The Festival of Autumn

On the first day of fall, cool and bright, Arcor laced up his boots and hiked up the hill to the old stone temple overlooking the town. Far older than the town itself, people said.

Great statues stood in niches all around the temple's facade, marble figures, tangled in marble vines, which in turn were wrapped in growing green vines.

A few villagers were gathered by the temple entrance. A young, pale, blushing novice priestess stood by the door. A tall farm girl leaned against the wall.

The farrier's wife, a sturdy woman with long straight hair, was sitting in the grass nearby. Arcor couldn't remember her name. Selona? Sedina?

"Heard Etlyah is in there," she said, flashing Arcor a wink. Selidna, that was it. "Come to check on the missus?"

Arcor and Etlyah had settled in Haargreafe just over half a year ago. The town had needed a new schoolteacher, and sent to the city for one. Etlyah had answered the call. Arcor had followed his new wife.

He was an architect fresh out of his journeyman years. It had been a bit of a struggle to find work in this agrarian community -- but he'd done well enough so far. And the clients he did find were far more pleasant to deal with than the sneering lords and sleazy factory owners he was used to.

The two of them were growing to love the people of this town. But today, Etlyah was jumping in feet first.

Arcor cleared his throat nervously.

"Is there a line?" he said. "Or can I go in?"

The farm girl giggled. "Go on! I'm just waiting for my mates."

Just then, Ortondo, the farrier, came up the hill path, linked arms with his wife, and the two of them strode in past the priestess. Arcor followed, giving the farm girl a friendly nod.

Inside was a large wooden donation box, and each of them threw in a generous handful of coins as they passed.

An archway opened up into the temple's main hall, and a colossal statue of the goddess Lesht gazed down at them with an unreadable expression. Arcor touched his forehead, offering a quick prayer.

Spread out on the temple floor were soft beds of fresh-cut summer feathergrass, piles of warm furs. And among them, figures.

To Arcor's left was Keurl, the rugged, black-and-silver-haired hunter who was said to have protected the town from many monsters over the years. He knelt among the furs, nude, his skin spidered with fine tattoos. Furn, the grocer, had his cock out, and the hunter wrapped his fingers around it. Keurl said something that Arcor couldn't hear, and Furn bellowed a laugh.

Across the way was Jelinie, a tall, fat cloth-seller in their middle years who threw parties just about every week and had done much to welcome Arcor and Etlyah to the town. They had volunteered in the temple before, and Etlyah had gone to them for advice on trying it out.

Jelinie was lying back among the feathergrass now, sighing with pleasure as a donor fucked them -- it could have been anyone, the way his face was buried in the cloth-seller's bosom, but Arcor fancied it was Torme the cobbler.

Arcor continued toward the back of the hall, and he could now clearly see the figures up by the altar.

To the left, Gantwan, the stylish, wickedly funny young half-orc who ran the coffee shop. Unlike the other volunteers, he was tied up. An elaborate network of ropes bound his arms and legs and criss-crossed his chest. No one was with him at the moment, but a trickle of soft white ran down his ass.

To the right, there was Etlyah, and he hurried up to her. She sat astride a man Arcor didn't recognize at all, but from the looks of the clothing he was mostly still wearing, he was probably a merchant passing through.

From close up, Arcor could see a glossy sheen on his wife's pale skin, where she had been anointed all over with fragrant oils.

For a long moment, he just savored the view of Etlyah's soft, round, simple loveliness -- rising and falling sinuously on the stranger's cock, eyes closed, lips parted. Light, nearly blonde hair tumbled around her flushed cheeks. Her belly was just beginning to show, a little bump where the seed the two of them had planted was growing inside of her.

He touched her shoulder. She looked up at him, breaking into a sunny grin.

"Good morning, love," she said. "Come to make a donation?"

"I have," Arcor said. "But mostly to see how you're doing."

"Mmm. How do you think I'm doing?"

Arcor regarded her, hand on his chin, affecting a pose of critical appraisal.

"It's a good start," he said, "But I think you need more bodies piled around you. This isn't the orgy I was promised at all."

"I'm working on it!" she giggled.

The stranger gasped, gripping Etlyah's hips tighter, his face twitching with release. Her rhythm ground to a halt.

After a pause to catch her breath, she climbed off of the man and reclined against the heap of furs. The merchant sat up next to her. He had a long nose, bright eyes, and dark skin, a shade beyond even Arcor's West Lyndion deep brown.

"Tell me more about this delightful festival," said the man. "I've not seen its like before."

He glanced around the temple, to where Gantwan was tied up. The farrier and his wife were fucking the half-orc together now. Selidna was riding the coffee-seller's cock, and kissing her husband, who was thrusting between pale greenish lips.

Arcor felt he'd have had some trepidation about sticking any sensitive part of himself between those sharpened tusks. But Gantwan looked like he must be well traveled in his task.

"It's our first time as well," Etlyah said, catching Arcor's eye again with a twinkle. "But it seems like a wonderful thing. They say the temple of Lesht collects enough donations each autumn to ensure all the less fortunate residents of this county food, and housing, and warmth through the dark months."

"Praise be to the goddess, then!" said the man, gesturing respect to the statue of Lesht -- queen of the underworld, lady of the seasons, whose return to the world of the living each Spring made life possible.

Arcor had sat down on a nearby stone bench by now, and was idly sketching his wife, capturing a montage of little gestures and dapples of light that caught his interest.

Selidna approached, holding her long gray dress up around her waist. Her husband was lying down next to Gantwan now, and the two appeared to be chatting idly.

"A cocking's all well and good!" Selidna said, winking theatrically at Arcor as she knelt over his wife's face, "But nothing hits the spot like a sharp-tongued woman, eh?"

"How long does this go on?" asked the merchant, as Selidna began to rock her fresh-fucked cunny on Etlyah's pink mouth.

"Till they've collected enough donations, I think," Arcor said.

"And the volunteers don't get...sore?"

"The priestesses help with that," Arcor laughed. He'd had a similar worry himself, when Etlyah had first broached the idea of volunteering. But the high priestess had assured them that the volunteers would be provided with an array of potions, wards, and charms to resist chafing, maintain vigor, prevent any sort of disease, and more.

And, of course, in the unlikely event that anyone behaved badly in the temple, the high priestess would be standing by with all manner of darker magics.

"This is what you really want?" he'd asked her later. "Not just a thing you're doing because someone has to keep the infirm widows stocked with firewood and cheese? Don't lie to me, you old do-gooder."

"Shut up!" she'd said, poking him in the ribs playfully with a wooden spoon. "I...I do want to help, of course. But that's not the reason I've been unable to stop thinking about the fall festival ever since we learned of it."

"Oh?" he'd said, folding his arms. "And what reason is that?"

"Perhaps I'm more selfish than you know." She'd leaned in close, brushing her lips against his, holding him tight. "Perhaps I simply want to get more than my fair share of fucking. Perhaps I've been ashamed to admit that I was so greedy. That in my dreams, I would fuck the whole world, go and go and not stop till I forget my own name."

After that, they had largely set words aside for a little while.

Selidna rolled off of Etlyah, satisfied, and, taking her husband's hand, departed with an offer to buy them a drink next time she saw them down at the tavern.

The merchant rose into a crouch and touched his fingertips to Etlyah's cunny, dipping into the pearly liquid running fetchingly between her sandy brown curls, gliding up to the pink hood crowning her entrance.

Etlyah jerked in sudden climax, so quickly that Arcor and the merchant each barked out a surprised laugh.

"W-what's so funny?" she gasped when her breath returned to her, flashing them a tart look.

"Sorry," Arcor grinned back.

"That vigor potion has made me very sensitive," she said with exaggerated primness. She giggled. "And maybe a little loopy."

As the merchant made his farewells, he passed a group of approaching figures. The farm girl and her friends, Arcor realized.

"Mrs. Etlyah!" she called out, then came to an awkward stop. "Wow!"

A few other young men and women piled up behind her. They represented a good chunk of Etlyah's first graduating class of students, he realized. Just a couple months ago he had attended their coming of age ceremony. Etlyah had handed each of them a little home-made diploma, which they had received with polite bafflement. The idea of needing a piece of paper to show that you were done with school seemed to be quite unknown in these parts.

Etlyah broke into a wide grin and waved them closer, sitting up.

The locals here tended towards light brown skin, but these youths showed off a deepened array of shades suggesting the end of a long spring and summer spent largely in the fields.

They looked strong, healthy, full of life. Their faces were round, curious, excited. For some of them, this must be their first time allowed to particpate in the festival.

"We heard you were volunteering," said Kyrris, a broad-built young man with a confident walk, "And we had to come by and show some appreciation for our favorite teacher ever."

None of these young people probably had a whole lot to spare. But no one around here did, and everyone who could, gave, it was said.

They gathered around her. There were a few nervous giggles.

"Mrs. Etlyah, you've got come on your face," said Roudinn, a lanky lad with long, wavy hair that obscured his eyes.

Etlyah tongue flicked over her upper lip, wiping away some of the mixed juices the farrier's wife had smeared there.

"Why don't you help me get even messier?" she said. A touch of teacherliness crept into her voice as she went on. "Is there anyone here who's never fucked before?"

"I would love to try it with you," said Kyrris, raising his hand cautiously.

She guided him to a comfortable position among the furs and sat astride his cock. She sank down upon him with a low moan.

"Don't be shy," she said, directing Roudinn to kneel behind her. "Please, join in."

He found his way to her second entrance. The high priestess's charms and oils seemed to allow him to push into her ass with ease. She growled as the two friends began to fuck her together.

"More!" Etlyah's eyes seemed to be on fire.

At her urgent prompting, Kyrris was reaching his fingers as well as as his cock between her legs now, tentatively at first, then with zeal as she responded with tremors of pleasure and cries of encouragement.

Arcor thought it was just about the most arousing sight he'd ever been privy to. Freed of his usual direct involvement in his wife's frolics, he was finding it quite pleasant to simply watch her at work. And it was work that she attacked with a keenness that sent shivers of electricity down to his toes.

Whether it was Lesht's gifts, or merely Etlyah's own enthusiasm at fulfilling her most secret desires -- a bit of both, presumably -- her enjoyment appeared undimmed even after taking on several comers, and having been brought to the peak of satisfaction numerous times.

She grasped for a third cock, bringing it to her lips and tongue. Arcor knew well how talented she was at this game, and his own cock twitched at the fond memories. But he could see that at the moment the multiple distractions were too much for her. Haltingly, she asked the burly lad standing over her to just take her head in his hands and fuck her mouth.

The farm girl Arcor had spoken to outside was by the altar, selecting from an array of polished phalluses decorated with sigils, as she awaited her turn.

"Does the festival magic keep her from getting knocked up?" asked one of the watching farm workers in what was apparently meant to be a whisper.

"She's already with child," hissed his friend, a skinny young woman with very long hair and a sharp-boned face. She had a temple phallus of her own, which she was nervously twisitng in her hands. "Weren't you paying attention when she--"

"Yeah, but, now all this..." said the first lad, gesturing vaguely towards Etlyah. "Isn't...could she wind up having twins?"

"You dummy."

The hall was filling up now, a mix of locals and travellers. A finely-dressed woman flanked by attendants dropped her donation in the box. Several people, naturally, were cavorting with the other volunteers. Others were chatting idly with each other at the periphery, or praying at the altar.

The high priestess came out with one of her novices to check on the volunteers, making sure they had a drink of water and something to eat, and strengthening their protective spells as needed.

One young man had his head between Etlyah's thighs, and she had her fingers in his hair, stroking him onwards. Another had his cock at her lips. She had been coaxing him to fill her throat deeper and longer. When he released his spent cock from her as the priestess approached, Etlyah's eyes were wild with exhilaration, and Arcor could have sworn she was glowing faintly.

"I never...knew...fuck..." she puffed, catching Arcor's gaze and struggling to compose herself against the tongue continuing to caress her. Finally, the youth rose, goofy grin smeared and sticky.

"The feeling...of giving up even breath itself," she went on, "Only the light of the goddess sustaining me. It's like nothing else."

"I can't quite imagine it," Arcor admitted.

Arcor watched his wife take a long, grateful draught from a cup, followed by a big bite from a fresh spice roll, while the farm girl, lying below, touched one of the goddess's sacred phalluses to her entrance, slicking it with the come that was oozing from her.

Etlyah sighed as the monstrous thing slid inside.

"When you were giving us algebra problems," said the farm girl, a flush filling in her freckles, "I never pictured you volunteering at the the autumn festival."

"Taking your revenge, are you?"

"Maybe a little," grinned the girl.

A young man sidled up behind Etlyah and touched his cock to her cheek, rubbing it around in the wetness there.

"Well, have at it. You can..." Etylah hesitated, "You can be rougher if you'd like. Pull my hair. Maybe..." she gasped as the phallus drove in a little harder, a little deeper. "Maybe...a little nibble...it's all so good right now..."

The girl bit down on Etlyah's nipple, testing. Etlyah hummed.

The tall skinny girl, who was now behind Arcor's wife, fucking her ass with a slightly smaller device, reached for Etylah's tumbling locks. She tugged on a fistful of hair.

"Like this?" she said.

"Yes," Etlyah breathed, arching her head back, brows tensing. "More. Harder. Goddess..."

Then she was muffled as another cock entered her mouth. The young man rode forward inexorably, until he filled her throat completely, his mound coming to rest against Etlyah's round nose, holding there.

Arcor could see tears pricking the corner of her eyes, but her gaze was enraptured, and her muffled sounds urged her former students on.

Arcor watched for a little while longer. Part of him wanted to join in. Well, one specific part of him really wanted to join in, and had been straining mightily against his trousers for some time. But he was in no rush, and even on a festival day there was much to do.

He slipped away.

Outside, a small crowd had gathered, some working up the courage to go inside, others sitting in the grass, basking in the afterglow, others just here to gossip. A few people were selling food and drink from little carts, with all proceeds destined for the temple box. A drummer and a pair of flautists were playing up a storm.

Arcor bought something hot and crispy, and went off, hoping to get at least a little work done today. He had some drawings he'd been itching to complete for a proposed amphitheater, built into the hillside below the temple.

He'd been working with a troupe of goblin comedians from the hills, and an elven dance company from the woods. His head was abuzz with ideas for how to create a space that would attract performers and audiences from all over the region.

As his pencil murmured, he thought of the time, back in the city, early in his courtship of Etlyah, when he had known her first as a starchy but sweet-tempered governess for one of his rich clients.

She gave so much of herself to her work, to her students, that he had known immediately that she'd make a wonderful mother. He had been surprised when he got to know her a bit better and found her to be a more ravenous lover than any he had known before.

Still, he had been even more surprised when she had smoothly engineered an amorous evening between herself and Arcor and a mutual friend. It had ended with the three of them tangled together in the back of a jostling carriage, and an extra coin paid to the long-suffering driver to keep his eyes forward and circle the park a second time.

This festival business had to be her most shocking turn yet. But by now, he wasn't so much surprised as delighted.

When he returned, he found the event still in full swing. Tally, the miller, greeted him with a smile. His ruddy face and the entire front of his tunic were drenched.

"Arcor! That wife of yours is a demoness! Lucky man."

Arcor dropped another donation in the box as he entered. He hadn't actually gotten the fucking his first donation entitled him to, but he was here more to support his wife's efforts, and he could spare the money for such a cause.

Keurl, the hunter, had one man sucking his cock while another, a plump elf in a gauzy tunic, sat astride his face, getting a mighty tongue-lashing by the looks of it. As Arcor watched, the elf shuddered, spending all down Keurl's muscular, silver-haired chest.

Jelinie had found themself sandwiched between a pair of traveling gnoll librarians clad in scraps of fur and leather, and, incongruously, a loudly dressed human bard.

Gantwan, still tied up, was now bent overone of the stone benches and was being spanked by a severe man who looked like he might have been a clerk come down from the county seat. A milkmaid in a low-cut dress sat in front of the half-orc, stroking his hair, touching his jaw and lips, making him suck her slender fingers into his mouth.

Arcor nodded to Ixemna, the scarred and gravel-voiced former adventurer. She and her wife Daffodil, a stout halfling with one arm and a big laugh, had become frequent and welcome guests at Arcor's home.

Currently, Ixemna was straddling Etlyah's mouth, tugging and twisting her friend's nipples in her rough fingers.

Daffodil had one of the temple phalluses strapped to her hips and was withdrawing it from Etlyah's cunny with a sigh.

Arcor's wife was by now covered all over in trails of sticky wetness that rcited a tale of the abundant donors who must have come this way while he'd been out. Lustrous clear and cloudy juices dotted her breasts and belly, drizzled down her legs and her throat, forming crazy strands in what had become a matted nest of hair. More of it squirted out of her, pooling between her legs as the hobbit fucked her.