillment to a eunuch, the bleak future that yawned before him.
A hoarse cry splintered the light, and once again he was a man.
Not a eunuch.
A man.
Megan's gift to him.
Suddenly they were two people instead of one.
A splash of water sounded in the silence; it was followed by the clink of stoneware on wood-more splashes, silence again.
He strained to hear her next move, to feel her nearness. Trembling in the aftermath of the pleasure she had given him.
Soft hands cupped his face, lowered his head.
He opened his eyes. Megan's eyes were bright with unshed tears.
"I was a part of you, Muhamed. I've never felt anything so powerful, or so beautiful. Thank you for your trust."
His heart double beat.
She deserved the truth.
"Muhamed is the name that was given me by the Arabs. My English name is Connor. Connor Treffry."
She recognized the name.
The Treffrys were the most prosperous fishermen in West Cornwall. Perhaps in the entirety of Cornwall.
Megan withdrew: hands, emotions.
"How?" she asked.
How had he come to be a eunuch?
How could he have deceived her, he who had accused her of deception?
"I loved the sea," he said raggedly, needing her warmth and her closeness but unable to express emotions he had held in abeyance for forty years. "I wanted nothing more than to be a fisherman, like my father. Like my brothers before me. I convinced my father to let me go out with some of his men one day. There was a squall. We were blown off course. A ship picked us up. It was a slaver. We were taken to a Barbary port and sold. I never saw my father's men again."
There were no words for the horror he had felt, imprisoned, away from home for the first time in his life with no hope of ever returning.
"But you were… English."
A smile twisted his lips; it did not reach his eyes. "The Arab who bought me was not impressed by my heritage. Nor was he impressed by my rebellious nature. In Arabia, there is a saying: take a wife for children, but take a boy for pleasure. He liked young men. When I refused to accommodate him, he watched while his guards held me down and an Egyptian infidel crushed my testi
cles. Then he sold me to a Syrian trader."
He stared into her green eyes and saw not the verdancy of England, but the barren desert and the thirteen-year-old boy he had been.
"An infection set in. The Syrian trader cut off the useless sac that hung between my legs and buried me in the sand to staunch my blood."
Megan's pale skin turned pasty with shock.
"I do not remember the pain anymore." A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. Images of a blazing yellow sun and bright crimson blood flashed before his eyes. "But I remember crying like a girl. I wanted to die; it was not permitted."
"I'm glad you didn't die," she said quietly.
Last night and today he had been glad, too.
"I could not bring myself to tell my family that I lived," he confessed instead.
There was no condemnation in her eyes. "They believe you are dead?"
"I thought it would be best if they believed me dead rather than knowing what had happened to me."
Her gaze did not falter. It ripped the truth out of him.
"I did not want them to know what had happened to me."
He still did not want them to know.
"They would not blame you. How could they?"
"I am the youngest in my family; I have three older brothers and one sister. I was the pampered son. I've been in England for nine years, yet I did not visit my parents. They died not knowing that I was alive. I did not attend their funerals.
"Tomorrow, Megan, tomorrow I will find out if my brothers and my sister blame me."
"Do they know you are alive now?"
"They know. I sent them a note the day before yesterday."
The day he had decided to procure a whore.
The day Megan had come into his life.
"I will send them another note tomorrow," he said dispassionately. "We will meet over afternoon tea, like English do."
"Why are you visiting with them now, if you do not wish to?" she persisted quietly.
Because his hatred had frightened him.
Because he needed to make peace with himself. Cornwall had seemed like a good place to start.
"I am fifty-three years old, and I do not know who I am. I am a eunuch. I have gone by the name of Muhamed for forty years. But I want what Connor would have had. I want a woman; I want children. I want to live among other men, as a man."
"You are a man."
"And which man do you think I am, Megan? Muhamed… or Connor?"
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