I grew up in the farming town of Tymler, a small township straddling an equally small stream in the middle of the countryside. Tymler seems to take the lion's share of death and disease, which over the years has led the lore of the region to dictate that the town is cursed. My father taught me not to place faith in such superstitions but my own mother, or rather my adoptive mother, died after only a few years living in Tymler. She was an extreme case though. Many people, like myself, have lived in the town for their whole life and never been ill. She was just unlucky I guess.
My adoptive parents knew only my christian name and hence I took on their family name, becoming Eric Leyland. My father took a mistress some years after my mother died, a young seamstress new to the town, by the name of Sonya. Although she isn't around as much as other children's mothers, she was always kind and loving to me, and became the closest thing I had to a real mother.
Many people in Tymler are unable to bear children and this is why I had the good fortune of my father adopting me. I never knew my blood parents; they died when I was only a baby, and when I was growing up I new nothing of them. Of course, being a member of a lowly farming family, whose minor hardships seemed to me as a child to be a life of infinite labor, I filled my head with ridiculous imaginings of who my real parents might be. All my father could tell me was that he had adopted me from the Retzners, a noble family from Halbourne, a city just to the south, but that they were not my birth parents, and had merely been keeping me until a suitable adoptive family could be found.
Although my father assured me that they were quite dead, and long ago at that, I still secretly wished to discover that they were nobles of the imperial north or warlords from the exotic lawless lands to the south. I imagined that one day they would find me, their long lost son and return with me to their mansion or castle where I could live an opulent life of luxury.
This of course was not to be, and I had to make do with the life that chance had given me. Such wistful dreaming did not mean that I was unhappy as a child though. My father was loving, and an excellent teacher, and he ensured that I not only knew how to manage the farm for the day that I would inherit it, but also knew how to read and write, count, use a map and any number of other skills that seemed useless to me at the time.
My two closest friends were Jared and Lucia Dyce, twins, and the children of one of the town's councilors, an aging and drunken widower. They were a both a year and a half older than me and very similar in appearance despite their different genders. They both had curly strawberry blonde hair, fair skin, blue eyes and a smattering of freckles over their noses and cheeks. They were also both about half a head shorter than me, but I was rather tall for my age. Jared had a face of quite effeminate features, and so appeared much younger than he actually was.
Anyway, enough prattling and on with the tale. When I was in my seventeenth year, rumors were abound in the town of mysterious activities in the woods at night. Some members of the town's people claimed to have heard screams and shrieks from the forests surrounding the town, but were too scared to investigate.
One afternoon, while Jared, Lucia and I played in the shade by the stream, Jared confessed to me in hushed tones that he knew exactly what was going on in the woods each night and that he and Lucia would show me, tonight, if I so wished. The thought of such an adventure with my two closest friends filled me with excitement and I eagerly agreed. We would meet outside their father's house a couple of hours after dusk, by the old oak that marked the town's center.
That night Sonya cooked for my father and I, and soon after helping clean up, I bid them both goodnight and went to bed, where I lay anxiously awake. I listened carefully to their quiet voices for a time, and then heard the light beat of footfalls on the boards before the thud of my father's bedroom door. Still I laid quiet, listening for a while to the soft grunts and moans of my father bedding Sonya. I waited for awhile longer after they had finished before stealing out into the night.
It was a full moon that night, and the land shone under its glow. When I reached the oak tree, Jared and Lucia were already waiting for me. We moved through the streets quietly, until we reached Tilberry’s store at the very outskirts of the city, from which someone was emerging. As quickly and quietly as a field mouse, Jared pushed Lucia and I into the darkness of a narrow gap between two buildings and slipped in after us. I'm still not sure if it was by accident or by Lucia's design, but she ended up pressed tightly against my side in the thin space.
As I had grown up and began noticing women and girls, and all their entrancing body parts, I had of course begun to notice Lucia. She was a very pretty girl, and her alluring teenage body had cultivated an attraction in me which her amiable personality had nurtured. Though I had lusted after her for years, I had never been brave enough to act on it.
As we waited in the cramped confines of the alley, I became increasingly conscious of Lucia pressed closely against me. I could feel all the swells and curves of her warm body and the gentle breeze of her breath on my neck. My heart raced inside my chest as she shifted against me, her slender leg pressing in between mine. I couldn't see her face as her cheek was rested on my shoulder and the golden curls of her hair fell down to conceal it. But between her round little breasts, which were pressed hard against my side, I could feel her heart beating just as fast as mine. I leant my head down toward the crook of her neck, but at that instant, Jared stepped out from the gap between the buildings:
"He's gone, come on." Lucia slipped out after him, and the places where her body had touched mine felt cool in the night air. I followed them and we disappeared into the darkness of the woods. We walked in silence for a long time and I followed Lucia, who was a ghostly sliver before me in her white dress. Eventually a flickering glow became visible through the trees, and as we drew nearer, I could make out figures in a glade moving about a fire.
When we reached the glade, Jared strode out into the firelight without hesitating. This was certainly not what I was expecting. We were supposed to witness the despicable acts of Satan's worshipers from hiding and then foil their dastardly plots, not wade in and take part. But when Lucia stepped out of the trees too, I followed with little hesitation.
In the clearing a small crowd of people were gathered on one side of the fire, and on the other side, standing on a small outcrop of rocks, was a young man and woman, only a few years older than myself. The man was tall and thin, with a messy brush of short black hair and a face of sharp angles. Though she was quite diminutive beside the man, the woman held my attention much more closely. She had long black hair and ghostly pale skin and her buxom figure was covered only by a light white chemise. The crowd was hushed and the tension was palatable. We drew up close behind them and waited. After a few moments the man on the rock raised his hands for silence and spoke in a booming voice:
"God has forsaken Tymler! Many of you will never bear children. Some will die painfully and mysteriously... for nothing!" He took a long pause to let this sink in. "But though our lives will be short, and God has abandoned us, we can still enjoy the vices of the Devil!" He stepped back behind the woman and drew her forward in front of him. Her eyes were downcast and she held her arms at her side, but a small smile graced her lips. The man reached around with rough hands to cup her ample breasts. The crowd stirred but I paid them no attention, my eyes remained fixed on the woman.
"There is no shame in taking pleasure in the body you've been given. Though some of you may wish that yours were different, each and every person is beautiful in some way, and there will always be someone who will appreciate yours." As he spoke, his voice lowered and his hands drew up to grasp the neck of the woman's slip. When he was finished he tore it decisively open, and her ample breasts bounced out to gleam in the moonlight before the crowd. He had drawn in close behind her, and their bodies were locked together. He cupped one breast and his other hand slid down slowly over her stomach to slip between her legs. As his hand worked between her legs her mouth opened and tiny mewling sound came out.
I turned to look at Lucia, only to find her watching me. Her eyes were wide and her breathing heavy and my eyes tracked down her body to where her small round breasts were heaving in the bodice of her dress. Her nipples were clearly visible through the fabric and when I returned my gaze to her eyes, they had dropped to my crotch, where my manhood had swollen in my pants. Her eyes rose again and our gazes locked. She was smiling sweetly. Silently she took my hand in hers and turned back to the couple on the other side of the fire, squeezing my hand firmly.
The man's hand was working steadily now and the woman's panting was clearly audible to us at the back of the crowd. She looked up at the gathered youths and in a low husky voice, said "Enjoy yourselves disciples." At that most of the crowd scattered into the surrounding woods, laughter and squeals breaking through the night air. Boys were rushing through the trees, chasing the lithe forms of pretty teenage girls, and some girls pursued the boys in turn.
I turned to face Lucia only to see her rapidly disappearing into the dark. Her hand slipped from mine as she bounded toward the trees in a flash of golden tresses and ivory teeth, giggling excitedly. I grinned and gave chase, close on her heels. We soon found ourselves deep in the forest, the laughs and shouts of the rest of the group far behind us. Lucia dodged nimbly through the trees ahead of me, just a whisker's length beyond my grasp. We broke out of the brush and into a small clearing of long grass. Seizing my chance I leapt forward and caught her about the waist, sending us both tumbling to the ground. We rolled in one tangled mass of limbs for a moment then came apart, rolling to a stop.
I lay there on my back for a moment, panting from the exertion of the chase, then rose to my hands and knees and crawled over to where Lucia lay. She was on her back and I approached from her feet. I reached down to her ankles and ever so gently parted her legs. She smiled up at me and reached down, smoothly lifting her skirt up until it was gathered around her waist. I inched forward until I knelt between her thighs and she stopped me dead, merely by holding up one slender finger. Then, without breaking my gaze, she reached up and pulled on the laces of her bodice, and I watched them unraveling, ever loosening the bodice's grip on her breasts until it fell back and they seemed to flower out, shedding the material and blooming in the moonlight.
I'll never forget that moment in the clearing when I knelt between Lucia's pale thighs and looked down upon her all but naked body. Her head rested in the halo of her golden curls and she smiled up at me, blue eyes wide and face flushed beneath her freckles. Her breasts were bare and heaving as she still panted from the pursuit through the woods, her small pink nipples hard and pointed, her pale skin gleaming in the light of the full moon. Her skirt was gathered about her waist and her legs were parted. Between them I could see the flower of her womanhood, pink and glistening with wetness, surrounded by a thin blonde fur. The blood singing through my veins was filled with lust and fear, charged from the chase.
Lucia reached up and her hands slipped under my shirt, gently tickling my stomach. I swept my shirt up and off and she tilted her head, still smiling as her eyes roamed my chest. Years of hard work on the farm had given me subtly but well defined muscles and though few people ever saw them, I was secretly quite proud of them.
Lucia pulled me down atop her and I felt her hands fumbling at the crotch of my pants as our lips met. The kiss was wet and messy at best, hardly romantic but certainly passionate. Lucia succeeded in releasing my manhood from my pants and undergarments and I felt her wetness pressed against it. She lifted her thighs up and rolled her hips toward me, guiding me in with one hand until I entered her smoothly.
Until that night I had never been with a woman, indeed never even touched a woman in a sexual way, besides prudish kisses stolen as a young child from equally young girls. When I entered Lucia she felt tight and hot and wet around me and she let out a little gasp that was swallowed by the vastness of the night air. Though I had pleasured myself frequently enough in the past, sneaking out in the dead of night to relieve the tension in my manhood, what I felt at that moment dwarfed the meager pleasures I had given myself. Lucia's warm body was beneath me, her thighs gripping my hips tightly, the cool night air breezing over my bare sweating skin, her warm breath on my cheek and her firm little breasts heaving beneath me, quavering with each impact of my hips on hers. We could hear the sounds of other couples nearby, drifting through the forest, and they too would be hearing the grunts I was making and the low moans of Lucia. It all culminated into an excitement that was almost tangible, and our coupling was frantic, our bodies bucking together in the grass. I'm embarrassed to say that it was not long before I spent myself inside her.
During my final thrusts Lucia whispered my name in my ear breathlessly.
"Eric, Eric..." with each beat of our flesh together. Then my entire being was focused on my pulsing manhood deep inside her. I felt as though my soul would stream out through it and enter Lucia, who writhed sinuously against me in her own peak, her muscles clenching around my buried member. My own muscles quivered, driving my hips against her in an effort to move deeper. My eyes closed and mouth opened, but no sound came out.
When it was finally over I lolled to the side and lay beside her. We both lay there for a while staring up at the stars and the moon, our sides pressed warmly together, until I became dimly aware of someone watching us. I looked down between my feet to see Jared standing at the edge of the clearing. He was naked. I don't know whether he had followed us the whole way during our headlong rush through the forest, and observed our entire frenzied union, or if he had only arrived after we had finished, perhaps having found another girl and bedded her in the long grass as I had Lucia, before finding us again.
He stood silently watching us where we lay, his manhood thick and rigid, jutting out from his thin frame. I turned to Lucia to see her smiling pleasantly up at him and she beckoned him forward. He stepped out into the clearing and reached us quickly, lying down on the opposite side of Lucia, facing us both. Without speaking, Lucia rolled up on her side to face him and they began to kiss, their hands gently caressing each other's bodies. I watched in awe as Jared rolled himself up atop Lucia and slowly and smoothly entered her.
It never occurred to me at the time, but in writing this now, I realize the twins must have been enjoying each others bodies for months at least, perhaps years. Their coupling was confident and intimate, without hesitation.
They were far more sedate than I had been, hips grinding languidly together, soft wet noises emanating from between their tangled legs. The hardness had never fully left my manhood, but I felt it stir none the less as I watched their bodies move together. After a while Jared stiffened and grunted, his hips jerking against Lucia's and then sinking away, relaxing atop her. We lay in the moonlight like that for some time, the twins a tangled mess of limbs with me stretched out beside them, idly stroking myself as I watched their lithe bodies.
I don't know how long we lay there, but once we had risen and gathered our clothes, we made our way back towards the town in silence. We passed several couples and even trios on the way, still sweating and writhing in the grass, their bodies pounding against each other in the moonlight.
We stole through the town until we reached the oak once again. Lucia drew me gently to her body, took my face in her small hands and kissed me softly. I looked into her wild blue eyes as she drew away smiling.
"We'll see you tomorrow Eric." She whispered before taking her brother's hand and wandering into the darkness. I watched them go and my heart leapt to see Lucia glance over her shoulder at me, still smiling brightly. That was the last time I ever saw her smile like that, truly happy.
I didn't sleep a wink that night, but lay awake replaying my glorious union with Lucia over and over.
I spent most of the next day working to clear a plot of land with my father. We had spent most of the past week out there, and were almost finished. Just one stubborn old mammoth of a tree was left standing, and we began the laborious task of sawing through its trunk. The morning was hot and the work hard, so despite the shade of the tree over us, we both stripped down to our waists to keep cool. By midday we were exhausted and stopped to rest under the branches of the tree we were about to fell. It was then I saw the twins walking out across the freshly cleared land towards us. I strode out to meet them.
As I neared them I noticed that they were distinctly downcast. Lucia's normally sunny face was pale and forlorn, and Jared's expression was grim.
"What's wrong?" I asked quietly.
"Lucia overheard our father talking to the constable this morning." Jared told me. "They think that the gatherings in the forest are witches and warlocks. They've called in a witch hunter from the northern cities."
"A witch hunter?" I was dumbstruck and stood there staring at Jared.
"He arrives tonight Eric. Just stay at home at night, stay with your father. We'll be fine." He sounded as though he was trying only to convince himself.
"Of course, we haven't-" Jared cut me off;
"It doesn't matter. Just lay low Eric."
"Do you know when he arrives?" I asked. Perhaps I could get a look at this fellow as he rode in.
"Sometime this afternoon, they say he'll start as soon he can, probably tonight if he arrives before dark."
"Alright, don't worry, I'm sure everything will be fine, we haven't done anything wrong." And we hadn't, but at the time I was naive enough to think that was important. The twins left as solemn as they had arrived, and my father and I returned to the task of felling the great old colossus of a tree.
I wasn't too worried about the witch hunter at the time, and my thoughts turned instead to Lucia. She'd paid me little attention during the conversation, staring at the ground instead, and I feared that she thought the night before a mistake. The idea that we might not share the pleasure of each other's bodies again *and* might lose the friendship we had scared me more than anything had before in my sheltered life.
In the afternoon I went to Tilberry's store, which lies on the corner of the north road, and waited for the witch hunter to arrive. Mason Tilberry only came to Tymler four years ago, and built his shop with his own hands. When he first arrived I used to visit his store all the time, and gaze around at all the wonderful artifacts and gadgets he displayed amongst his more mundane goods. He would tell me stories of his adventures in the deep south, where war had raged for decades and law and order was all but forgotten. Since then the novelty had worn off, but I still felt the need to visit his store every now and then, for various farm items.
As I sat on his steps, Mason came out to see me.
"Eric! Is there anything I can get you? I'll be closing up shop soon, so you'd better shake a leg lad."
"I'm not buying anything today Mason, but thank you." He sat down beside me and looked up the road.
"Expecting someone?" He asked. I turned to look at him. Mason Tilberry wasn't nearly as old as he looked, but if his stories were to be believed, he had lived every year to its full. His gray hair had retreated back half way across his skull and the other half was shaved down nearly to his scalp. Solemn dark eyes were set deep in his heavily lined face beneath bushy gray brows and above a sharp nose and its shaggy gray moustache. His tall frame was well muscled, and scars adorned his arms from fights and fumbles of the past.
"Jared tells me that a witch hunter is coming from the north." I admitted to him.
"A witch hunter? Are you worried lad?"
"No, I haven't done anything."
"Doesn't always matter to these people, if he's been paid to find some witches, he'll find 'em, if they're there or not." He waited a moment, and when I didn't reply he stood. "Give me a shout when he gets here lad, I've gotta finish up in the store."
I sat there for some time, until the sun was low in the sky, touching against the horizon. In the distance a thin plume of dust rose, dirt kicked up from the hooves of a horse. I called out to Mason, who appeared almost immediately and gazed up the road toward the column of dust. It wasn't long before the witch hunter drew into sight, a dark figure riding high on an equally dark horse. His face was half eclipsed by the wide brimmed hat he wore and his black cloak billowed out behind him. He thundered by at full gallop and I noted the long blade he carried, thin and deadly. He paid us no heed and disappeared into the town.
"Certainly looks the part doesn't he Eric?" Mason boomed jovially when he had passed out of sight. "Ought to be quite a show he'll give us." I stayed silent. Reality was beginning to sink in, and I realized now that Jared had been right. We needed to be very careful. "Don't worry about him Eric; just keep your head down and read your bible, you'll be fine."
"My bible?" I echoed.
"Aye, these nuts just love quoting from it. He's bound to go about asking people if they know their ten commandments and tripe like that." I nodded mutely. "Anyway, I can't send ya home with nothing lad, here's some fruit for your pa." He thrust a basket of oranges and lemons into my arms, which I dutifully accepted.
During the evening I studied my bible carefully, paying attention to the ten commandments and the Lord's prayer. Then I retired to my bed where I lay awake for hours, worries chasing each other around in my mind until I finally succumbed to my exhaustion and drifted into sleep. I dreamt while I slept of feverish encounters with Lucia's firm young body and the witch hunter's determined interference. Sometime in the night a dull thumping pervaded my dreams, eventually breaking through them and I awoke with a start.
The thumping continued. I rose and edged towards my window, the source of the offending noise. I slowly drew aside the curtain to reveal the shutters behind them. A dark shadow shifted on the other side, my heart leapt and the thumping continued. Then a voice broke through, a loud whisper;
"Eric!"
Lucia! I snapped open the shutters and she was there, hugging herself against the cold in her thin white night shirt. Her face was streaked with tears.
"Lucia what's wrong?" I reached out for her and we embraced through the open window. She shivered in my arms. "You're freezing! Go around the front and I'll let you in." She nodded and raced off. I went to the door and let her in, leading her through to my room where we sat on the edge of my bed, illuminated by a lone candle.
"Jared's gone." She whispered to me. "The witch hunter took him. He didn't know the seventh commandment." I was stunned.
"Adultery." I mumbled.
"What?"
"The seventh commandment, it's adultery." She stared at me blankly for a moment then smiled sadly and leaned into my shoulder.
"They're going to try him tomorrow, as a servant of the devil. The... they..." She stuttered before catching herself. "They're going to hang him Eric." She whimpered and buried her face in my shoulder. I stared dumbly at the opposite wall. The past day had brought more excitement and change than the rest of my life combined. Now I wondered if the next day was to do the same with pain. I don't know how long I sat there with Lucia weeping into my shoulder and my eyes unfocused, but eventually her voice cut through the fog in my mind.
"Eric." Her hand was cool on my face as she turned me head to face her. I snapped out of my reverie and spoke:
"When will they..." I couldn't bring myself to speak it, but Lucia knew.
"The day after next." She looked down at her feet, where her toes were curled against the cold.
"It's okay, we'll get him and leave tomorrow night." I didn't even need to think, it was the only way, and a plan was already assembling itself in my head. But it meant leaving Tymler behind. I knew that was a small sacrifice for saving Jared, but I hoped with all my heart that his name would be cleared, and we could live happily ever after in Tymler. But it was not to be.
"Can I sleep here Eric? I don't want to be alone." I nodded, Lucia extinguished the candle and we climbed beneath the covers, where she hugged me close and I could feel her cold hands on my back. Our bodies were pressed together side by side and I could feel her coldly hard nipples against my chest and the smooth skin of her legs on mine. The smell of her hair and body reached me and I felt myself harden in my under shorts.
"I'm scared Eric." Lucia said her voice small. I stroked her back through the thin fabric of her nightshirt.
"Me too," I confided, "but it'll be okay. Jared will be fine." She kissed me then, softly and silently on my lips. She paused for a moment and I felt her breath brush on my cheek in the dark. Her lips came down on the base of my neck, gently tracing a line up to my jaw. Her arms drew us closer together and I felt her thigh pressed firmly against my member. She pulled the strings of my shorts loose and shoved them down with her feet, then deftly rolled atop me, straddling my waist. I reached up and she helped me pull her night shirt over her head to discard it, then lay down closely along my body.
I could feel the heat between her legs on my stomach as she squirmed atop me. She reached down and grasped my manhood, guiding me into herself. As she bore down slowly but steadily, I watched her mouth open and eyes slide closed. When I was fully inside her she stopped and we lay together in silence perfect but for our shaky breath, enjoying the sensation of our union.
After a while Lucia shifted, rocking her body slightly back and forth atop mine, drawing me out a fraction before bearing down again. Her hands held the sides of my chest and she hugged it closely, her fair locks falling down around my shoulder and her breath brushing over my chest. The feeling of her smooth skin sliding along mine, the soft flesh of her breasts and the hard points of her nipples pressed against my chest was intoxicating.
Without warning Lucia halted her rocking and hugged me tighter still. I could feel the wetness of her open mouth against my chest as she trembled and moaned in my arms, her womanhood clenching my member tightly. As she came down from her peak, panting and shivering, I arrived at mine, as though her energy had flowed into me. I gripped her body tightly in my arms as I surged against her, my manhood pulsing in her wet confines.
When I was finished we lay together in silence for a long time, soaking up the heat of each other's bodies. After a while Lucia rolled off me and lay on her side beside me, nestling her back into my body. I rolled to face her and wrapped my arms around her, matching my body against hers. Before long we had both drifted to sleep.
I awoke in the morning to find Lucia gone. She had stolen back to her own bed before the dawn, and not woken me. I spent much of the morning working on cutting up the tree my father and I had felled the day before, and hence missed Jared's trial completely. I felt some guilt over this, but it was small. The trial was a farce and a foregone conclusion, but seeing a friendly face would have cheered Jared. In any case, Lucia came out to tell me the verdict at noon. We stood in the field with the noonday sun beating down on us, both covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
"They're going to kill him Eric!" Lucia was close to tears, and stared down at her shuffling feet. "In the morning..."
"No they won't, we won't let them." I lifted her chin to face me. "We'll leave tonight, the three of us together. Meet me at the oak an hour after sunset; I'll have everything we'll need." She fell into a hug and I supported her against me. She spoke quietly into my chest;
"What if we can't get him out? They've got him in the dry well... what if there's-" I cut her off.
"We'll get him, don't worry. We've got all night." Lucia sighed heavily and fell silent. I cradled her in my arms for a while, and when we parted I returned to work with my father.
When we were finally done with the great tree, and it lay in pieces across the paddock, the sun was low in the sky and we retired for the day. I went directly to Mason's store, making only a short detour by home to collect my meager collection of coins.
When I arrived at the store Mason was preparing to close, and I hurriedly collected the items I needed and dumped them down on the counter unceremoniously. The package included bedding and blankets, some dried fruit, cheese, salted dried beef, a local map and a pair of packs to carry our cargo. Everything else I could steal from home, or survive without. Mason looked critically down at the pile before him. He wriggled his moustache and his worn face creased into a frown.
"Plannin' a trip young Eric?" I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out. If I told him, would word get around to my father? Or far worse, the witch hunter? "Come now, I won't tell your pa, besides, the map's a dead giveaway lad." I nodded. "Cos' of this thing with Jared eh? Nasty business." I nodded again. "Well lad, you'll need this," he reached under the counter and withdrew a compass. "I suppose you were going to use the sun eh? Good in a pinch, but it don't compare to a compass lad." The compass was finely made and balanced and I looked down at the coins in my hand. "Free of charge of course..."
"Thank you Mason." I said at last. He smiled wryly.
"So where were you planning on heading Eric?" I confessed that I hadn't really considered this yet. Things were happening very quickly. "Well, take my advice and go south. Traveling is far easier in the warmer weather, and if you head out west a little bit you can follow the coast down."
"The coast?" Having lived my entire life in Tymler, I had never seen the ocean before. The idea filled me with excitement, and suddenly what had before been a fearful fleeing of my home town became a grand opportunity for adventure.
"Aye, the sea lad. Don't go *too* far south though, things are pretty wild once you get past the Peltine delta and closer to the war." I nodded, carefully storing his advice in the back of my mind. Mason started stuffing my purchases into the pack and I eagerly lent a hand. When we were done he gave the pack a hearty slap and handed it to me over the counter. I slung it over one shoulder and held out the fistful of coins I had brought.
"You'd better keep those Eric; you'll find your money runs short pretty quick when you're traveling. Now put 'em away so I can shake ya hand." I stuffed the coins back into my pocket and held my relatively small hand out to be thoroughly shaken by Mason's large calloused one. "Good luck Eric, and if you pass by here again, be sure to stop in and see me."
"I will Mason, thank you... for everything." I turned and stepped out into the rapidly darkening evening, heading for home.
After dinner I was careful to give a warm goodnight to both my father and Sonya before retiring to bed. This would be the last time I spoke to either of them. I sat on the edge of my bed scrawling a last minute letter of goodbye to father while I waited for him to retire to bed. I disposed of several drafts before settling on one. I wasn't entirely satisfied with the result, but with such short time at hand, I had to settle for something less than perfect.
I waited restlessly and finally heard Sonya and my father retreat to their bedroom. Still I waited. I didn't want them to discover my absence until morning lest they try and follow me out into the night. The soft sounds of their tender lovemaking emanated through the house and I felt a profound sadness wash over me. It might not be glamorous, but I had enjoyed my life in Tymler, and truly loved Sonya and my father. For a brief moment a part of me considered staying. Simply slipping into my bed and sleeping through the night, my plans forgotten. Then I imagined Jared at the bottom of the dry well, a tiny circle of starry sky above him, and remembered Lucia clutched against my chest, her face wet with tears.
My path was decided with true finality then. I listened carefully and heard a muffled squeal from Sonya and then my father's groan before silence fell. I waited a while longer for them to drift to sleep, but eventually my nerves could take no more and I rose to leave. As I moved through the house I paused only for a moment to place the letter I had written on the dining table.
When I lifted my head again the door of my father's bedroom was open, and Sonya stood in it, her slim form silhouetted against the moonlight that washed in from the window. She was naked but for a sheet clutched to her chest and her slim shoulders and thighs gleamed in the dim light where they escaped the cover of the sheet. As she regarded me silently she tilted her head just slightly and her dark tresses cascaded over her shoulder. Though her face was in shadow, she seemed to me to be intensely sad. We stood silently for a while before she took a carefully measured step back and shut the door without a sound.
I retreated into the night and soon found myself by the old oak once more.
Lucia and I didn't speak a word. I handed her a pack which she shouldered immediately and we walked in silence to the outskirts of the town where the old well laid. From a distance I could see a small fire and a figure crouched beside it near the well. It seems obvious to me now, but at the time it had never occurred to me that the well might be guarded. Jared wasn't about to climb up out of it after all. The guard was, of course, there to foil local good samaritans and heroes such as Lucia and myself.
I left Lucia alone with the packs by the fringe of the woods and approached the well alone. As I drew near I could make out the heavily cloaked and hooded guard whistling to himself. He seemed in a particularly good mood for someone stuck out at the edge of town in the middle of the night. I had come around so that I could approach him from behind, and carried a fist sized rock in my right hand.
As I was closing the distance, the figure suddenly whirled about to face me. With the fire now behind him, and his hood up, his face was a void of utter blackness. His hand rested on the pommel of the long sword on his hip. I hefted the rock behind me, winding up to throw it. My only chance of besting the swordsman was to fell him before he could close on me.
"Eric!" A voice boomed out jovially.
"Mason?" I replied, bewildered.
"Eric, if I'd known you'd be here tonight to..." he glanced at the rock in my hand, poised to throw, "...bash my head in with a rock, I would never have come." I lowered the rock guiltily and he stood. "Righto then, let's get our boy out of the well shall we?" He grasped a torch from the fire and strode over to the dry well where I joined him.
"Jared?" I called down.
"Eric!" He replied, audibly relieved. "Get me out here!"
"Of course lad!" Mason replied, lowering the water bucket down rapidly. Jared rode up on it as Mason and I heaved at the wheel, winching him toward the starry night sky. When he reached the top Jared leapt out and over the side, collapsing on the ground beside the fire. His clothes were soaked from the thigh down.
"Oh, thank heavens!" He cried, exhausted. "I've been standing in that thing since noon. For a dry well it's pretty damn wet!"
I smiled and sat down next him, relieved to see him once more, and he was happy at that.
"You'd better not rest too long Jared." Mason warned. "You lot need to get a good head start. Look, Eric, if you've still got that rock, could you give me a whack on the head, make it look like you got the better of me?" I had discarded the rock, but we found another in short order. Somewhat hesitantly I gave Mason a knock on the back of his head with the rock. He chuckled.
"You'll have to do a bit better than that lad. Put some strength into that soggy noodle you have for an arm." The second blow was a bit harder and Mason gave his approval. "Gonna have quite a headache in the morn."
Jared and I bid Mason farewell, and he in turn bid us good luck, and we returned to where Lucia anxiously waited by the edge of the trees.
When she caught sight of us Lucia squealed with delight and ran out to meet us, crashing into Jared and wrapping him in her tight embrace. The twins kissed passionately with open mouths, and I watched Jared with a tinge of envy until they tired and he turned to me breathless;
"So Eric, where does our adventure take us?" Despite my conversation with Mason I still had little idea where we would go.
"Somewhere down south I suppose..." I ventured. Then it struck me: we'd go to Halbourne, the city to the south where my parents had adopted me. I was abandoning one home that night, but would begin the search for another. Though I knew I had little hope of finding my birth parents alive, the prospect of learning who they had been and what had become of them filled me with energy.
"If you two agree, we'll go to Halbourne. It's where my father adopted me. I'd like to find my real parents." The twins were surprised to say the least. I hardly ever spoke of my birth parents to them, and had not shown any interest in them since I was a very young child. But they eagerly agreed that this was the path to take.
So we set off into the forest immediately, working our way south.
Though we started out eager and full of energy, excited at the uncertain future before us, we tired quickly. Stumbling through the darkness in the thick forest foliage wore us down faster than any of us expected, so we decided to strike camp for the night and resume our trek south in the morn. We had made sufficient distance from the town that the witch hunter stood little chance of finding us in the vast forests.
We spread out our bedrolls and my head had barely rested on the pillow for but a fraction of a moment before I slipped into sleep.
Sometime in the small hours of the morning I awoke, and through the groggy film of sleep that still clung to my mind, I sensed movement nearby. I snapped instantly alert but didn't move. Slowly and soundlessly I turned my head to the right, and saw a shadowy mass writhing at the limits of my vision. I blinked and shook off the last fog of my sleep, and the mass drew into focus.
It was Jared and Lucia, they had drawn their beds together and beneath the blankets their bodies writhed together, striving against the flesh and muscle of each other. The soft sounds of their coupling reached me now, and I could hear Lucia's quiet gasps and moans in the cold night air, and the slap of her flesh and wetness against Jared.
My member was rising rapidly at the sounds, and inside my blankets I reached down to stroke it, sending a shiver through my body.
Lucia emitted a light squeal and their noises halted abruptly. A tremble ran through the pile of blankets and a heavy sigh followed it. Then the rhythmic noises resumed. My manhood was fully turgid now and I gripped it tightly in one hand and worked my fist steadily up and down the shaft.
With Lucia's sensuous moans and groans echoing through the forest air to my ears, it wasn't long before I felt my peak rushing toward me, reverberating up and down my shaft. I carefully lifted the edge of my blankets and pushed my member out into the cold air as my peak crashed over me, and my warm liquid squirted powerfully onto the dew laden grass.
When I was finished I rolled onto my back and looked at the stars clustered in the grand dome of the sky above me. The sound of the twins' bodies urgently grinding together just meters to my side was a strange accompaniment to this sight.
Though I didn't truly admit it to myself at the time, somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that I could never be with Lucia the way I wanted. Her body might be open to me at times in the future, and certainly she felt for me... but not in the way she felt for her twin Jared. They were utterly inseparable, a symbiotic pair. The thought saddened me somewhat, but when we rose in the morning a world of possibilities would rise with us, and who knew what, or who, those possibilities would be.
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The Fine Print: This story is copyright 2003 to the author aliased as Baron Glies. Permission is given to store for personal use only. You may not publish this story on the web or else where without the author's explicit permission. To obtain permission email: baronglies@mailcan.com