Fires of Beltane Audio

"'You will keep our secret?' he asked her a little sternly, reinforcing the young woman's delusion that she and not they had been caught in a morally ambiguous situation.

She nodded shyly, still unwilling to speak, afraid of breaking whatever spell it was that held her between them. The unfamiliar scent of satisfied desire seemed to be as intoxicating as the unwatered wine, and she leaned confidingly against Natalie, longing for she knew not what. Natalie continued to stroke her back, the back of her neck, her flushed cheek.

"'It is very warm in here,' Natalie said. 'Would you like us to help you take off your clothes so that you may be as we are?'

When the young woman nodded again, the tumbler and the inn keeper, with unhurried sensuality, took off one item after another until she was as naked as they. Natalie touched her all over lightly with brushing fingertips.

"'You are so pretty. Have you been touched like this before? Have you lain with a man before? I thought not. Did it look frightening? I assure you it is very pleasant! Would you like us to show you? I will touch you and hold you while it happens, and make sure you feel it all the right way.'

"She ran knowing fingertips over the young woman's shoulders and breasts. She leaned forward and pressed her lips first against her throat, cheek, then against the young woman's open mouth. The tumbler sat on the bed at her feet and began running patient hands up and down her legs, reaching each time closer to the top of her thighs.

"After a long time, Natalie and the tumbler changed places. He knelt over the younger woman where she lay on her back. He kissed her lips, then moved his mouth downwards to her full breasts. She lay feeling the subtle differences in the way each touched her. Natalie's caresses were soft, agonizingly delicate. Though his movements were not aggressive, still, she sensed the leashed masculine power behind them. It was exciting in a way that set an almost painful longing somewhere inside her.

Natalie's hands had reached her vulva. They began by moving together in broad pressing movements, then became more precise. When she at last allowed herself to find the slippery confirmation she had known would be there, she caught the tumbler's eye.

"'She is ready.'

"Natalie lay down beside her, cradling her while the tumbler positioned himself on top of her. He guided his penis between her legs and rubbed the head along the length of her vulva, pausing on her clitoris, then moving downward, teasing her for long moments before he began to slide, with cultivated restraint, inside her.

"having ridden astride for many years and spent considerable effort in men's clothes learning the strength and agility of tumbling, the young woman's maidenhead troubled her only slightly in the losing. After one uncomfortable moment during which the man stayed courteously still, the young woman was ready for him to begin moving slowly inside her.

"Natalie leaned over her, kissing her deeply and squeezing her breasts in hands grown firm and urgent. The young woman perceived that the role of spectator was nearly as satisfying to Natalie as the role of participant had been. The tumbler reached out the hand nearest Natalie and played with her dark pointed nipple. She gasped with pleasure and pressed herself against the young woman's side.

"'Take her nipple in your mouth,' he said to Natalie, and guided one of her hands to the younger woman's other breast. He went up onto his knees so that he could watch them while he thrust slowly and rhythmically.

"Judging the moment with a practiced eye, Natalie reached her hand downward. For her own pleasure she wrapped her fingers briefly around the hard, slick cock as it moved in and out, then applied herself to pleasuring the younger woman with her hand. She was skilled, and the young woman very ready. It was not long until the younger woman learned to know the peak of pleasure, and then to know the secret thrill of feeling another reach that peak because of her.

"When they had rested, Natalie said, 'Now I will show you a thing.'

"She leaned over and took the tumbler's flaccid penis in her mouth. The young woman watched in amazement as he grew hard once more. He urged Natalie away from him and onto her hands and knees. Obviously willing, Natalie leaned forward, offering herself to him. He moved quickly and without restraint this time, entered her from behind. The young woman found as much enjoyment as observer as Natalie had. She sat cross-legged facing them, running eager hands over Natalie's breasts and belly, watching hypnotized as the man coupled energetically until the paroxysm overtook him.

"During at long night, the two coached and guided the younger woman until she had sampled more delights than many know in a lifetime. That company came again to Marseilles, and those three enjoyed a rare and beguiling companionship whenever circumstances allowed."

During this recitation, Lise had allowed herself only brief glimpses of Owen's face. She looked her fill now however, and found that her description of flushed cheeks and dilated eyes would have been apt for him too.

The daring that had sustained her during the telling fled. With impeccable timing, Margarete chose that moment to enter the great hall from the courtyard. Catching Lise's eye in the familiar way that said Lise's presence was required, Margarete turned toward the spiral staircase leading to her chamber. Obediently, Lise rose to follow.

"I have enjoyed our afternoon together," she said with sang fois which even she admired, Good day to you."

Since their return from pilgrimage at Samhain, Margarete had enlivened preparations for sleep in her chamber each night by inventive attempts to rouse Lise's desire. Well pleased though Margarete was in her husband's bed, she had been deeply grateful that physical intimacy between herself and Lise had resumed, on the surpassingly rare occasions when it was safe for them to indulge themselves thus. Between Lise and Owen however, Margarete understood that matters were not so simple.

Therefore, each night while Lise brushed and braided Margarete's hair or assisted with her clothing, Margarete engaged in a gentle, episodic seduction which left Lise stimulated but unsatisfied. Margarete had no experience in healing such wounds as Lise had received on Lamas night, but she sensed that part of Lise's path back to intimacy with Owen was the simple rousing of carnality.

Months of deep kisses, sensual touching, creative tails of lust fulfilled told across a forgotten chess board, had left Lise stimulated, unsatisfied, edgy with roused passion: but still prone to spells of distraction, disorientation and fear of the act for which she longed so powerfully.

On the day of Beltane, she was unsurprised when Owen proposed in midmorning that they withdraw discreetly from the more public festivity, and find their celebration alone together. They had done so on Lamas day with wonderful and unforgettable results, but the violent events of the following night had left Lise a different woman from the one who had frolicked so heedlessly then.

Their walk that morning of Beltane was not the rambling one they had taken on Lamas. He guided them unerringly back to the sheltered clearing where he had told her the tale of the lad and the dairy maid. She did not question him. They both knew what this day held for them, and she was glad he had chosen a spot that was sufficiently secluded, but bright with spring sunlight.

When they had shed the bulkiest of their clothing, and lain down facing one another on the bed of needles covered with cloaks he had made, he spent long silent minutes convincing her that he was in no hurry. She touched him shyly, which she had never done before this day.

She felt like an inexperienced girl, not knowing what she should do or what it would be like. She was not an especially young woman, and it had been a very long time since she could have described herself as inexperienced. With the now familiar confusion about her sense of herself, she felt the immobility of uncertainty taking hold of her, and longed to forestall it.

"Tell me a story?" she said in an entreating tone he had never heard from her before.

Much moved, he told her the only story he could, at that moment, recall.

"There was a woman of whit and cunning. She had made her own way in the world for many years, but eventually found herself in the service of a young noble woman. Such a life was foreign to her, but she was adaptable, and service soon grew into love and devotion between them. Her young mistress was given in marriage to a foreigner. These two set out together on the long journey to their new home, sustained by their bond of love for one another.

"For her own reasons, the young noblewoman deeply wished to know to what manner of man she had been betrothed. Particularly, she desired to know how best to captivate him in their marriage-bed. The cunning and resourceful servant, eager to allay her mistress's fears, and not unwilling to undertake a dangerous adventure, fell into the company of some traveling entertainers who were to visit the soon-to-be bridegroom's castle. Donning a player's mask, the cunning and lusty adventurer charmed her way into his bedchamber. There, she found more than she had expected, but not more than she could cope with.

"It transpired that she was not the only lass to find her way there that night, nor her mistress's betrothed the only man. On the night of Beltane, the castle's lord was disposed to share his prenuptial revels with his sworn companion. It was not the first time the two men had enjoyed such revels in company, and they knew an ease which the resourceful adventurer admired. She had no difficulty getting into the spirit of Beltane, and had her clothes off as quick and lively as any.

"Though she was there primarily to observe her mistress's betrothed, she welcomed the attentions of the other man, for she liked his looks, and liked more the way he touched her."

In the sunny clearing, Owen ran a hand smoothly across Lise's cheek, down her back, over the curve of waste and hip, and back again with a persistent but undemanding firmness.

"The man found her low voice and active body very appealing, preferring her to any of the other lasses who sought to entertain him. She moved with a confidence and grace that captivated him, and, being a man of some experience with women, he could tell that her response to him was not the practiced one of a paid professional. When she took him in her mouth, he felt her skill, but also her liking for such a task. When he pushed her back on the bed and laid on top of her, he felt how her body reached up to his, urging him to enter her. When he thrust inside her he felt how her body thrust upwards to meet him, how her inner muscles took him with fierce joy, how her pleasure mounted with his."

Owen traced his fingertips confidently down Lise's throat to the place over her collarbone where he knew her to be most sensitive. He noted with approval her dilated pupils and flushed cheeks, and smiled fondly into her eyes.

"He would think back often to that night, wondering who the masked player had been, and whether he might ever encounter her again.

"When the wedding party arrived, he was of course impressed by the beauty of the bride, but persistently intrigued by her lady companion. How could it be that she looked like no one he knew, but that when she moved or spoke he was enthralled?

"This perplexity persisted in him, and contributed to the energy with which he pursued a flirtation with this enigmatic woman who bore herself like an athlete, played and sang like a professional musician, and only barely managed to maintain the humble and unassuming mien of a servant. She matched him move for move in this subtle dance over many months, and on the day of the festival of the first harvest, they two slipped away together, unable to wait for the sanction of the darkness outside the ring of festival fires that night.

"Though cunning, this woman was honourable, and would not give herself to the man while he remained in ignorance of her identity. Haltingly and with much trepidation, she described her role in the Beltane revels, and found to her amazement that her deception merely served to enhance his admiration for her."

Through the thin linen of Lise's shift, Owen's agile musicians hand traced a path around the curve of her full breast.

"He had her in the grass. He had her in the pond. He had her against the trunk of a tree. She gave herself lying open on her back. She rode him till her own pleasure overcame her and she must collapse on top of him. She took him into her mouth and offered herself to his. They gave and took in equal measure, and had never known the like to each other."

His tone had lost the story tellers impersonality.

Her distraction and confusion dissolved. There in the sunlight, she remembered how it had been on Lamas day. She remembered it in her mind and in her body. She reached out carefully but not shyly to touch him, and found him as ready as herself.

She urged him to remove all of his clothes, and did the same herself. She positioned them so that they still lay facing one another, but so that her lower leg was now beneath his waste. They kissed and caressed, and so gradual was the slide of his erect penis over her vulva and inside her, that it was no shock, and no troublesome barrier for her to overcome. Soon she found herself pushing against him in rhythmic thrusts that seemed to come of their own accord. He reached between her legs and stimulated her until, to her own amazement, she cried out with the joy of the perfectly satisfied woman.

That night they took their places around the Beltane fires, and all could see that things were once more right between them. They sang and told stories for the entertainment of all, and more than once, their absence was noted as they slipped away into the darkness to honour the festival of Beltane in the time-honoured fashion.