by Alisa Adams
He kissed her, cutting her off in midsentence. It was in this moment of heady optimism that Mary knew there was no turning back. She had unleashed the beast within him – the warrior she had seen defeat three men in combat. He was an impenetrable force all around her and ready to lay claim to his prize. She felt it in the tension of his arms, in the way he pinned her down, helpless and at his mercy. Mary was breathless beneath his mass. Alastair’s eager kissing drew the life force out of her. And then…
“Alastair. What? Yes.”
The exhilarating feeling was too brief. Mary felt disappointment that he had not lingered to stroke her pubic area for longer. It had set off a strange and spreading thrill, inducing muscles to spasm and her skin to rise up into little bumps. But her immediate preoccupation was to keep up appearances, not to let him down or humiliate herself, or seem a poor choice among all the women he had surely known. She was going to get through this. She had come so far. She would never let him know what a struggle it was, what it cost her, to appear calm despite the magic he performed on her body.
Mary was without any other desire but to please him and make this first joining a success. Without any other sensation beyond feral understanding, she decided something needed to be done about the strangely cool, repeatedly jabbing and bumping object under his kilt. While she lay partially naked beneath him, Alastair was fully clothed.
Her panic dissolved; she loved Alastair. All her thoughts were on helping him have what he so dearly wanted, what she wanted and to make him love her all the more. It was in this spirit that she slid her right hand down and under his plaid. He positioned himself a little to let her through. Mary found his testicles first and, not at all afraid now, she curled her fingers softly around this extraordinary bristling item she had seen in different forms on dogs and horses, but had never quite believed could fit comfortably on adult humans.
Drawing her fingers across its underside, she arrived at the base of his penis, which she held with extreme care, for she had no idea how sensitive or robust it was. She trailed her fingers along its length, remembering with interest its silky texture, right to the tip, which she lightly stroked. Amazed by her own boldness, she moved back down a little, to take it firmly, about halfway along, and pulled it downwards, a slight adjustment, until she felt it just touching her labia. She looked up, the expression on his face was something in between a grimace of pain and contented surprise.
Had she pulled on the wrong thing? Had she gripped too tight? She continued her massage with her hands and the rubbing of her sex against it. He gave out a wail, made up of a complicated series of agonized, rising vowels. In horror, she let go.
“No, blossom, it’s all right. It felt wonderful. It was good to feel ye there,” he said with a lopsided grin on his face.
“But you sounded in pain. I thought I hurt you.”
“No, on the contrary, it was good.” Alastair swallowed deeply as she again took his erection in her hands. He watched her closely. The expression on her face was tender. He tried to seek out any revulsion or displeasure or maybe even fear. But he found none, only wanting and a shimmer of wonderment glistening off her features.
“Is this good?”
“Aye, lass.” He couldn’t say anymore. His hands had come to rest on her breasts and had ceased moving. Everything had flipped to his groin-area and the pleasant burning coming from it. When Mary pressed him against her sex once more, he moaned. He intuitively began to flex his hips, pressing down and dipping into her slightly. All the while, he scrutinized her face, making sure she was not in pain. “The first time might hurt a little.” He saw her bite on her lower lip. When she nodded, Alastair lowered his head, pressing his lips to hers, while he entered her fully.
Mary felt a sharp, brief pain – so brief that is was more of a whisper or a tiny prickle. Soon a sweet spasm went through her, seemingly carrying her into the air. There was no more pain, just the sweetness, the incredible sense of being filled by this man she loved and the happiness she felt that he was so close to her and… inside her. They had become one writhing organism. Even the sounds they produced had commingled into audible breaths, moans, and grunts.
She countered his thrusts by pressing her pelvis against him each time. Their gazes were fixed, the eyes acting like gateways to the soul. He could see how much she wanted him and how much she loved him. The effect this had on his heart converged with the signals his body sent him.
Mary could see everything he was in one go. Her body responded to his movements as if synched by the intervention of a higher being. In essence, she felt they floated on an elevated plane that was made up of sweet warmth all over her body that shielded her from the cold and the connection she felt toward this man. As an unknown rippling and swelling sensation made up of sweet pain and intense pleasure began to spread over her physique, she snapped her eyes open. What was it that was taking hold of her? Above her, Alastair looked as if he was about to cry out – he did before he slumped on her body, transfixing her to the ground with his bulk.
9
A SARDONIC TWIST
* * *
Northumberland, England
* * *
Alastair groaned. Where was he? Was it the hard surface where he laid the small spot under the trees where he and Mary had been together? What happened? Had it stopped raining? He tried to hear, but there was no sound. “Mary,” he croaked out. There came no reply. “Mary,” he said again – nothing.
One moment he had been in an ecstatic state, so close to coming apart inside of her and then blackness had overcome him. Was that what happened when a man made love to a woman whom he actually loved? Did a man lose almost all memory of the act? Was this some kind of way to keep it sacred and unsullied in the eyes of God? Questions formed in his mind. They were too many. He moaned again as a stab of pain descended from his cranium down his neck, tensing his shoulders and throbbing all the way down to his lower back.
He opened his eyes a crack – pitch-blackness. Alastair asked himself whether his eyelids had moved at all because he could see nothing. He made another attempt. There was a flickering of red and orange close by. Alastair willed his vision to focus, but it only remained an inflamed ginger blur that moved with faltering flutters. He rolled onto his back, blenching as the pain in his head became more potent. He closed his eyes, praying that it would go away. The last thought he had before passing out was how such bliss could turn into so much agony.
Alastair did not know how long he had slept. All that mattered was that the persistent aching had subsided a great deal. He carefully moved, a little at first, still in fear that the headache would return. He turned to one side. He repeated the process in the other direction. There was hardly any pain.
Steeling his resolve, he slowly sat up. He felt with hands to the back of him, immediately coming into contact with cold stone. He frowned. Where the hell was he? He moved his backside until his back came to rest against the wall. With his eyes still shut, he asked himself why there was a wall? The memory he had was of him and…
“Mary!” Alastair’s eyes snapped open. “Where is Mary?” He looked to his left and right. All he could see was a weak light coming through a small square opening. “Bars? Why are there bars?” he asked himself.
The air around him smelt mildewed and damp. He heard scratching on the ground beside him. Then the pitter-patter of little feet that made ticking sounds on the stone. Alastair reached out, immediately coming into contact with something fury. It squeaked. He pulled his hand back and slid on his backside in the direction of the light. When his back touched the other side of the increasingly apparent confined space, the rough surface made a hollow sound as he thumped against it.
Before him, four sets of small, gleaming red orbs burnished at him. At first, they were still until they started to move around, closer, the ticking sound of feet on the ground increasing. It was a mischief of rats. Alastair was not a squeamish man, but the sight of these black rodents repelled him. He kicked with his feet, once, twice,
the final time coming into contact with one as it screeched in protest and scurried away back into the darkness with its fellows.
“What in God’s name am I doing here? This can’t be. Am I in some kind of dungeon? But why?” The words tumbled out of his mouth in a series of deep breaths. He felt a stab of anxiety. He willed it away with the force of his personality. There was only one way to find out. He got to his feet, supporting himself on the rough surface that he had come to realize was wood. When he stood at his full height, he peered between the bars and through the opening.
Beyond, lay a dimly lit passage, illuminated by sconces. A row of doors, all similar to the one he leaned against, lined the interior. All he could hear was the sound of dripping water. Otherwise, the silence was stifling.
“Aebody there?” he cried out. There came no reply. “Hey, is aebody there?” Alastair heard a barely audible rustling. He held his breath in an attempt to continue listening. It was as if he was petrified to lose this one small nugget of sound. His fast beating heart made it almost impossible to hear a thing as the blood pumped against his ears aggressively.
“Aye, yer not alone. I hear a fellow clansman by the sounds of yer accent. Where are ye from?”
“Diabaig… I am from the clan Macleod Wallis – ye ken?”
“Aye, I ken. Fine people ye are. I am from the clan Mackenzie. The Mackenzie’s from Loch Caron.”
“Aye, I ken. Yer lands are close to my lands. What are ye doing here? Come to think of it, I’d like to ken what I’m doing here?”
“I was captured after the battle of Stanhope. I was a part of the group Douglas left behind to scout the terrain in case the English followed with their army. They didn’t, but it didn’t stop them from reconnoitering ahead. We were taken – those of us who survived at least.”
“I was also at the battle. Great victory that.”
“Aye, we thrashed the English right and proper that night. We came out of the mist like bogles. The bastards had their heads so far up their arses, they never saw us coming. Like wraiths, we slaughtered over eight hundred of the blighters.”
“Was it not two thousand?” chimed in Alastair, greatly inflating the number.
The two men laughed.
“I wish it had been. Although, it felt like it at times. I think I killed six of the wellys. I know one of ‘em keeched in his pants when he saw me coming at him, brandishing my axe.”
“The grass was covered in blood after that night.” Alastair pressed his forehead against the door. “It was when I lost my brother. His blood flowed on that field too.” He closed his eyes as the pain of sadness overcame him once more. He never got to think about Kyle much, but when he did, he was always reminded of the fragility of life. It seemed like only yesterday when they had exchanged tales of heroism on the eve of the encounter. He was gone now to never marry, have children or lead his clan.
“I lost brothers too. However, most of them died in this festering shitehole. The walls leak the cold that gets to yer bones. When sickness does not claim ye, the guards do their utmost to whittle the fight out of ye. And when ye lie here in the dark all on yer own, it dawns upon ye – the scythe of the reaper is only one more night away.”
Alastair heard the other man sigh. “It must’ve been hell. Ye being stuck in here for seven months. I cannae imagine what that must be like.”
“Is that how long it’s been. Ye have no concept of time here. It is like living in purgatory. The ground feels as if it is sucking ye down into the depths of hell. Ye fight it of course, but many can’t withstand its malevolence. As time goes by, all of those around ye die. I don’t ken how many joined me in here, but their cries of anguish, the begging for one more chance to see their lasses, and then finally sniveling when they knew there was no turning back, was always the same.”
Alastair heard the other man move about in his cell. He did not speak anymore. What his new companion had just told him was no invitation for words, just thought. He stared at the other doors in the hope that he might catch a glimpse of the other man. It would give their meeting so much more meaning if he could look him in the face and tell him he was a survivor and that all would be well – all he must do is hold on for a little longer.
“Living here in the depths of this donjon makes yer hair grow heavy. I sometimes think that it turns grayer by the day. I cannae tell ye truthfully, though, because I have not seen my reflection since the day I last looked at it in the loch close to my home. In here, each heartbeat lasts for minutes. Yer mind is trapped in nothingness, the donjon its home, slowly torturing yer sanity toward a slow and agonizing death. Some nights, ye scream for escape, but ye ken that it is never gonna come. All that ye ken is that it seems as if centuries have passed since the last meal, millennia since the last time ye held a lass in yer arms – that is when ye beg for yer body to succumb like those of the others. Being alone down here is like time shattered into a thousand broken pieces, each shard reforming to become an endless tunnel – it is all that is left of the world.”
“What’s yer name?” asked Alastair not wanting him to stop talking no matter how morose his words. Listening to his modulation reminded him of home. It felt like hell had frozen over before his jail mate responded.
“Finlay… and ye?”
“Alastair.”
“Good to meet ye. It is good to put a name to the voice. I pray one day I will see ye face.”
“Aye. Ye will. Have faith.”
Finlay guffawed like a man presented with the executioner’s axe. “Spoken like a man who has not been in hell yet. But I thank ye for the optimism none the less. Hope is the only currency ye got here. That and companionship. Maybe ye being here is a sign that God has not completely forsaken me. I ken that you’d rather be somewhere else, but thank ye for keeping me company, Alastair.”
A harsh voice scythed through the air. It was not of the Highlands but of the Kingdom of England. “That’s enough, you two. Nothing like his majesty’s dungeon to turn a man into a vile sodomite. I wager you’d both be feeling under each other’s kilts with your hands if you’d be in the same cell. Disgusting that’s what.”
The heavy sound of a man’s footfalls echoed in the passage outside of the lockups. There was a clinking noise following in its wake. A grating outside Alastair’s cell that sounded cacophonous in the small confines heralded the opening of a tiny hatch at the base of the door. A wooden plate emerged and a bucket containing water. Shortly afterward, a roundish shape was rolled in and the door shut.
“Drinking water is in the bucket. You can also use it to shit and piss in. When you are done, you place your utensils by the lattice before you turn in for the night. Not adhering to this simple rule and you won’t get fed the following day.” He sniggered. “Oh, and let me remind you: if you think you are clever and decide to shit in your cell rather than in the bucket, there will be no water. I will not have disease spread here because of your excrement.”
Alastair pulled the bowl closer, lifting it to his nose. He winced. The watery gruel smelt vile. For once, he was happy the lighting was so weak. He was certain that seeing his supper, or maybe it was breakfast, would rob him of his appetite for the rest of his life. He dragged the bucket closer. It reeked even riper than the food. On cue, the guard’s words came back to him with a vengeance – he doubted the vessel had ever been cleaned.
The upper ingress creaked open. A man with a large, bulbous nose peered inside. He sported a verruca the size of cherry on the tip, rounding off his hideous appearance. He held up a lantern, making Alastair squint. “I had to see the fool they dragged in here like a sack of shite the other day. I can’t believe you got caught with your kilt up over your arse, eh, you dozy Scottish twit. Me thinks that’s the last bit of cunny you’ll ever be seeing. It is bad enough having you bastards wanting your own kingdom, but you coming down here to rape our women – that’s where it stops. There will be a hanging in the days to come – I am certain of it. The charges against you are many. If you ask me,
the magistrate should order your manhood chopped off, but you are not as famous as William Wallace. So, that honor will not be accorded to you.”
“It was not rape!”
The guard sniggered. “That’s what they all say. No decent English woman would couple with the likes of you. Welcome to Chillingham Castle, no matter how short your residence.” With those words the small grilled door slammed shut, leaving Alastair alone again, wondering whether Mary had accused him of such a contemptible crime.
“But, Father…” The words stuck to her tongue like congealed fat on a skillet. Mary wasn’t sure whether she should tell him that she loved Alastair. That knowledge might make him even more undisposed toward him – if that was even possible.
It had been over a week since their capture, and she had heard nothing of Alastair’s wellbeing. One moment, she had been coming apart with him and the very next it was all over. Not a night went by that she did not think about their fateful union. The memory of his handsome face hovering above hers, displaying his animalistic desire for her in conjunction with his love, remained engraved onto her mind and soul like a tattoo. Images of the rainy night, the campfire, the food, the trees rustling in the wind and the hard surface of the ground were prevalent signals sent to her by her brain. Mary could not tell whether the mind conveyed evil tidings or good ones. It was all so confusing.
She could still feel him inside her, smell his virility all around her and locate the rapid beat of his heart with her own. The combination of their loving tenderness with the rawness of their bodily need had been nothing short of magical. It had finally happened. She was a woman at last. She had a man to call her own. Yet, despite the feeling of bridal bliss, she felt more like a widow.
She cried most days. The sadness overcame randomly, inducing her sister, who was often with her, to coo sweet nothings into her ear. To Mary, they were empty platitudes. To Elizabeth, proof the Scots were loathsome beasts. True to her detached nature, Elizabeth had asked her whether a man had violated her. Had Mary not been so sad and exhausted, she would have slapped her.
