The Thief of Thieves

Reader beware. In addition to not having a happy ending, I wrote this story to be read as 'playfully reluctant', but for some it may stray into areas of dubious consent, or non-consent.

Special thanks to LindsayMurray and a little ox.

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Mercury forged these chains long before the tree of life had its roots—before then even, when the first winds had yet to stir the yellow sands of Africa, and the crust of the earth still rippled and churned, yet unmade in fire. Then came I, ten thousand moons later, and these manacles were stamped upon me roughshod for daring to steal from him, the god of thieves. He called that justice, and they called me Thief of Thieves.

When I was young, I carved the fat wide flanks of oxtail and laid them on the plates of my betters, and so they called me butcher. And then, when there were no more lire in that olive groved place that birthed me and the clay walls of my abattoir were rotted and collapsing, I took to cart and road and trudged from Roman town to Roman town until they called me robber.

I did steal, of that I am guilty, but I did it well, pardoned by the privilege of my cunning and the slash of my knife. I stole jewels with a thousand brilliant faces and gold bars stamped in the seal of every little hill and fief—and I stole the life of every man who ever tried to stop me, and the heart of every woman who ever saw me. When I was older, they called me butcher still, but from hide to hollow they feared me.

It was a hot summer when I stumbled into that winding creek, a patrician's jewels in my pocket, his blood on my knife. Knee-deep, I waded as the round blue stones clacked and the cold water splashed, and all along the shore the lank grass waved to me. I breathed deep and washed myself clean of blood and shame and counted the spoils of my good day's work. It came to me then, from beyond the yielding yellow stalks, a song that hummed on the breeze. It was the sound of a woman, lighter than the note any bird had ever sung, and for the length of a single moment it held me spellbound as river and song ran around me.

Up the stream I pushed, stones shuffling and rolling beneath me as the water burbled against my knees. I rounded the winding bank and, in the shallows, a young woman stood undressed except for a blue gossamer behind her shoulders. Her nude pink skin reflected in the cool water, and her hair was thick and fell like leaves to her hips as she teased it. As she hummed, her song vibrated through me until my charmed heart dared not beat.

She smiled, continuing her song until I was upon her. Then her notes crested and playfully ceased.

"These are dangerous parts," I said lowly. "And here are alarming men."

With timid fingers in her hair, she stepped towards me, then her hands touched my chest. I snatched her wrists, holding the small squares of her hands against me.

"What game is this?" I smiled and spun her so that she pressed against me. Over her shoulder she looked back, her hips rolling and gibing as a weak purr escaped her. I held her hands across her chest, breathing deep as she satisfied me with the warmth and touch of her bare body. But as my thoughts slowed in anticipation, she slipped from my hands and ran from the river.

The water splashed in high arcs as she high-stepped and surged up the stony shore and, as she ran, she looked back to me, giggling gleefully. Smiling, I growled and gave chase as her bare feet padded into the woods.

Beneath me, branches snapped and leaves rustled, and I stalked after her with ever greater need.

"Where are you, my river stone?" I called. Her giggles echoed through the woods like the song of birds. Around me, the greenery was dark and chilled and above a trunk of cold cloud moved across the sky. I spun hither and thither looking for her, but she was lost in those shaded woods.

I cut my way to a field of ferns atop a hill and brushed through them. There, I found her thin blue gossamer, and I smiled at its warmth as I took in the smell of her. These were the tantalizing games of young women, and oh, how I loved to play. Down the hill I trudged, hopeful for what awaited me.

I crossed into another copse where the trees spread their fingers, threatening to catch me in their dark-webbed canopies. With each step, hope lagged behind me until at last I broke into a clearing. A field of yellow and green grass spread out before me, a small cottage in its center, where smoke lifted from its chimney and its thatch roof lay bleached in the sun. Like a hunter upon his prey, I followed the trail of her bare steps through the windswept grass, and as I did, a heavy weight grew between my legs.

Through a window, I peered in. On the edge of her wooden bed, she sat, her body as bare and beautiful as the blue skies of Thessalonica, and I could not wait to be near to her.

I pitched through the door, breathing ragged as I looked upon her.

She smiled. Her legs uncrossed and then closed once more. She leaned back on the mattress where the stems and vanes of feathers poked through the mattress's seams. A taunt?

In the hearth, a small fire burned and smelt of rich wood. Bushels of herbs hung above and between us from the exposed roof beams, and other clay jars laid about the cottage, filled with seed and grain. But there was only one table and one chair, and in all her those wooden features there were no signs of a husband or father.

It was only her and me in the solitude of the woods.

I shut the door, standing far from her. Her eyes fluttered, dark makeup around them. "Do you think it's safe to be here alone?" I asked.

The pink blips of her nipples had hardened and the sight of her wobbling knees stirred my loins. An amused grimace crossed my face as I looked upon her body. How could such a thing of beauty be so close? I pulled off my half-wet tunic and dropped it to the floor with burdened breath. Across my scarred chest, her eyes wandered with carnal curiosity and my nostrils flared in approval as she took me in.

"Out here alone like this," I said, "you must be lonely." Her eyes were playful. Eager. She glanced between face and figure. With patience, her knees wobbled with the rhythm of a lazy cat's tail. Oh, how they begged to be spread and devoured.

Closer I stepped, shoving aside the chair. I stepped again. Her lip folded under her small white teeth. The creaking on the boards grew beneath us as I neared, and the tempo of her knees painfully slowed.

"What is your name, maiden?" Another step.

She smiled and shook her head.

"You won't tell me?"

Lip between her teeth, she shook her head with the same slow rhythm of her knees.

My smile grew. "My little river stone, then."

I reached her, gazing into those dark eyes, as wide and open as a doe. "What do you expect of me, little stone?" The petal of my thumb touched her chin, drawing down her glistening pink lip. "Is it mercy?"

She laughed lightly and raised her foot. Her small toes clenched on my waist, and she pushed me back. I swiped her aside and pushed between her legs. But her knees squeezed shut, and she giggled.

I could only let out a throaty laugh, my long fingers stroking her from cheek to chin. I cupped her jaw, raising her gaze to meet mine. "But can you stop me?" I rasped.

I stepped over her knees. She tilted her chin back, coyly looking away. A tingle moved across my shoulders as my fingers wrapped around her hair. I brought her face back towards my body and her lips parted. I had felt the touch of many women, but I had never wanted one as badly as I wanted her.

But then she giggled and, with ease, slipped under me and off the bed.

I chuckled as I turned. "You like to play, don't you, little stone?"

She leaned on the table, legs closed, as a panting pink delight spread across her bosom.

I advanced to within arm's reach, the floor creaking more intensely. Roughly, I took her hair into my fist and forced her head back. With a wild growl, I exposed the flesh of her neck and bent towards her, pushing my heavy lips onto hers. We kissed, the tips of her small fingers sinking into my chest like I was sand. Then, again, she turned her mouth away.

I laid my other hand between her legs, my fingers stealing up her thigh towards her bare slit. She squealed with a wide smile and cleaved her knees together.

Harder, I pushed along her thighs, my throat rumbling above her until she surrendered to my touch, and I at last reached her wetness. The lips of her mouth parted, and my need for the warmth of her body grew. She smelled of fresh flowers and soft air, and my heart was a stampede of horses as my fingertips traced the lips of her mound.

I teased out a weak moan, then a louder one until her legs widened to give me the permission I did not need. She nibbled on the tip of her finger as I played, her smile growing nearer with each circling of her clit.

She gasped and pushed me away. Laughing, she put a chair between us, but I grabbed for her.

In one hand, I caught her fleshy thigh and, with the other, I threw the chair aside where it crashed beneath us. I kissed her mouth as she squirmed, and I seized her more tightly. She pulled and resisted, but then her willingness bent to me, and she moaned at the touch of our lips. With a fistful of her hair, I jerked back her head and exposed her neck. Slowly, I suckled upon the thick vein that curved across her bare throat until she gasped. Her hands went to my big shoulders, and I felt them squeeze as she moaned again.

Then her moans stopped. As if I had no strength over her, she fled, grinning as she put the bed between us.

"Come here, little stone," I cooed. I bent forward. "I come to lay you down." She had her knees pressed together, eyes watching me.

I feinted around the bed, then jumped across it, and she laughed and squealed, running from the cottage.

Outside, I wrestled her to the soft grass. Together we moaned and grunted as we tumbled, and still she laughed. I rolled her onto her back and pushed between her nude legs.

My whole body burned as I stared into her eyes. Within me, she stirred an intensity I'd never felt before, and I needed more of her. I throbbed to feel her wrap around me, and I let out a long breath as I watched her half-heartedly struggle. Her arms I pinned above her head, then leaned deeper into her hips and kissed her lips once more.

"Yours is a body in need," I said. I married our tongues, tasting her. She was every delicious thing I'd ever seen but couldn't have, and now I felt a boundless hunger. With one hand, I held both of her small wrists and brought my other to her bosom. She writhed in delight as I pinched at her nipple and cupped her small breast. Her hips bucked into me and the space below her ribs extended into a perfect arc along her belly, which I took into my hand, feeling the stretching of her muscles. I wanted to feel that muscle as I took her, and see the arching of her back as I made her submit to me.

As she struggled, the slit between her legs wettened even more, and when I could take no more of her surrender, I pulled down my trousers and pressed against her slickness. In vain, she still struggled, grinning beneath me, and it was intoxicating.

"You are mine," I told her.

The hint of a smile was on her face as I rubbed between her round thighs, and she shuddered each time my thick cock threatened to enter her. I teased and teased until my head gleamed in her desire, and I stuck my tongue out as I concentrated on denying her the pleasure she needed.

"You enjoy this, don't you?" I said. "You enjoy being mine—I can feel it in the pulse of your wrists and the wetness of your flower."

Still she moaned and writhed, and at last I adjusted my hips.

"Nowhere to go. Nothing to stop me."

Her body begged to swallow me, and I couldn't stand it any more. As I pushed into her, her mouth formed a perfect circle and I grunted to see it. She purred in response, and I realized how much I needed to hear her pleasure. Her neck flexed and her whole body tensed as she took me, and it made my own body clench as I watched her.

"My little river stone." I pushed deeper. "Do you feel what you do to me?" I shifted until she was speared upon me, her back arching ever more acutely. "You have no choice now. You will take all of me until I am empty."

I drew out and pushed in, letting her little sounds encourage me as her warmth enveloped me. Her hands struggled to be free, but she was mine—my prized possession—my taken river stone.

Skin red and yellow in the sunlight, she was more perfect than anything I'd ever seen, and, as I ravished her, her head turned side to side in the long grass. The sharpness of her jaw weakened my knees, and I stroked myself within her, slow and tender, until we were each glazed in a union of our sweat.

Releasing her hands, I rolled to the side, keeping her atop me. Her hips I took into my own hands, thrusting from beneath—and, when I sensed the fight was gone from her, I pulled her down by her wrists, laying her soft breasts flat against me. My hips flung into her, each time giving her the entirety of my cock, one hand on the feminine curves of her back and the other on the perfect roundness of her rear. I took a full hand of her body into my fingers and squeezed, then struck her quick and light, and she squealed again. Like fire does a tree, her body consumed me, and I became desperate to burn.

Every part of her was splendid and soft and delicious, and I wanted it all. Soon my pleasure grew, and I muttered the most vulgar obscenities in her innocent ears. I spoke to her in all the tongues I knew until she shook above me and cried out into my ear, and still her sounds were like songs to me. It broke me as her body squeezed my member, and I fought against myself to stay with her.

At last, I let go of her arms. She would ride me, and I would fill her and take her as my own.

But as soon as she was free, she laughed and pulled away.

In hot frustration, I grabbed her wrist, snatching her from escape. I grappled her, and we stumbled down. Behind her, I surged to my knees, forcing her to her belly in the soft grass, where the shape of us as one was written on the tamped field in the pattern of our struggle. With vigor, I took her from behind, and she moaned even more loudly than before. Her sound was primal and insatiable, and it drove me on and on, deeper and harder and rougher, until she panted and groveled wordlessly for more.

"You're mine," I barked. "All mine. For as long as I wish. No matter how much of my seed I fill you with, you will always be mine for the taking, my little river stone."

Gleefully she cried out and, as I let her arms go and took hold of her full hips, her feet kicked behind me in rapture until her whole body shuddered again.

"I will have you however I like. Whenever I like. And you will be my prize. And I will ravish you. And breed you. Again and again. Until the very thought of my cock makes your sweet cunt drool to be filled once more."

I erupted inside of her, spasming delightedly as I did.

Down I slid onto her as the twitching of my legs overcame me. I groaned into her back, softening until I slipped out and the white of my seed leaked onto her full thighs.

I rolled onto the grass beside her, and she curled onto my chest, purring as we lay there and our sweaty bodies panted for more. Soon our breathing returned to us, and I kissed the bare knuckles of her right hand.

We laid for some time in rhapsody, bathing in the afternoon sun. My hand stroked her thick hair, and her wandering eyes watched me with intensity. Though she never said a word, I waded through the inner lakes of her mind, hearing her thoughts as her fingers touched my scars until she laid her chin upon me and looked at me with exotic sadness.

"How is it I can touch something so beautiful?" I asked, and she kissed the jagged pink scar that ran from chest to collarbone.

After some time, she stirred, pulling me by the hand. Back to her cottage she led me, where the hearth burned low and crooked white logs smoked within.

I sat at her table—still undressed—watching as her hips swayed, and she pranced about. Without speaking, she collected sprigs from the bushels of herbs, then pulled out a clay pot and soon had it hung on a yoke over the fire, where she tended it. Still, I watched her, transfixed by her very nature.

"You are like a fog," I said as she neared, hands on my shoulders. I took her hand and kissed it. "Quiet and unassuming and impossible to look beyond." I pulled her onto my lap, my hand resting upon her soft thigh. She giggled, the warmth of our bodies melding into one another. I stirred in her presence, shifting to avoid the lust that she drew from me like a spring.

Her lips grazed my forehead, and she moved away. Hardly could I breathe as I watched her. She was a greater temptation than any jewel I'd ever sought.

"Why are you out here like this, little stone?"

She turned back to me. Her lips pressed together, and her effervescence disappeared.

My heart hurt to see the red of her cheeks muddied with sadness. "Do you never speak? I should like to hear what other soft sounds your tongue makes."

But she said nothing.

I explored her cottage. There were few possessions. The chair was warped and wooden, the bed hastily built, and I saw only jugs for grain and herbs. It seemed lonely with so little.

"Have you nothing of your own?" I asked, but she paid me no mind.

Outside in the grass, I found my trousers. At the table, I removed the shining jewels I'd claimed hardly sooner than her. In reds and greens, they sparkled as I laid them before me, spreading them with the palm of my hand. Like glass, they glittered in the afternoon light, and I smiled at my foolishness. How could I have ever mistaken them as beautiful?

"Come to me, little stone."

She sat in my lap, my hand around her hips. As I poked at my lesser trophies, she took the biggest of the rubies into her fingers, eyes widening as she lifted it.

"Men kill for these." I picked up a smaller one, appraising it, then returned it to the table. She stroked her thick hair from her face and set the jewel back on the table. "I would like to see you wear them one day, so that men might know you are mine—and worth more than even a thing I have killed for." I pulled her more tightly against me, and my nostrils flared with hunger. It seemed with her every touch my heart inflamed and my thighs tingled.

She smiled, and I thought of her voice.

"Sing for me, little stone," I encouraged, bouncing her.

Her face flushed as I laid my other hand across her legs. From deep in her throat, her hum returned, and desire welled in my chest. She looked deep into my eyes, then nestled against me as she hummed. It vibrated through me, and as it did, I realized how long I'd been with no place to call a home.

The night passed as we lay naked in bed, our bellies full, our bodies satisfied. The burning heat of her body radiated against me as I lay there, and, though I stirred to once again push into her, I instead quieted my wants and in the moonlight traced every constellation in the pores of her skin.

She hummed much in those days, when we lived naked and free in that cottage. We walked to the river and bathed one another, and made love in the soft grass, and by moonlight I listened to the cadence of her breath as it passed like the tips of her fingers on my shoulders. She continued to play with me, giggling and struggling and moaning, but each time she would surrender, and I would tame her passions.

Early among those nights, I first lowered to my knees at the edge of the bed. She squirmed and resisted until I split her legs with my hands and sealed my mouth around her. She writhed above me then, hands in my hair as I drank her up.