The Merrow and the Rope Maker

"I know you," she said brashly, "You're Mister Smith's new ward."

The boy's face shot up. He looked alarmed, his face glowing with a pink blush. His eyes were enormous, even larger when filled with tears, and the same colour as the sea outside.

"Crikey!" Cassie exclaimed, "You look like the merrow in a picture in my house!"

The boy cocked his head, like a pigeon.

"They're very beautiful," Cassandra went on, then felt all warm and silly. She hastily ferreted in her pinny for the shell and held it out to him. "Here," she said quickly.

The boy sniffed, rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, and hesitantly took the shell. He held it like precious glass and stared. Cassie stared at him.

"Thank you," he said in a small voice. Then he glanced up and shrank into his arms. "Please, don't look at me. Boys aren't meant to cry."

Cassie snorted. "What nonsense. You cry all you like." She plonked herself next to him and fixed him with a goggling gaze. "I'll stay here 'til you feel better and I'll look at you the whole time so you know you don't have nothing to be ashamed of."

The boy looked confused. Then he smiled so brightly he outshone the sea.

"What's this still doing in your pocket?" Cassandra asked softly.

Jacob's mouth twitched shyly. He shrugged and popped the shell back into its safe place. His arm looped back around her. He kissed the corner of her mouth, then answered pensively, looking down. "I think it reminds me I have someone who likes me at my lowest." He puffed out through his nose. "I'm the town jester..."

"Village idiot."

He tickled her, releasing the laugh she'd reined back before.

He grinned puckishly, then sobered and leaned on his tongue to keep speaking. "I am a fool and a tumbler to everyone here, smiling through the long winters, telling stories in the dark." He faltered, his fingers stirred anxiously on her back. He huffed and spoke faster. "Sometimes I'm afraid that if I stop smiling... Stop dancing..." He trailed off and looked at her with the same hesitant shame she remembered from their first meeting. The emotion he so rarely showed, only really to her.

Something heavy thunked into place in Cassandra's mind. She melted into the realisation. She stroked her hands up to cup his face, running her thumbs over his delicate cheeks. "That people won't want to look at you anymore," she finished for him.

Jacob's mouth slid into a flat line. "Orphans are untethered by nature. We're the first to drift from the mooring when a storm hits."

His words coated Cassandra like rust. Fire anger turned to sea anger. Not with him, but for him. Petty jealousy shrivelled, she cursed herself for it. Jacob pleased everyone. Of course, how had she never seen it? He was a merrow indeed, and merrows kept souls in cages. But in the story, the sea fairy wasn't cruel to the fisherman, he was a host, a helper, a friend. Jacob spent his life caging souls, so that he might have company when the sea rose around him. She clasped him between her hands and locked him to her with her gaze. She'd known since she first came upon him steps away from this spot, she would never let this precious creature drift from her.

"But you..." Jacob's wavering voice broke into her thoughts. "You still like me when I'm low." He swallowed, tucking his chin into her hands. "Right?"

Cassandra warmed. He was looking at her with such hope, such vulnerability. She felt herself grow. She wanted to shield him, envelop him, enclose him like a pearl. Resolve and heat pooled in her abdomen, as an idea kernelled in her mind.

She ran her hands to his shoulders. "I still like you when you're sad," she corrected him, a smile flickering over her lips, "I like you better when you're low."

She pressed on his shoulders. Her belly bubbled, as he sank without resistance, holding her eye and dropping to his knees in a pillow of sand. A cord of lightning conjoined their eyes.

"I'm sorry for not asking you to dance," he said.

"Did you want to?"

His eyes glittered, even in the wash of darkness between her towering body and the wall. He nuzzled her skirts. Her heart skipped.

"So much." His fluting voice dropped low, husking. "Watching you through the bonfire, I couldn't see where the flames ended and you began."

She sucked on her lip, something coiling tight at her core. She combed her fingers into his hair, dry from the salt air and knotted. "Say you belong to me again."

Jacob opened his mouth on her dress, the fabric ruffling between his teeth. His voice muffled and threaded with a half-moan. "I belong to you, Cassie."

Heat broke out on her neck. Her heart kicked up into a tarantella. She stifled a shake, as she pulled from him. He looked bereft. Then he caught the spark in her eye. His gaze turned keen.

"Spread your coat out." The command in her voice excited her. Even more so, the haste with which he obeyed. He wrestled his coat off speedily and threw it across the sand. He flashed her a wolf cub look, still on his knees. His shirt fell loose over his body, pale as seafoam, barely touching his skin, leaving easy openings for her that made her fingertips tingle. His britches hugged his thighs and a subtle peek showed a tantalising thickness in his crotch. She bit her lip and pushed herself away from him.

This cave was used by the fisher folk to store a few old boats and extra odds and ends, ready to re-employ if any were wrecked. Much of her family's work was in here. She went to the jumble at the back of the shallow cave and rooted around in a chipped rowboat. She soon found a good coil of rope. She picked it up and hefted it in her hands, drawing her fingers along the weave. Fine craftsmanship. Strong. Tough. Supple. She looped it over her shoulder. Her abdomen fluttered. She kicked off her shoes, tucked her hands under her skirts and slipped off her stockings. The cold air sneaked over her bare, tingling flesh. She gasped at a sudden bolt of desire. She steadied herself and came back to Jacob, sat cross-legged on the coat, like a pixie on a toadstool. She saw him glimpse her bare feet, his mouth going slack and his cheeks glimmering.

She paced around him, his face turning with her. She came to his back and knelt. She ducked her mouth to his ear, grinning when he dropped his head back and shuddered at her whisper. "Take off your shirt."

Again, he hurried to obey. Again, it thrilled her. He scrabbled to pull the shirt over his head and cast it aside. Her breath caught. His back was narrow, but watercolour shadow slipped into the furrows of muscle and painted him like a frieze. His biceps mounded subtly and his shoulders were round and soft. Goosebumps prickled across his flesh, his spine slinking under his skin, as the cold touched him. Touched him like she longed to. Now she was jealous again, but it was a clean, delicious jealousy. She ran her hands down his arms, leaving a trail of warmth. He sighed and leaned back, his hair dusting her cheek. They halted for a brief moment, nervous, shaken, but utterly trusting in the night to lead them on. She took his wrists and folded them behind him. With careful, precise movements, she set his forearms like crossbars on his back, and began to wind the rope around them.

"What are you doing?" he whispered, craning his head around, his shoulder blades jutting, as he tensed.

"Tethering you," she replied, "I will never let you be unmoored, Jake, no matter the storm."

A breath rushed through him. He closed his eyes and pressed his brow to her cheek. He held himself stiller than she'd ever seen him.

He nodded.

She began to wind the rope around his body. She looped it over his shoulders and passed it through the crooks of his arms, slipped it under itself into bends and links, circled it around his arms, drawing them into his sides. She nibbled the tip of her tongue, watching the stern grooves carve into his muscle, accentuating the strength often kept secret by his slenderness. She followed the pathways of his body, framing freckles, nestling into dimples, segmenting him into a gaming board for enjoyment.

As she worked with her dexterous hands, she felt herself fall into the familiar motions of the rope maker. It gave her confidence, it grounded her. She had never done this to a man, never even imagined it, not in seriousness, at least. But somehow, she understood. The rope spoke to her, like herbs speak to cunning women, like winds speak to navigators. And so did his body. She tracked how he moved, as she worked. How he settled into the cradle when she pulled it tight, how he shivered when she dragged the rough flax over his skin. Sometimes he flinched and she adjusted until he relaxed. Sometimes she struck a flame on him and he gasped and writhed, the rope tugging in her grip. She extinguished his struggles with deep kisses on his neck, flying on the flavour of his skin, salt and smoke. He always opened for her, stretching his neck, thin whimpers escaping him and tickling her between her legs.

She tied off the harness around his torso. She grazed his pulse with her teeth and sucked. He hummed and flexed his shoulders. The rope creaked. The sea rolled and echoed in the cave, like the echo of a dream calling someone about to wake.

Cassandra slid to Jacob's front. She beamed on seeing his face, his eyes hooded, his mouth puckered, his hair tousled on his smooth brow, his Adam's apple bobbing, as he gulped the air in to stay solid. His gaze floated to her and his brow creased helplessly. Her hips rocked instinctively. She tapped his boot. He complied without needing clarification, straightening his legs. She slid to straddle him, drawing up her skirts to pool around his waist and slotting herself against his cool, quivering body. She rubbed his neck and shoulders and let her eyes rove leisurely around her handiwork. In the silvery dimness, the rope looked like lines of gunpowder drizzled over him, a trail to set alight. It criss-crossed around him, netting him, subtly teasing him, as he shifted underneath it and reshaped to its clasp. The spiralling weave lined the base of his nipples. Her eyes focused on the ruddy points, hardened by cold and want, pricking sharper, as the rope kissed them. Goosebumps made his skin look so wonderfully tender. She ran her fingertip lighter than a feather down his chest. His breath ripped out him and he shuddered between her thighs, his eyes closing reverently. She had never seen him like this. She soared. She felt immortal.

"Why does this feel so good?" he whispered hoarsely.

She grinned and kissed his cheek, his blush hot against her lips. "How so?"

"It's... It's like you're touching me, but more. Holding me, but more."

"There now, I've caught myself a merrow."

He chuckled, his chest bouncing, so the rope scuffed his nipples. "What do you want with a merrow?"

Jacob heard the question leave him, the need for her answer struck him deep. As she'd wrapped him, he'd felt himself trickling into the rope, his flesh forging to it, to her. It made him giddy, it entranced him. The rope snaked on him, both quelling and stirring his restlessness. It ground on him and kindled his skin. His nipples sang with sensation. His cock pushed insistently against his close-fitting britches and ached. The weight of her on him drove him mad. His senses flung between the paradise of safety, enclosed in the knotwork and the embrace of her thighs, and the pandemonium of lust that entrapment whipped up in his blood. He couldn't touch her, so all his mind could do was scream petulantly about every swell and sliver of her body that he longed to hold, to knead, to caress, to bring to life. And he couldn't struggle against her. Cassandra was a storm, a warrior, an adventurer. Being bound beneath her felt exquisitely dangerous, like running with a herd of wild horses. Here, veiled by moonlight and the noise of the sea, in an oasis of warmth in the cold October night, she could do anything to him. And that was all he wanted. It was all he had ever wanted.

Her hands massaged his neck. His throat caught. She could choke him and it would elate him. Being touched by her, held by her, gazed at by her intimately - the joy of it stopped time.

She brushed her lips on his, drawing his desire to the surface. She whispered to him, like telling a secret. "Let all those souls go, Jake. Come and live on land with me."

Her words rested on his exposed flesh, like moths on wood. He dwelled on them. She was scooping him up and holding him secure, letting him be himself, cutting loose the cares and chaos he hauled behind him. Gratitude and relief flooded him. They stung his eyes. They constricted his chest, tighter than the rope. He collapsed forward and buried his face in her neck and heaved in a deep breath of her familiar, comforting scent. A dry sob tumbled over his exhale. She clasped him in her arms, strumming the rope, reminding him that he was held, promising to always hold him. He kissed her neck softly. The taste of her skin reawakened his lust. He opened his mouth and slithered his tongue over her throat. Jacob pleased everyone. But pleasing and pleasuring were different. Cassandra made him raw and reckless. She lay in the domain of pleasure.

Cassandra's core coiled and welled, as Jacob lapped over her jugular and ran silken lips on her evermore sensitive skin. He ran his mouth up to her ear and nipped it. She bucked against his hardness. He murmured musically to her and it filled her with flame.

"If I'm a sprite, then tell me what you wish."

She sighed. She stroked his arms. "Aren't you tired of granting wishes?"

"Not yours." He padded his lips down her neck, a new flutter going through her veins with each light kiss. "Never yours."

She wilted into him. She pushed him from her neck and sealed their mouths together. His tongue writhed with hers. She ached in her vulva. A hundred points of pleasure burst to life on her body, each one crying out for him. She kept kissing him fiercely, as she wrestled the lacing of her dress open and wrenched down the cups of her chemise. Biting cool washed over her bared breasts. She lost the definition between ice and fire. All of it stimulated her, all of it crazed her. He was just like the rope she made, shaping to her touch, letting her weave him into something strong and ready for use. His mouth was hungry, his tongue was wily. The thought of it on her body almost tore her apart.

She drove her hands into his hair and broke their kiss. He groaned, then groaned deeper, as he saw her breasts rise into the trickle of moonlight, her nipples pert and full.

"Kiss my tits," Cassandra hissed.

Jacob swore, but the word was lost, as he collapsed to her breasts. He lavished kisses on them, sucking in a spiral that drew closer and closer to her nipple. She burned hotter and hotter, as his mouth closed in, her heart cantering and her nails scratching his scalp to spur him on. He took her nipple into his mouth and lashed it with his tongue, flicking and swirling and shooting pleasure through her flesh, as she wriggled and mewled.

"Yes... Oh, Jake..."

"Damn, Cassie..."

He murmured unintelligibly into her quivering flesh, briefly burying his face in her softness, then coming up flushed and diving to tease her other nipple with his teeth. Pain and pleasure and want raced through her. She felt him swell, bumping her clit, drumming her with need. The sea rose to a rushing roar. It coursed through her body. She began to rock in its rhythm, surging forward on his mound with its advance, slipping back with its retreat. Jacob's moans rose and fell with her. They hummed on her flesh, as he attacked her breasts with new passion, his tongue dancing like the bonfire.

"Jake, your mouth..."

He nipped the underside of her breast. She jumped and landed on his cock. They both yapped at the impact shocking up them.

"What about my mouth?" he panted.

"Oh Devil, I want it everywhere."

"Tell me."

The sea surged. Need surged. A cry of drunken celebration gusted to them on a breeze. Cassandra was suddenly violently aware of how close they were to the party. It exhilarated her.

"Kiss my neck."

He flew to her neck and gnawed on it.

"My cheek."

He peppered her face with kisses.

"My hand."

His lips caressed her hand, he licked her palm, he sucked each of her fingertips, circled his tongue over the thrumming pulse on the inside of her wrist. She watched his eyes flutter open and closed, sometimes worshipfully shut, sometimes wide, drinking her in.

"My tits."

He moaned. He dined on her breasts.

"My shoulder." She tugged her dress further down her arms.

His lips skated along her shoulder, then pressed deep. The ache almost drowned her.

"Bite me."

He sank his teeth into her muscle. Her spine spasmed and arched. She clutched his hair. He hissed. He bit her neck. She squealed and gripped the ropes for balance, chafing his skin and earning another tuneful groan.

She directed him around her body, like a captain ushering his crew around the deck. He moved like a puppet. Every part of her she put to his mouth he received and doted on with lustre. Every word she whispered he heeded instantly. He writhed beneath her, hurrying around her flesh, the ropes snaking on him and his cock tenting his britches and hounding after her cunt, pounding and wet under her dress. Each new sensation bled into the last, coating her in layer upon layer of sweet, maddening tingling. Her hands felt empty. She dashed them eagerly to his britches and fought with the fastenings. His cock sprung free, flooding her with excitement. It was thick and dark with blood, hard as a rudder and pointing like a pistol. She shuddered. He looked at her hotly, waves tossing in his lagoon eyes.

"Does this belong to me too?" she teased.

His hips twisted and his teeth ground. "Fuck, Cassie, everything of me belongs to you. But especially this. Damn, I want you so much, I can't think."

In the shadow between their bodies, she glimpsed a slick on the tip of his cock, shining. She palmed it. He cried out and threw his head back. She laughed and wrapped her fingers around him with the other hand. She began to work him firmly, her hand tightening and loosening and twisting, as it stroked, her other palm massaging the tip. He slinked and rocked, so she felt like she was riding a rowboat, her sighs and giggles coming on the current of his moans and movement. She coated his shaft in his slick, stroking with more fluidity, smooth and slow and speedy by turns.

"Christ, Cassie, please..." he whimpered to the sky.

"Do you like this?" she chuckled.

He nodded vigorously, his smile escaping and dazzling her in the darkness. "But I won't last. I need you to stop."

Cassandra pouted at him, but relented. They kissed fiercely, his mouth growing sloppy and his tongue scooping hers desperately. The eagerness of it made the air sizzle around her. Her clit and her core beat with desire.

"Jake," she moaned, "You're so hungry."

"I'm fucking starving," he smiled and dropped and sucked her breast raw.

She arched her spine to push deeper into his mouth. The way his tongue sawed and slithered on her nipple made her burn for it elsewhere. She wrenched herself from him, both of them sighing at their separation. She scrambled off his lap, sat back, and took him in. He was blindingly beautiful, rousingly randy, trussed, and flushed from her kisses and the graze of the rope, his cock like a red tulip covered in dew. His tongue moved in his mouth hypnotically.

She leaned back on one hand. Her heart sped from a canter to a gallop. She spread her legs. She gathered her skirts in her fist and drew them up. As the heavy curtain lifted on her vulva, Jacob's expression turned into a magic lantern show. He struggled in his bonds, he bit his lip, he glared so hot it boiled her blood. He softened, he turned dreamy. He shifted onto his knees. His torso dropped towards her, like his tongue had turned to lead, weighting the rest of his body and pulling it down.