Celtic Mist Ch. 11

At length she stowed the wrung-out garments in her bag and dressed in her black postulant's gown for the return journey to Enniscorthy. 'Twas a daring decision given that she would pass by Fleetwood's farm on her way back, but almost two months of successfully masquerading as a lad had emboldened her. She shrouded her head and shoulders with a large, plain shawl, then washed and donned the spectacles.

Luck favored her --- at least on the road back to town: no one passed near enough to cause worry about being recognized. A couple hundred paces behind her on the road was a man heading in the same direction, but he kept his distance and she lost sight of him upon arriving in Enniscorthy.

After crossing the bridge over the River Slaney and starting across Abbey Square, Aoife heard a telltale drumming sound from the west. Louder and louder the menacing sound grew as her heartbeat kept pace. Her eyes darted about the square. In a moment, a detachment of some two dozen Redcoats marched into view --- some twenty paces away and heading straight towards her with a tromping of boots, rat-a-tat-tat of drums, and shrill piping of fifes. At the fore rode Captain Snowe and Lieutenant Starr from the Militia garrison --- both of whom knew her as Michael!

In panic, Aoife snatched up her skirts and veered to the right, clutching the shawl under her chin with her other hand. She was brought up short by a swiftly moving, two-wheeled gig, the driver of which brandished his whip and shouted, "Watch yourself, girl!"

Stumbling back, she nigh ran into Captain Snowe's foot in the stirrup. "Pardon, sir!" she gasped, her eyes for an instant met his before she scampered away --- no hint of recognition did he evince. Neither, moreover, did his gleaming boot despite their now two weeks' intimate acquaintance.

Aoife's heart was yet thumping as she let herself in the servants' door at the rear of the Sutton shop. A nervous laugh escaped her at the oddity of simply entering through the door rather than scaling the outside of the house, but garbed as a lass and with her hair covered, no harm would come of being witnessed by any of the household. However, she soon discovered that no one was at home and recalled that the Suttons were in Wexford town, and Mary and Alice were elsewhere enjoying the day of liberty.

Upstairs in her room, Aoife coated her hairline and ears with wool wax, removed her clothes to protect them from the dye, and lay upon the floor with her head tipped back and her hair in the dye-filled washbasin. With the soft liquid sounds close to her ears, a gradual calm overtook her.

In the odd stillness of the house, her thoughts wandered to the wondrous sensations she had felt in her privates as the waterfall had streamed over them...sensations from which she had retreated in shame. Even now there was a sense of disquiet in those parts as she lay naked --- her head fixed in this awkward position for the half-hour soak, with her eyes studying the sloped underside of the roof. Her wax-coated, dye-dripping hands hovered helplessly in the air at her sides...and she knew that she wanted to touch herself.

Aye! Touch herself improperly! She had the house to herself and had nowhere to be for two hours. For the first time, solitude and courage were united in happy accord.

As soon as the soaking was done, she rinsed her hair and wrapped it in an old towel. She yanked her black gown on and hastened downstairs as fast as she could for a quick survey of the house. Confirming herself yet alone, she ran back to the attic. Her door had not a key, but she closed it firmly and, recollecting how Biddy and she had spied upon Jenny as she frigged, poked a rag into the keyhole.

At first she lay stiffly upon the bed in the gown, but a moment later she bolted upright to pull it off. Now stark naked in the cool garret, she slipped under the quilt and pulled it up to her chin. Her knuckles rumpled under the covers as her nervous hands crept down her chest. Closing her eyes, she shyly mapped the transition from the plane below her collarbones to the rise of her breasts...initially modest next to her breastbone, but as her palms moved towards her sides, she felt the increasing roundness and then the abrupt drop to the hollow of her armpits.

Splaying the fingers of both hands, Aoife carefully cupped the maidenly orbs, pressing them together, squeezing the firm warm flesh...first gently, then more intently...feeling as she did so the thump of her heart and the wave of warmth that expanded from her chest to her belly. Notwithstanding their plump filling of her own hands, Aoife feared that in the larger palms of a lad, the modest size of her breasts would only detract from his pleasure.

Under the continued voluptuous compressions, she felt her previously quiescent nipples gradually nudge into her palms. Letting go her grip, her fingers traveled thither to explore the intriguing alteration. To her wonderment, she discovered that the more she touched them, the stiffer they grew...and the stiffer they grew, the more tingly was the sensation elicited by her stroking digits.

From the now erect little points, her fingertips grazed over the quivering globes...circling round and round ever so lightly, marking the contrast between the smooth skin and the protruding buds and leaving a tremulous tickling in their wake.

Slowly she inhaled and exhaled.

She was at last emboldened to venture lower. Despite the warmth under the quilt, her body shivered as one hand slid down, tracing over her flat belly to the rise of her mound beyond. Even alone under the covers, embarrassment blossomed as she neared the quick of the matter. Her fingertips cautiously stirred the springy patch of curls on the warm little hillock. For a few minutes she petted the soft hair, surprised at the alluring sensations provoked even above her cunny proper.

The memory of Declan and her lying together in the stone cromleach filled her mind...his hand had been upon her belly with his fingertips almost in her curls. The tingling grew stronger. She saw his large, strong hands building the fire...clenched into fists and driving into the face of the lout in the alley...wrapped round the wood shaft of a pike showing her how to hold it. Her heart began to beat a little faster in anticipation as her middle finger advanced into the groove of her mound to feel in awe the silky nick...oh 'twas even more sensitive here!

A pleasurable ache grew between her thighs. No more could she delay...she spread her straight legs into a wide vee under the quilt and pressed her finger against the tickly wee kernel at the front. After pressing and pressing with rising frustration, she capitulated to the longing and applied the knowledge gleaned from watching the shaking blanket of the frigging maid and from the thrumming water earlier today: she began to rub her finger gently upon the spot.

"Oh!" she whispered aloud. Aye! The exquisite fluttery feeling blossomed under her moving fingertip and traveled into her tightening belly and thighs.

She slid her finger further back to feel the petal-like lips --- a touch that produced a similar heated quaver. Overcome with lewd sensation, she stroked the lips, then the bud...back and forth in greedy disorder as her breathing grew audible. Even in the space of a few minutes she perceived in astonishment the awakening of her sex organ --- the flesh she was touching was noticeably swelling and thickening, and the crevice at the center was growing slippery with the mysterious wetness. As she had at the convent, she withdrew her bedecked finger from under the bedcovers, her blushing excitement burgeoning as she breathed in and tasted the faintly tangy philtre.

Curiosity overwhelmed her: she threw the quilt aside and leapt out of bed, crossing to the washstand to grab the small mirror from its nail hanger in the wall stud. Back on the bed, she tossed the pillow against the iron frame and hopped in, her wanton urges at last triumphing over her modesty...no bedcovers at all did she draw over her nakedness. She leant back, bent her knees, and opened her legs wide, watching her bare vulva spread in the mirror.

Her cheeks grew hot as she propped the mirror against the bunched covers to free her hands.

What she had ever only known by touch whilst bathing, she now fully beheld with her eyes...and lovely and fascinating did it strike her. 'Twas like a flower with two pairs of light-rose tinted petals --- outer pillowy ones, and inner, more dainty ones. Where the inner ones joined at the front was situated the exquisitely sensitive bud. Indeed, those inner lips and bud were distinctly glistening and swollen...she returned her finger to them and palpated the turgid flesh in wonder.

As she looked at the reflection, she puzzled over the words "went into." What did that mean? She had supposed there was a hole here for the man's organ...was it not the same place from whence she felt her monthlies trickle? With tentative fingertips she parted the slick little petals. Confound the meager light from the dormer window!

But no passage did she there discover, and she began to wonder if the column-like cock simply lay in the correspondingly shaped, presently blurred groove between her lips. She appealed to her memory of the couple swiving in the Dublin alley --- but the lass's upraised thighs had prevented Aoife from beholding the raw details of their joined organs.

Even as she caressed and opened the little lips, a droplet of the shimmering, clear nectar welled up from the cleft and slid slowly back where it tickled her bottom hole.

The pattering of Aoife's heart increased, and she brazenly drew her knees even higher towards her shoulders, rolling her hips off the mattress. Her face flamed at the blatant exposure of her secret female parts in their luminous pink truth. Growing up on a farm and having seen the arseholes of many an animal, she ken not why the first sight of her own should shock her. But there it was between her cheeks and below her pinky slit...her wee, puckered dimple...trembling indecently. So delicate and diminutive was it that it scarce even seemed equal to its usual duty.

She was overcome with the urge to slide her finger back and touch the shameful hole...to explore the quivery sensations that there arose when washing it...or by the waterfall drumming upon it. But on that daring trajectory, Aoife stopped short. It seemed even more sinful than touching her cunny...'twas 'unnatural' wasn't it? It was one thing to touch it whilst bathing...it was quite another to fondle it with bawdy intent.

Her finger resumed rubbing the throbbing pip up front as she thought on the male organ...how different it was! How odd that the female's was like a flower, whilst the male's was a fearsome, protruding and hanging --- almost grotesque --- collection of fleshy parts. And yet a lad's machinery had its own beast-like beauty...like Declan's thick, ruddy pillar arcing towards the heavens, the bulbous head thrusting free from its sleeve in eagerness. She recalled the feel of that hard staff pressed against her bottom.

Her dream from the winter came back to her...Declan looking up at her uncovered privates as she slid down the rope.

The pulse beat under her finger.

She now saw him as he had been at Fleetwood's farm the other day: stripped to the waist as he engaged in his odd exercises...momentarily on all fours in the grass, then the muscles standing out in his arms and chest as he pushed his body repeatedly off the ground.

And she imagined him kneeling before her in her present attitude, gazing at her flagrantly exposed charms.

The muscles in her thighs and buttocks strained as her finger stroked.

Oh, why are ye thinking on him?! Not him! Deliberately she summoned forth images of the couple in the alley, then even Bolger's handsome, freckled face...only to have them supplanted by the thought of Declan's intent countenance as he crawled over her, naked as she was, bracing those strong arms on either side of her head...his hips lowering his engorged weapon closer and closer to her spread cunny.

It rose again as it had at the falls...the expanding heat making her hips arch up of their own will. Fear twined with excitement...oh, something was happening...she was losing control of her body...but...oh Medb!...should she stop?

A door slamming on the second floor shot Aoife out of the bed. She scrambled to hang up the mirror and pull on her shift, her heart pounding.

"Kitty?" the maid Mary's voice was heard. "Are ye here?"

"I am," Aoife called down, her eyes darting about to confirm that all was in order in her room. 'Twas just as well...she gritted her teeth, irked at her involuntary, amorous thoughts of that traitor. Aye, she must smother this torment and return her attention to her mission.