The Foxcatcher Pt. 01

I came to the town of Maydew in the last weeks of spring, beneath a sky whose memories of rain were fading. This was a nowhere town, still pregnant with the promise of industry, prey to its Lord and church whose taxes and tithes gutted its people each tally day. The people therefore were crestfallen in their day to day, drifting to and fro from home to workplace to tavern, never deviating from birth to the grave. For a city-raised woman like myself, the Maydew peoples' plight garnered little sympathy. Compared to the threat of a King's madness and industrialists' cruelty, their routines were something of a blessing. To anyone with the slightest bit of ambition it was a dreadful place, but there was a certain appeal in its provincial simplicity.

I boarded at the tavern on the main drag. The only building besides the lord's manse to have glass in its windows. A wealthy patron, I guessed. Its three storeys were rickety, but the rooms were dry and warmed by the heat billowing up from the common room. Of an evening the long-tables were filled by men on their aforementioned post-work respites. I sat at the bar drinking strong Carathian ale and occupied my mind by guessing at their professions. We were not far from the foothills of the Border Mountains, and so there were miners in their leather breeches and shirtless jerkins, their skin stained with stone dust and coal. The village blacksmith sat in the same seat every evening, right arm bulging, veins straining against the skin. Servants, I assumed from the lord's household, were obvious in their well kept cotton robes. I made notes diligently as each evening descended into inebriated steam, self-control dictated by a supervisor's morning inspection.

I was 23 then, a young woman of my profession. I had been given the name Vixxen; the men I worked with thinking they were dreadfully amusing. I had learned to block our their japes and their advances early, when I had entered the ministry at 17. I was tall, well built, my youth was a middle-birth upbringing which afforded me safety and sustenance enough to grow well. As a young woman on the road I took extra precaution, usually hiring out one of the ministry's muscle for protection. They were no better than the others, but they were usually quiet and they fucked like real men, not bureaucrats. The landlord of the inn took an interest in me one night, leaning over his bar to cast a curious eye across by scribbles. I assumed that he could not read, I may have been wrong. The neat rows of numbers I had kept were clear even to the illiterate. I dressed like a man when on the road; thick cotton shirt and hemmed trousers, long riding boots and and a tailored jacket which hugged my curves.

'What do you do then, city lass?' He asked.

'I catch foxes,' I replied. He left it at that. I'm not sure if he understood my meaning, but he left me well enough alone.

Another night I called on his employee - likely his daughter - to ask her some questions. She would be more easily swayed by my appearance there, by the clear authority my clothing and manner bestowed. I asked her, 'what is the largest industry in this town?'

'The mines,' she replied, eyeing my notes.

'Hm. And the second?'

'Likely the fields, farmhands, that sort of thing.'

'And whores? What about whores?'

She bulked a little at that. Beneath a withering stare she swallowed and answered. 'There's the brothel off Pike's Pass, half-mile north.'

I checked the map I had sketched. 'Near the mines?'

'Aye. Most of the men visit before coming on here.'

'And the girls there, all human?'

'What... what did you say you do?'

'I catch foxes.'

She frowned at me through eyes I guessed had never seen beyond the town's borders. 'Then why you interested in the girls at the whorehouse?'

'Are they all human?'

'Far as I know. All Marshirian too.' Maybe she was not as foolish as I had first thought. She had predicted my next question.

'How do you know that?'

'They come about their business here on Restday, only day the master lets them down from the hills.'

'He runs a tight ship then, this master?'

'Don't they always? His kind...'

I glanced up, hiding my excitement in catching her slip. 'Her kind, that being masters?'

The girl looked away down the bar, clearly hoping to see an impatient patron. No such respite. 'That's right,' she said. 'I have work to do.'

I watched her leave and made a note to visit the brothel on Restday, two days time. The master would send out his whores and stay behind to count them as they came back. A perfect time to question him. If he was foreign, as I suspected from the barmaid's slip, then he would be easier to interrogate without a host of protective whores about him.

The next night I was planning on retiring early. The stew served up by the landlord was decent enough, a plentiful winter - bless the Gods - had seen him able to serve up hearty meals through the spring. Well fed and with a belly swilling with ale, I packed up my books and was about to make for my room when a lithe hand wrapped about my shoulder. I turned, my senses heightened, and found myself face to face with a tall man who, even in the flickering of firelight, wore his dark skin like the moon's shadow. I frowned. 'Can I help you, sir?'

'Sit down, foxcatcher,' he replied. His accent was not Marshirian, not Carathian either, it was plain and provincially spun, but with a hint of something exotic I could not place. 'I'm here to save you a trip.'

I was diligent, though I could not say why. As I sat back upon my stool at the bar and watched him sink onto the one beside, I drank in the sight of him. The man was tall and tan, with a bright, open expression which played across his thin, wide mouth. His hair was swept back from his face, left long, brunette and thick. The stubble on his jaw was neatly kept, there by intent. He had the full body of money, of good coin and a stocked larder. Mid-born, I guessed, perhaps the son of some non-noteworthy wealth. 'You are the master of the local brothel,' I said plainly. My throat was dry. I swallowed.

'I am,' he replied. 'And you've been asking around about me.'

I wanted to be coy, to be measured with him. Something in his eyes commanded me, his gaze burning a hole through the carefully curated facade I had been wearing for years. All I could say in reply beneath that glare was, 'I have.' He did not frighten me. If he was coming to me he knew why I asked for him, he knew the protections I carried. It was a different compulsion to fear I felt, his words and poise so far without threat. He didn't say a word, just kept looking. I lost myself for a moment, drifting away in a stare which invited further comment. My lips moved wordlessly for a moment, mind preoccupied with the thought of his dark skin beneath my soft, learned hands. The sound came to my voice before I could stop it, rising like the heat in my blood. 'I was making enquiries after your origins.'

'And why were you doing that?'

'I had reason to believe that you may be of dissenting persuasion.'

'Meaning?' He knew the answers to these questions before I could formulate them myself. His daring offended me but I was too taken in his scent, in his body. He wore an open shirt of cheap silk, clasps open over his taut chest. As my eyes drifted I caught sight of his hose and riding boots, the bulge there at his crotch apparent. I was staring before I could think to stop myself. I looked there at the heart of his manhood, to where the silk was caught in folds and pulled taught about the ridges of his sex. My mouth was dry. 'I catch foxes,' I said, but I didn't believe it.

'You hunt elves and foreigners,' he said. There was a lace of fury and hatred to his not-quite-exotic voice.

'I do. Look, master... this is none of your concern. If you have nothing to hide...'

His hand came up like a shot and coiled itself around my collar like a viper. I felt myself falling towards him, and I thought perhaps that he meant to strike me. Either that or kiss me. For the second of my collapse I would have welcomed either. 'We don't like your kind here,' he hissed in my ear. His breath was warm. It unfurled like smoke down the back of my shirt, sending tendrils of shivers which shot down nerves and gathered in my awakening womanhood. I ducked my head down onto his shoulder and let him chastise me. I could not have broken free of that grasp with even the strength of the Gods behind me.

'If you want secrets, foxcatcher, you're coming with me.'

I opened my mouth to obey, but before words escaped, his fingers were there. With a strength I did not anticipate he forced my lips apart and I felt the bitter taste of some poison diluting on my tongue. The heat of it through my body was like being caught in flames, it burrowed and it probed, and as it gathered in my groin with throbbing intensity everything went dark.

When I came around I suspected that I might be dead. Once the irony of the thought passed I opened by eyes to a stone chamber lit only by the wan incandescence of candles. I was led on a hard surface, and when I attempted to shift I found that I was bound about the ankles and by the wrists. My heart stirred. Confusion gave way to fear, gave way to rationalisation. If I was meant to be killed then I would have been by now, surely? I struggled against my restraints, spread-eagle and helpless. The stone upon which I was held was cold against my naked - I was naked? - skin. My futile attempts at escape only highlighted that, to my surprise, my body was alert with arousal.

I had been drugged. My mind raced. I knew all the poisons and toxins common to this part of the world, and a number more besides. There was none I had come across to knock a woman out and cause her to wake permanently aroused. I flexed muscles often ignored, a pulse running through my sex. There was something inside of me, I realised, and I was so aroused, so wet, that it offered no discomfort. I should have been terrified, but instead my mind raced with all the delights of the flesh which may be about to befall me. I flexed my muscles again and gasped at the wave of pleasure which cascaded through my insides and across my slick skin. I ought have been furious, indignant, terrified. But waking so, as though already on the edge of some relief, stole all but the dredges of gratitude.

I held my breath when, sometime later, a rattling creak stirred me from my racing thoughts. I heard footsteps, bare feet on flagstones, and I raised my head to look. 'Keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them.' The master's voice was harsh and laced with ice. The chills which careened through me were like shards of lightning. I shut my eyes right shut and let the darkness envelop me. 'Good girl.'

The footsteps drew nearer, until I felt the latent heat of him coming up my body, until he was beside my head. My breathing was ragged, each breath tighter and shorter than the last. My stretched womanhood, which had been beginning to settle, was alive again, throbbing against its occupant.

'You're very compliant for a foxcatcher,' he said. The hint of nails against my skin caused my back to arch. He withdrew, leaving my skin shivering. I moaned errantly. 'Aren't you the one supposed to be giving orders?'

My words were, predictably, strained, barely escaping my aching throat. 'I... I don't know what to say.'

'Yes you do.' He growled. I felt his breath again on my neck as he stooped down to me. I groaned again, desperate whimpers as I begged without saying as much that he. may bless me with his touch. 'You know that you're supposed to say: "I'm powerless to resist your words, master." Say it.'

'I'm powerless to resist your words, master.'

'"I will obey your every command and satisfy your every whim."'

I said it. I would have shouted it if I could have, but my throat was tight and my heart was thumping with such dreadful force that I could barely contain it.

'Now,' he was gone again, his voice coming from somewhere near my feet. 'Tell me what you want.'

'I want you to touch me.'

'Be polite.'

'I want you to touch me, master.'

I felt him smile, it was as though the candles flickered for a moment. 'Is that so? Where do you want...' a nail, agonising in its torture, traced a line from my chest downwards. I gasped. The chains which were binding my wrists rattled as I strained against them. I pushed my hips upwards, imagining that if I made my arousal clear to him that he would ordain to give me what I wanted most. '... me to touch you?' He finished, his voice trailing away.

'My... my...' I knew he would deny it if I asked him to touch the sensitive spot of my sex. Besides it, soaking and slick, I could feel the strain of my nipples. 'My nipples.'

'Your nipples?' His fingers were there suddenly, rough and harsh. His fingers were like a vice, pulling the delicate, sensitive skin of my nipples hard and upward. I gasped and cried out, the jolt of pleasure and pain through me enough to send a trickle down my inner thigh. He released me and I heaved breaths, pushing my hips upwards, straining and turning.

'My... my clit,' I said, that was the city term, a modern discovery. Would he know it?

'Your clit?' His tone was filled with derision, as if my womanhood was an object of disgust to him. 'You mean... this pathetic thing?' He flicked the skin there, it was but a finger but felt like a whip. I screamed out and jumped so hard the chains caught me and pulled at my limbs. As swiftly as it came it was gone, leaving the memory of it remaining in an ebbing flow. I panted, sweat pouring down my brow. 'Poor girl,' he hissed. 'You've been straining like this for hours... it must be so painful.'

'It is, master.'

'Wouldn't you like release?'

'Yes, master.'

'Do you think you've earned it?'

Somehow I knew I hadn't. This torture, the agony building in my groin, was nothing compared to what I felt I owed him. Why? What toxin had he filled me which left me so helpless before him, so willing to do anything within my power to fulfil his whims? 'No, master.'

'That's the right answer, girl. First we're going to test your ability to resist.'

A rattle and suddenly the binding about my right wrist came away and my arm went slack. I let it hang for a moment, only flexing the muscles to tempt blood back into my aching hand. 'Do. Not. Move.' He said plainly. A foot brushed my side as he climbed onto my stone bed. I kept my eyes closed, though as I felt the weight of him pressing down onto my chest it was all I could do to force them shut.

The heat was immense. It was bare flesh, it was the roughness of his skin. My sex throbbed. I felt a climax burrowing within me, and I twitched helplessly, the sense of some relief but not enough. 'Open your eyes,' he said.

I opened them hungrily. The master was sat on my chest, his legs either side of my head. There, mere inches from my lips, his cock was presented to me on a blaze of desire so keen that I almost yelled out in pleasure. It was thick and so hard I could see it strain, the candlelight catching the hint of moisture at the tip. The scent of masculinity, of him, of salt and sweat made me forgot the thirst in my throat and forced on me desperation to taste him.

'Put your tongue away,' he said stoically. As if to drive home his point he pressed down his ass on my chest and drove the air from me. I gasped. 'I'm going to touch myself. You are not to move. If you try and touch yourself with your free hand you will be punished. Do you understand?'

'Yes, master.'

'Do not talk. Do not moan. You are going to watch me as diligently and as silently as you read your little notes. Understood?'

I nodded. I had never seen a man draw out his own pleasure before. Until that moment I thought it only to be an ugly thing, function and perversion and laziness. As I watched, he wrapped a strong hand about his length and began to stroke. He was larger than most men I had seen, some eight inches, so hard that the skin was taut and the head great and round. There he found some secret rhythm, and as he found it a soft groan escaped him. My cunt twitched. I felt liquid being teased from it by my own pitiful straining.

He touched himself that way for a good while, alternating his pace, adjusting his touch. The longer he continued the more of his own wetness escaped, it trickled from him to my chest. I bit my bottom lip hard to stop the moan desperate inside of me, I flexed and I strained and the object inside of me fucked me. My legs were shaking. With every quickening of his pace I strained. The temptation to break the command was as overpowering as anything I had ever experienced before. My hand, now fully revived, was moving on its own, coming towards by waist before falling back as I caught it.

To distract me from the sight of his glistening cock I looked up to his chest, to his face. His eyes were dark and intense, they burrowed into me, they spoke words I was desperate to hear. The desire in his expression, the pleasure, I watched his cock again, his eyes, his cock. My heart hammered. I dropped my gaze again, finding that he was running a finger about the head of his cock. The wetness there was sticky and slick, he drew back the skin about his cock and revealed the head of it. I dug my nails into my palm. It was inches from my mouth, I could lean up and take it, lick over that beautiful, glistening shape. My cunt was almost bouncing, fucking itself as my own wetness poured from me. I was going to cum, I could feel it. The pressure was building with each strain. I let out a breath which sounded dangerously close to a moan. His fingers found my mouth and my tongue was coated in his scent. I groaned and buckled, my hand shooting up and wrapping about the end of that smooth shape inside of me.

'Bad girl,' he hissed. 'Very bad.'

I came back to myself and panted desperately, losing all sense of the control I had been so good to exhibit before. I had barely given myself a single touch before he slapped my hand away. 'I'm sorry, master,' I whispered. 'I'm sorry, please... I couldn't take it... your cock is so... I couldn't help myself.'

'Poor girl,' he smiled, his lips curling into a sneer. He tucked his dark hair behind his pointed ears. Pointed ears. An elf? I should have cared, but I didn't. It made perfect sense.

I bit my lip to stop the noises escaping me. The fox had caught me. He shifted, moving up my body. His cock came to rest on my face, his coarse, heavy balls against my lips. When I heaved in air I was intoxicated by the heady scent, the sweaty sharpness of it. His cock was like a red poker on my skin, it burned. I whimpered, desperate to run my tongue up the length of it.

'Poor foxcatcher. I was perfectly willing to let you have what you want,' his hand came down next to my cunt.

I gasped. The ache only became more keen, more severe. I felt in that moment that my womanhood may explode, that it may rupture from the pressure he was causing with nary a touch.

'But now you've been bad. Such a simple instruction. I really thought that you'd be able to follow it. Too bad.'

Fingers wrapped the object inside of me and I twitched in his hand. What punishment would this be? He was stroking it in and out of me, slowly, but enough that the pressure began to build with every motion. Smoothly, without breaking his rhythm, he pressed his skin against my mouth. I groaned openly, parting my lips and letting the warmth and the masculine taste onto my tongue. I arched back my head and lashed my tongue against his stiff length.

'No.' He barked, his hand abruptly halting. 'You don't get to taste my cock.' He shifted and pressed his balls into my mouth. 'You worship my balls or you don't eat anything at all.'

I didn't care. He was letting me use my tongue on him and that was all that mattered. His skin was supple, it filled my lips, my senses. The smell drove me wild, rolled my eyes. All the while his heavy cock slid against my face, dominated all I could see. My cunt screamed, it was being pounded now, the hard slaps of the long smooth object in me awakening something I'd never known.