The Ruined Castle

© 2021 by T.S. Fairfield. Uploaded to Literotica.com; The author reserves all rights. No further use or dissemination without the author's expressed permission.

This is a work of fiction, and all participants are aged 18 or older. You must be at least 18 to read this.

Feedback is not only welcomed but encouraged, and each comment will be thoughtfully considered, except for obvious trolling.

The question posed here concerns the nature of infidelity, and whether it is possible to commit adultery, given the conditions related in the story, below.

Prologue

The events below occurred when I was a much younger man, when Scotland was even more empty than it is now and before technology erased much of the isolation and solitude of the wild, wide open spaces of the world.

Even though the world has changed, and I've changed, the events of that crisp autumn night long ago, haunt me to this day. As I look at my beautiful wife of 44-years, the question still haunts and torments me, 'Did I cheat on her?' How many times I've wanted to tell her, but to what end? I'm not sure I understand what occurred, and I was there. I'll let you decide.

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In the Highlands of Scotland, time, memory, and distance often merge into a haze that is as impenetrable as the morning mists shrouding the still waters of the deep, cold Lochs. Legend and reality slip deftly together, weaving a version of history that is as ancient and unchanging as the high, weathered crags and as elusive as the cold winds wandering the lonely Highlands. On the narrow, winding macadam, it's always today, the present, the now. But be aware that just off the road exists a timeless land, where only the silent acquiescence of the ghostly past allows the present to exist ever so tenuously.

Through this haunting land, I rode, draped across the back of a classic Norton motorcycle. I had been riding all day, dodging an occasional autumn rain shower and enjoying the mysterious vastness of the countryside. And the longer I rode, the clearer it became that I had taken a wrong turn somewhere earlier in the afternoon because I should have passed through the village of Cairnlairg some while ago. The road upon which I rode was utterly deserted.

Downshifting the big bike, I pulled over to the side of the narrow, single-lane road and looked at my map. "Shit! I must've screwed up miles ago." I scrutinized the map again and added, "I think." I saw another possible road on my map. 'Which one was I on?' I wondered. Then, another squiggly map line revealed another road that was a possibility. "No wonder the fucking Romans walled this place off!" I was hopelessly lost and could be in any of three places.

I angrily tossed the map, and as if on cue, the wandering wind whipped it over a low bluff and into a fast-flowing stream. Chasing my errant map, the steep drop thwarted my pursuit into the bolder-strewn course below. "Way to go, dummy!" I admonished myself! My Royal Ordinance Survey map joined the frothy confluence and quickly disappeared.

Lost! Not paying attention to the road and unwilling to consult my map earlier had gotten me here, wherever 'here' was. It was my own damned fault. The day's peaceful solitude suddenly donned the impassive mask of loneliness. The vast emptiness of the highlands in autumn is so overpowering that it's almost a solid object.

From the low angle of the sun, I realized that I was going to be out here all night. My fuel level was satisfactory, so no worries there, but the prospect of driving off into the darkness and missing a road sign or a turnoff did not sit well. I was upset, mad, and tired.

On the plus side was the fact that I had camping gear, and Scotland has virtually no trespassing laws. So, calming down, I began to look for a place to camp. I would get a good night's sleep, and in the morning, I would head back the way I'd come and find the right road. Tomorrow night, good food, some excellent brews, and a friendly, warm bed awaited me.

I drove slowly and scanned the roadside for a sheltered, dry place where I could pitch my little dome tent, and I nearly missed it in the low sun. A quarter-mile off the road, there stood a silhouetted ruin standing upon a low, rocky promontory. In the harsh light, the single-tower castle was barely distinguishable from the rock itself, but the sight of it made me brake hard and nearly wreck the bike.

Like it was the most natural thing to do, I decided to sleep there. "A castle! Damn!" I could see myself passing my photos around to the boys at work. I would be the Laird of my own domain for one night.

The road that led to the castle hardly deserved to be called a road, as it was overgrown and nearly impassable. The faint trail led around to the south side of the hill, where the slope was gentler, and snaked its way to the gate opening in a series of tight, switch-back turns. Twice, I nearly lost control of the big bike, but my desire to 'have' this place drove me onward and upward.

I thought then that my behavior was a little reckless and irrational. I mean, it's just an old ruined castle that would not even deserve a second glance in Edinburgh, York, or London. Plus, if I was ever injured, it's unlikely anyone would find me. However, as I drew closer and had time to look up at the castle, I was surprised at how intact it was. Abandoned, run-down, and in disrepair, it was, but a tumble-down ruin it was not. All the wood had long since rotted away, but the stones had a permanent, if weather-beaten, feel to them.

The high curtain walls were still largely intact and adorned with colorful lichens, vines, and plants sprouted upon and between the stones. Inside, several buildings' roofless walls in various stages of ruination gave the small keep a claustrophobic feel. The castle's great hall's thick walls loomed high, their tall, empty windows staring blankly at me, the visitor. Or was I a trespasser? Even the lonely whispers of the wind between the ancient stones were neutral and non-committal.

While it looked like human habitation, the place felt empty and desolate. I climbed a flight of stone steps and looked over the rampart at the green countryside surrounding the castle. By comparison, the land was cheerful and familiar, and I began to question my choice of accommodations. However, in my tired state with nightfall quickly approaching, the journey back down from my craggy perch was out of the question.

In a few minutes, I'd found a good supply of dry wood from the immediate surroundings and placed it in the great hall. Forsaking my tent, I rolled my sleeping bag out on a raised flagstone dais next to the vast, ruined fireplace that had once heated the hall. Over the fireplace, carved in the stone, was the lion and serpent crest of some long-dead lord. As my fire began to crackle on the old hearth, the first stars showed themselves, and the air started to chill.

Silently, I cooked some canned stew and drank good Scottish spring water from my water-bottle. My mood was somber and brooding as I watched the fire dancing in time to the tempo of the breeze. The faint golden light painted stark shadow pictures on the craggy stone walls that soared above me. This small circle of warmth pulled me into the grip of its tenuous security, and my world became a pool of light with the surrounding darkness now alien and remote. At this moment, I came to understand the relationship between man and fire.

I wondered about the last fire, which had burned in this hearth, and about the people who once called this place home. What rancor and disturbance in the land created the need for people to live here behind sturdy walls? Where had they gone?

To relax and gain control of my runaway thoughts, I pulled a half-liter of good, single-malt Scotch whiskey from my pack. With my back against the wall and my fire well banked, I drank and watched the night sky. I sang loud and off-key, more the scared little boy than the stereotypical drunk.

Soon, pleasantly drunk, I snuggled down in my sleeping bag and let the fatigue of the day wash over me. My last image was of the flickering firelight, gold upon the old mossy stones.

The hand upon my face brought me wide awake, and my fight-or-flight response exploded within me! In an instant, I was calmed by the warm mouth upon mine, which caught my primal scream before it ever met the cool, night air. A smooth, naked body slid into my sleeping bag and wrapped itself around me as the warm mouth, and probing tongue pulled me deeper and deeper into a smoldering kiss.

Strong, feminine hands tore at my sweatshirt and pants. When she broke the kiss to pull my shirt over my head, I tried to speak. "Who are you?"

She pulled back from me and laughed sweetly. In the faint light of the dying embers, I saw a gentle, smiling face framed by long, dark hair. A garland of Highland flowers contrasted sharply with her hair and filled the air with their subtle perfume. Eyes, the color of obsidian reflected the weak firelight as tiny, red-orange points of light. Stroking my cheek, she spoke gently in a language that was beautiful yet incomprehensible.

In a few moments, my pants and boxers were off, and she took my semi-erect cock in her hand and began to stroke me to hardness. Her mouth again found mine, and I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close. For long minutes, we kissed and caressed, our naked flesh pressing warmly together.

Her breasts were full and heavy with large, dark nipples. Strong hands pulled me tightly to her breasts, and she moaned as I kissed and sucked on them. Wickedly skillful fingers had my cock aching with anticipation.

Just when I thought I was about to die, she straddled me and slipped my erection into the tightest, warmest female sex that I'd ever felt. Her vaginal muscles gripped me and milked me as she rode me with abandon. Quickly, I gave up trying to meet her thrusts and gave over complete control to my mysterious lover.

Her wet mouth was all over my face and neck, kissing and nibbling on me. Repeatedly, our mouths met in intense, wet kisses that took away both our breaths and left us gasping. As her passion rose, she called out louder and louder in her strange dialect that I took to be Gaelic.

When her orgasm hit, she threw her head back and cried out loudly. In the faint light, I could see the white plume of her breath explode into the night air. Twice, about three minutes apart, she did this before my orgasm exploded in blinding intensity. Her mouth covered mine and caught my cries of ecstasy.

My mystery lover seemed to suck the very breath from my body as I spiraled down from my mind-numbing sexual high. Her hot mouth covered mine as she drew the life force from me. I felt the very essence of my soul being drawn out, and in a moment of intense rapture and love, I moved to another plane of consciousness. Was this death? As I passed out, I was looking into those dark, beautiful eyes that gave away nothing but love and warmth.

I awoke early from my intense sleep and could scarcely move from the stiffness brought on by sleeping on the cold, stone floor. My head pounded from a severe hangover, and I had to fight back the urge to throw up as nausea gripped me. Recalling the experience from the night before, I was surprised that I was dressed. I vividly remembered being naked but could not recall getting dressed again. In fact, the whole thing, though starkly real in my recollection, seemed dreamlike and ethereal.

I shook my head violently to clear the cobwebs. "What on Earth happened to me?" I wondered aloud.

I saw the half-empty bottle of Scotch lying on the mossy floor, and my stomach turned over again in revulsion. The whole experience had to have been the whiskey's effects, an over-active imagination, and an exhausting day.

Even by the light of a new day, the castle looked lonely, desolate, and not just a little menacing. Beams of morning sun streamed in horizontally through the few small, highly-placed east-facing windows and gave the place an eerie feel as golden sunbeams chased blue shadows. The blue sky, high overhead, stood in stark contrast to the dark walls. Feelings of depression, sadness, and a strange sense of loss prompted me to change clothes and pack quickly. I wanted to get the hell out of that sad, somber place.

While changing clothes, I noticed wetness in my underwear and realized that I'd had a wet dream for the first time since my teenage years. "That was some dream," I swore off drinking, then and there.

Hastily, I gathered my gear, packed it on the big bike, and started down the hill. I got to the road and stopped for a look at this castle of tortured dreams. In the fresh morning light, it looked stark and insolent. What had seduced me in the surreal light of a grand afternoon now looked like a one-night stand at the breakfast table.

Opening the throttle, I roared off down the road looking for my elusive turnoff to Cairnlairg. Deep draughts of the cool morning air refreshed me and cleared my head. Every mile between me and that place seemed to shed the depression and sadness like scales flaking away.

I rode seventeen miles, and there, nearly hidden in a copse of trees, was the intersection with a signpost in Gaelic and English that pointed the way to the village. By ten o'clock, I had parked my bike and was sitting in a small pub, ravenously hungry.

A heavyset woman in her fifties laid two menus at my table and walked back to the kitchen. That was strange, I thought, but my curiosity was quickly overwhelmed by my hunger.

"Ya ready ta order, sir?" the woman asked in a deep brogue.

"Yes. I'd like the full breakfast. Tea with milk and sugar." My mouth watered as I ordered.

"Will yer wife be orderin' too?"

"My wife?"

She pointed at my left hand. "Yer wife is at the inn changin' or packin'?"

"No. She's at home in America and hates to travel abroad."

The lady shook her head in disgust and wrote down my order. She almost walked away, and then, like the pragmatic Scot that she is, she pointed at my neck and said, "Ya should na' go home for a few days, lad."

"What?"

She pointed at a mirror next to the coat rack. "Have a lewk." The woman shook her head and walked away, mumbling.

A sense of foreboding filled me as I took one of the longest walks of my life. Tilting my head back, I noticed three large bruises on my neck. 'Love bites' we used to call them, and not since I was fifteen had I had one of these on me. "Son-of-a-bitch!"

I wolfed down my food under the disapproving eyes of the old woman and left. As bad as I didn't want to return to the castle, something compelled me to go back and try to find my lover. An air of mystery and contradiction hung over this whole thing like a dark cloud, and I wanted answers.

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With a full tank of gas, a full belly, and a double measure of determination, I rode back to the castle. Approaching the small valley, feelings of sadness and foreboding returned, and I sought to replace them with anger at the woman who did this to me. Guilt and anger at myself also began to creep into my emotions. "How could I have let myself do this?" I wondered aloud. God, I was a mess!

I rounded a small hillock and spied the tracks that I'd left in the dirt upon leaving the road. Where the castle was just hours earlier, I now saw a total, overgrown ruin. The tower and ramparts and great hall were just a massive pile of plant-covered stones.

"What on Earth?" I was so surprised that I let the bike slip from beneath me and slide into the soft grass. Stunned, I began to climb the hill's steep east face and soon reached the ruined wall's foundation. It took but a few moments to realize that this place was an old ruin. Very old!

Confused, I wondered aloud, "Is this the right place?"

But there, amid the profusion of fallen stones, stood the old fireplace of the great hall with its lion and serpent crest. On the old hearth was no trace of fire, and around me, I could find no other sign that I'd ever been there.

I've been punched in the guts and kicked by a horse, but I'd never felt so utterly deflated. I sat heavily upon the fallen stones and felt their cold lifelessness in the marrow of my bones. Tears streamed down my face, and I cried in deep, wracking sobs. I don't know how long I sat there, but the sun was again hanging low when I rose and began to leave. Now, though, I felt at peace as I stepped deliberately from stone to stone.

I saw the spray of color between two giant stones and gingerly picked it up. It was a slightly withered garland of sweet-smelling Highland flowers. Like the page from a rare manuscript, I carried it down the hill and slipped it between the pages of the only book that I had, a book of Sir Walter Scott's poems. It came to rest between the pages of 'Lochinvar'.

I heard a vehicle coming and looked up in time to see an ancient tractor pulling a large hay wagon come round the curve. Driving was a withered old man wearing a gaily colored Tam-O'-Shanter and puffing on an age-yellowed Meerschaum pipe. He throttled back when he saw me and shifted to low gear.

The old man stopped in the middle of the road, shut down the machine, and climbed down with the agility of a man half his age. Pointing at my motorcycle lying on its side, he asked, "Are ya all right, lad? D'ya need a doctor?" His eyes were piercing blue beneath bushy white eyebrows, and genuine concern showed on his face.

"No, sir. I'm okay. I guess."

"What's the matter, lad? Ya look terribly bad, ya do."

"Oh. I've just been up the hill to the ruin."

"Ah, the hell ya say." He took a deep draw on the pipe and looked away. "Tha' place is bloody bad. Every stone on that hill is no good."

"Why do you say that?"

His eyes narrowed in laughter. "This is Scotland, man! Things are quite diff'rent here." He spat noisily in the road. "The goddamn bloody English under Cromwell laid that place to waste in the 1650s. The laird of the place, a great fighting man named Robert McCrimmon, held out for a month against the bloody English. But in the end, he was overwhelmed. And since he'd killed a lot of English, he was afraid of what the bastards would do to his daughter, a young widow of twenty-two."

"Widow?" I asked quietly.

"Aye, lad. Her young husband died fighting at Dunbar under Leslie. Oh, God bless 'em all." The typical Scot, he added, "Legend has it they found the young man's body under twenty English dead, a smile upon his face, still clutchin' his sword."

"And what happened to her, his widow?"

"To keep the English from having her, she leaped from the tower as the foeman fought their way to the top."

"How much of this is a legend, and how much is fact?"

He laughed heartily. "Oh, come now, lad. In the Highlands, for the most part, it's all the same thing!" His intense eyes narrowed, and he gently lifted my chin. "I see you've been in the castle for more than just an afternoon jaunt."

"Yeah. I... ah... camped inside last night."

"Doan fret, me boy. You're na' the first to fall under the spell of the poor lass." The old man became very serious and led me to the edge of the road. Pointing at the ruined castle with his pipe, he said, "It's said that young Mary, that's her name, haunts the place and looks for another husband. She uses her wiles and charm to bring them to her. A lowlander like you would na' be immune to her ways at all."

"I don't know what to say, except that I feel terrible. Terrible for poor Mary and for me and for...my wife."

He took my hands in his big, weathered paws. His eyes were deep and ageless. "I'm tellin' ya' lad. Doan ya fret none. Ya dinna try to harm no one. Things like this happen in the Highlands. They're part of the land, they ride upon the winds, and they control the flow of time as it passes through this land."