It wasna, Kat found out
later, her fault.
In schuil next morn, Kat had told Anne Campion that the game she had played with the lads was unco
exciting. For
when Doctor Rory gi'e you a 'spexion, she said, it may be just
leaf of ivy ye get fer yer medicine. But
it could be, she whispered, a prickly holly. Or even, it
might be, some'ut stronger! And that was all
Kat
would say, all day, as Anne worried her like a terrier to know all
about it. "Kat," she asked, "did he really gi'e you a
spexion wi' your knickers
doun? And did he gi'e you - the strong
medicine?" Did Doctor Rory gi'e it to ye there? But Kat would only smile. Kat thought that Anne had spread the story.
But it was in fact Wee Jock, and not Anne, who did the damage. Because Wee Jock
told Patrick Nethery that Doctor Rory could cure the woullies and wugglies.
Kat had liked the
warm soreness of her britchen on schuil bench, in morn, but Wee Jock was foul wi' it.
And Rory sat silly on bench, and could not see why Wee Jock was so
unfriendly. Kat told him.
"His doup is sore, Rory. You didna ha'e your turn as
patient, and so you no got the nettle flogged on your britchen."
"Yours is sore, too?"
"Aye. But I dinna mind."
"And I did it. I flogged you. We will go back to the
holly tonight, for my flogging."
"Aye. We will. I will ha'e your breeches off again,
Rory McAllister."
But then he had pulled her hair.
"Rory McAllister, come up to the desk!" the dominie had shouted, making
them all jump.
Rory walked smartly to the head of the class, dropped his breeches, and
bent over the dominie's desk from the front.
"I did no say ye mun pull your trousers doun, man. I meant
your hand. And do
you nae ha'e the sense to come behind
the
desk, and nae show your doup to the lasses?"
"Ochen, I can dree it, schuilmaster. Gi'e me yer best!"
Mr. Sewell was a
gentle man, but he was
nettled by this insolence. Instead of making Rory pull his
breeches back up, and beating the lad a stroke on the palm of his hand, he was
provoked to show off his strength and his skill. He
would make Rory regret this. The cracks of the tawse sounded like rifle shots,
echoing off the stone walls, loud enough to send a shiver down your
spine. Five
stripes, evenly spaced from the crown of the lad's doup down to five
inches above the back of his knees, each one
blood red and showing the split tails of the tawse. Mr. Sewell
had a good eye
and a strong arm, and as he had never belted a lad's bare britchen in
front of the class before, he took special pride in his work, and
struck with all his might and main. After five, the dominie
stopped, but Rory didna stand up.
"Do you nae know it's over, Man?"
Rory didna move. The class waited - Rory was asking for
it. He was baiting the dominie.
Mr. Sewell
took his
position.
But then he lowered the strap. "Rory, will you no gi'e over? I'd tak it as a favor."
Rory stood up,
turned, and held out his hand. The dominie
shook
it. Then Rory pulled up his breeches. All the lasses
were staring at his wullie, mouths gaping like fish, and all the lads too - only Jeremy
Thomasson looked away, but he was English.
When Rory returned to bench, he whispered: "I knew I deserved it, Kat, but I didna want ta mak ye do it. I hated ha'ing to flog ye."
That was a lie,
and Kat knew it. Rory had loved flogging her. But
what was worse, Anne
Campion overheard them. And thon story, that Rory
McAllister had flogged Helen Cairns fer pleasure, she told to every
lass in schuil.
After schuil, Rory
headed home, alone. Kat ran
after him.
"Rory McAllister!"
"Aye."
"You mun walk me home."
"Aye."
Kat's croft was two miles in the opposite direction, but that was
nothing to Rory. It was hard for her to keep up with
him; she couldna talk and half-run at the same
time. "Stop!"
And even then it took her a while to catch her breath.
"Rory, I mean to ha'e your breeches doun!"
"Was i' no enough then, wha' I took fro' the dominie? Ye want ta flog me yersel? Thon's fine."
"Och, I've nae plan to skaith ye!"
"Aye? Then why do ye need me breeches doun?"
And he really
didna know. Well, no one has e'er accused the McAllisters
of being o'er quick. So she
said: "Your breeches are all tatters, Rory. I mean to sew
them
up." Kat took out a spool and a bodkin from her
poke.
"What, here?"
"Och, I'll just ranter them. I can do the flourishing
later. We can go to the holly tree."
That would be six miles off her way. She would miss her
tea. But her brother Roger would
do her
chores, and Daddie wouldna find out.
And
the holly was the best place. Not the best
place ta ranter Rory's breeches - she'd as soon do thon indoor - the holly just the place she
most wanted to get Rory wi' his breeches doun.
"You'd do tha' for me? Mend me tears and me tatters? That's unco fine! I mun
- I mun gi'e you one o' Moss's pups!"
And with this heart-wrung outburst the lad fell silent, and there was
no
talking as they walked - or rather he walked and she ran to keep up
with him - three miles up the brae to the holly tree.
But it was nae the fine private place Katherine had expected - Wee Jock
was there, with Patrick Nethery and a hantle o' laddies, and Anne
Campion.
Patrick Nethery cried out ta Rory: "We ha'e been waitin' for ye, Doctor"
"Are ye daft, Patrick? I'm nae doctor."
"But will ye no play wi' us?"
Patrick Nethery
and Rory we nae friends. But Pat's Daddie was the flesher
o' the parish, and there would ha'e been nae
meat at Houn Fell croft, wi'o' the bones Mr. Nethery let Rory
have, a-saying twere fer Moss, ta tak the sting fro' the charity. So Rory had to
play wi' Pat and the lads, and thanks fer asking.
"Who'll play the doctor?"
"You be the doctor, Houn Fell. Wee Jock says you can cure
the woullies and wugglies."
"Ochen, there is nae such thing. I just pertend it."
"But will ye no play it wi' us?"
"Aye. Ye mun tak your breeches doun, then."
"Under tree?"
"I ken it's o'er mirkie under tree. If you mun ha'e a spexion,
Patrick Nethery, you mun pull down your breeches here in the road."
It looked like Patrick wouldna do it. He looked at the
other lads, who were at watching him.
He said: "Should we all pull doun our breeches together, then?"
Ian Selkirk said: "Ochen, it's o'er cold fer tha'. I'll gang first, if ye're so shy, Patrick."
Patrick blushed to
match his hair, but he managed to get his breeches doun. He
didna ha'e any knickers, nor yet any shoes, fer a' the fine airs and graces o' the
Netherys.
Rory looked for the hawthorn branch, but it was in truth a dark
gloaming, and
unco mirkie
under the holly, and he didna find it. But he found
the fat
stick he had rammed up Wee Jock's arse. He put it in
Kat's hand.
"Nurse Cairns, do the 'spexion on thon patient Nethery. I wi' gae
get his 'jexion." And Rory ran off down the brae.
Kat made Patrick
bend over, and shoved the stick up his
arse. She left it in as she did the 'spexion of his
wullie, which shot
into a fine long stonner right away, as it had done when the nurse had
but touched it in
schuil. Kat had heard th' tale o' Patick Nethery's stonner, but
she hadna believed it till she saw it wi' her own eyes. Patrick
mun be unco sensitive, Kat thought - she
had only brushed it
lightly wi' her fingers, but he seemed to be in agony, so muchle was
his
pleasure. She took her hand away, not wanting to embarrass
him. He gazed hungrily at her hand - as if he found
it an extra pleasure, instead o' terrible shame, to have his wullie
teased and handled
wi' others watching. As if he found it a pleasure to have her
tease him, and then deny him.
While she waited
for Rory to come back, she thought about the game
Patrick was playing. He got his pleasure from her fingers on
his stonner, true, but
it was shame he should be feeling - so why did Patrick want to play
at doctor? And it was just too good to be true - the Netherys were counted almost gentry;.why was
the flesher's lad
being so kind to puir crofter Rory? No one in Ayrshire counted for
less than the McAllisters. Why would Patrick Nethery name Rory as "Houn Fell"?
The McAllister croft, although too small ta have a name in the normal way o' things, did
happen ta have a name - Houn Fell - for it had once been the kennel where the McCall had kept his
dogs. Rory was a wee-un, but fer a' that, you could say he was master o'
Houn Fell farm, for that his mither was blind. And so to call Rory "Houn Fell"
was daft, but it wasna exactly wrong. But it was unco queer to
hear a wee-un spoken to in that way, as a master o' a farm.
Certainly no one
had
ever called Rory McAllister "Houn Fell" before.
Then Rory came back, with a hawthorn branch. Patrick
looked feart when he saw the great thorn, but he dreed the pain,
in
front of a' the lads, and he looked triumphant. Then he looked
feart again, as Rory fingered the sheathie of his wullie.
"Doctor, is it ...?"
"Aye, you ha'e the woullies and wugglies. You mun tak
the medicine, if ye can dree it."
"Ochen, I can dree it."
"Then pull up your breeks."
Patrick had to
leave the ballop of his breeches unbuttoned, because
his
stonner was so hard he couldna squeeze it int. It was an
unco long one, Patrick's stonner, with a bend
in it - just before the tip, it bent up. It was only the
third stonner Kat had seen in her life, after Rory's and Jock's, and it
was so much finer than either o' th' others. Rory dropped three
nettle leaves down the back of Patrick's breeches, into the
gell. The pain
was muchle so it made Patrick do a bit dance, but tha made the
pain worse, as his buttocks rubbed together with the nettle in the gell
between them, so he
had to
stand as still as he could, in agony.
"Is this the medicine you gave Wee Jock?"
"I gave more o' it to Kat Cairns."
"But she's a lass! I mun tak more than a lass!"
"Can ye dree so much, Patrick? It was unco bad."
"I can dree it."
"I flogged her here,
and here, and here, up the gell o' her doup. And I flogged
her three stripes across
her britchen."
"Flogged her wi nettle? There, between her legs?"
"Aye - unco hard. And her eyes shon like a lad does a block at chickie mellie."
"Rory, I canna dree that. I would rather ha'e the
strap than the nettle flogged on my ba's! Who could dree that?"
"The strap will cure the wugglies, Patient Nethery, but it's nae so good wi' the
woullies. Ye had better choose the nettle o'er the strap."
"I canna. It mun be strap."
Sandy Beattie had the thickest belt, but he said he dinna want ta whip
a body, so Ian Selkirk agreed ta do the whipping. Rory
looked at Ian's belt: "Will ye no lend Ian your belt, Sandy? Ian's
belt is nae
guid tae whip a dog." So Ian took Sandy's good thick belt,
and took some practice swings.
But when Patrick saw the size o' the belt, and the force o' Ian's swings, he was no so sure he could
thole e'en a belting for his medicine. He took his time to decide.
"Och, it's just a game."
So Patrick wasna belted, but Sandy said he could dree wha' Patrick couldna, and he took his breeches doun. He took his
jexion as he didna e'en feel it. And he didna care when Kat
shoved the stick up his arse, and his wullie didna rise up when she fingered it. Sandy was the dunce of the school,
feeling the tawse more 'n all th' other lads put
together. He knew a dozen
ways to earn a belting from the dominie, and he would do any one o'
them if a body just asked him.
Sandy said: "It was fine,
Rory, when ye got belted on yer doup, and all the lasses could
see the stripes. It was unco fine! The dominie ha ne'er belted ma doup for lasses ta see!
I wisht it had been me the lasses were keeking at!
But you should have ta'en
fifteen. Fifteen's best. The first five dinna hurt."
Rory asked Patrick ta do Sandy's belting rather than Ian, and Patrick made Sandy ta lie on the
ground.
True to his word, Sandy smiled through the first five. But
the pain increased wi' every stroke, and he began to whimper and greet,
and beg "Stop! Stop!" as he did every time he was
belted. But he had asked for fifteen, and
Patrick gave them all, striking as hard as he could, swinging the belt
from above his head.
For all his greeting, Sandy stayed in place to tak it.
Nobody had ever had to hold Sandy Beatty down for the tawse.
When it was over, Sandy tried to look at his doup over his
shoulder. "Are the stripes as red as Rory's in schuil?"
"No."
"Aye, it didna hurt proper - thon belt's nae guid. Ye've nae need to stop. I can
dree bit more nor that. Tha belt has nae got twa tails lik the dominie's tawse, so I mun ha'e another fifteen."
"But you didna dree it, Sandy, you greeted."
"Ochen, it is nae matter what I do
in a belting. I'm always ready to tak another one, for a'
that."
It was on getting mirkie ta see, though it lacked an hour o'
sunset. The dark clouds made it darker. Kat and Anne would
get the belt at home, if they came in after dark. There
could be but
one more patient, and they mun be quick. They all talked at once.
Rory said: "It is nae fair that I mun always be doctor. I
want Wee Jock ta be doctor, and gi'e me my medicine."
"It's my turn next." - that was Ian Selkirk..
"What about Anne Campion?" - that was Kat, asking.
"Aye. She's the one who said it would be fun to play
doctor. I want to see her get her jexion!"
"WAIT" - that was Patrick, shouting. "I want to
tak my medicine, after all."
"No! I want to see Anne tak her
medicine."
They all agreed that Anne would be the next
patient, and the last patient of the evening. They all agreed,
that is, except
Anne. But all the lads volunteered to help hold her doun.
Rory took Kat home.
Just out of sight of her croft, she stopped him. She
had that look - the look of wanting. Rory also
wanted. But he had more sense than to pull off his clothes
in
the lane-in, wi' none a' more than the dusk o' the gloaming to hide
them. The lass were just plum daft ta want it here.
And they had quarrelled. He hadna liked it when they
pulled
down Anne's knickers - he had given her a 'jexion, as she fought
the lads to get free, but he wouldna agree ta gi'e the belting.
"This lass has
nae
got the woullies and wugglies," he had said, and he had gi'en her just a
bit o' heather
for her
medicine. But the lads had said she must ha'e strong
medicine, whatever the doctor said, and they had made her choose between the belt and the nettle
- she chose belt. Rory's stonner had been so hard from
watching Patrick
belt Anne fifteen strokes, that he had gone behind the ivy, and relieved it with his
hand. He wisht Kat had no seen him do that.
But she had. And there in the lane-in, after he had fondled
her bare jugs, and suckled the paps, but before she kissed
him
good-night, she told him that when they played doctor
next time, just the two of them, she too would choose the belt as her
medicine.
"You will make me pull my knickers down, Rory, and I will bend
over. And you will let fly with the belt, straight and
true, and make a stripe where it hurts the most. A dark red
stripe. And I'll scream with the pain, and jump, and rub my
britchen wi' my hands. And that will be just the first of
twenty stripes. Not fifteen - I can dree more than that Anne
Campion."
"Kat, I could not thole it, to skaith a hair o' yer head!"
"So, you tak yer pleasure fro' Anne ta get a belting, but will
nae
gi'e one ta me. Go ye kiss her then, if she'll have
ye. Ye canna be nae more kissin' me!" And then she slapped him. Hard.
Plum daft she was!
"I didna gi'e Anne thon belting, and I didna allow the lads ta do it. She were
nae
willing."
"But she deserved it, Rory."
"She did nocht ta deserve it."
"She knew it was a game
wi' knickers doun, Rory. She got all the lads to
play. She watched me finger Pat's
wullie, and Sandy's too, ta me shame. And then, when her
turn comes, oop and she says : I willna tak me knickers doun!"
"Aye. Maybe it was fair we should pull Anne's knickers doun.
But not ta whip her fifteen strokes."
"Why did you tak yer pleasure of it then, Rory
McAllister? Ye've made me late, with your haivering,
and now I'll get the belt from my daddie. And I hope ye enjoy
it. Wait by the barn - ye'll be able to hear the
smacks. Do for me what ye did when ye watched Anne."
As Rory climbed the braeside to his croft that night, going home unkissed, great racking sobs convulsed
him, and his tears wet the collar of his shirt. He felt a
pain like a fever in his arms and legs, and he missed the path and
wandered aimlessly in the pitch-dark, windy night. He would ha'e slept
in a ditch that night if it hadna been for Mossie - she herded him
home like a
lost sheep to the fold.
|
III.
Lady Loverly's chatter. |
|
|
Next morn, weeding the garden at the
keek o'
day, Rory's heart still hurt.
His mother's tea had
helped him sleep, very hot and searingly bitter. He had not
seen her mix it, but he knew that for love-fever Ma used mandrake and
wild mountain thyme, and nettle. The night had
been hard. Half-dreaming, he heard it over and over - Kat
telling her dad that she didna need ta be forgiven, this time, for she
was unco sorry she had disobeyed and was ready to be punished.
In skuddy so she would feel it more. Twenty stripes she asked for, so
she would
remember and ne'er be late again. And the loud cracks echoed
into the night, and Kat thinking abou' him listening; that he was
taking
pleasure; that he was doing it with his hand.
How could she think he would tak pleasure in it? Pleasure
in hearing leather smack into that bonnie bare britchen? Making
red marks on it - although he hadna been able ta see the marks. Her
Daddie had lit a lamp for her, when dark fell and she wasna home, and
by the light of that lamp he belted her. Rory watched, but
she was facing the wrong way for him to see the stripes. He did
see that her Daddie
didna
fondle her doup between the strokes, the way Rory's
mither did,
fixing the
position of the hills o' his doup in her mind so she could
belt blind and strike true. It was the
only time she ran her hands over his skin, and Rory hungered for her
touch - her touch that was her way of seeing. It must be horrid
for Kat,
getting the belt without the familiar touch of a warm loving
hand before each stroke. If he ever did
belt Kat, he'd like to do that way,
running his hand over her bare britchen - OUFF!
Rory's stonner had shot up so fast he had to scramble with his buttons,
and his hand started stroking before he remembered that he was
doing it while thinking about gi'ing Kat the belt. He
stopped. But he was half-way there already.
He smacked his left hand, back and palm, into the Scots thistle that grew as
weeds in the garden. But the pain in his hand seemed
to be felt as pleasure in his stonner. He had not known that wullies
could feel that tight and hard. His need was too strong for him, so
strong that even torturing his hand couldna mak him stop. He
used his
hand until it was done, but then he punished himself by packing thistle into his breeches.
Last night, his mother had heard the tears in his voice, as she
made her tea for love fever, and she had asked him, "will she nae kiss
ye?" Well, Kat was going to kiss him - he had a plan
ta make her do
it. He would play the patient, next time they played
Doctor,
and he would
tak his medicine until he was punished enough for what he had done. He would say, flog me till ye're
satisfied Kat, but
then ye mun gi'e me a kiss. That would be good - a kiss of forgiveness and a sore doup fer punishment - a better cure
for love fever than his mither's bitter tea. But perhaps Kat
wouldna be able to belt him - as he couldna belt her.
Better to get some more stripes from the
dominie for her to watch. He would tell her he got the
stripes on purpose, as the punishment he owed her.
He could get a guid belting from the Dominie, ten stripes, if he
was late for schuil. So he had
an hour to wait, before starting for school, if he wanted to be just late
enough.
As Rory set in to weed his patch o' swedes, he remembered that he had
promised Kat a pup.
But
the thing was, there was a drought of good dogs. Auld Tom
Dunbar's
Slip was as good as Mossie
- almost as good - and Tom McCall's Dot was unco good, champion if she
hadna nip thon sheep's ankles the one time - but Slip and Dot
were
bitches. Rory knew there was only one dog in all of Ayrshire worthy of
Moss, and that was Cap. Cap was little, but champion.
Cap belonged, if the dog hissel
could tell it, to Big Jock Campbell the ghillie, Wee Jock's
dad. Or rather Big Jock and all his wee-uns belonged to
Cap.
But by law,
Cap was the property of Mr. and Mrs. Thomasson, the owners of the Auld
Manse. The Thomason's were
English, and had only bought the big
house, with the dogs that came with it, last year.
Mr. Thomasson had the name of a striect man wi' his rights - he would no
allow a stud, not for neighborlyness, not wi'o' he was fee'd in
sil'er, Rory had no had a shilling in his hand to
spare. So he could no get Cap as stud - the stud for Moss
would have to be Mr. Nethery's
Flint. A guid enou' dog, Flint, but gruesome ugly.
Rory
didna want ta gi'e Kat an ugly pup. Perhaps there was no
harm in asking at the Manse about a stud -
and it would make him just late enough to schuil, if he went to Manse. Mr.
Thomasson could hardly send him off with a hiding for his insolence,
like in the old days. Rory set off over the fells to the
park o' the Auld Manse.
But after all he cryned before the great front door, and turned to go without
knocking.
"What are ye doing here, wee bauchle? Skouking
about? Trespassing?"
It was Big Jock. And of course Big Jock knew perfectly well
who Rory was. But there was no sign o' that in his
face. If it had been anyone else who picked up Rory like a
pig in a poke, and carried him off like a wee babe, Moss woulda had some'ut ta
say. But she liked Big Jock. Rory was
carried into the kitchen; and big Jock grabbed a strap. So he had been wrong about the
hiding. But then he was forced, on his own feet but with a
hand on his collar, up the stairs. So he was being taken to
see the master, Mr. Thomasson. Rory thought a hiding in the kitchen from Big
Jock would have
been getting off easy compared with seeing the master. Perhaps he would be thrown in
jail. Perhaps he would be transported to Australia.
But the room he was taken to, up two flights of stairs, was fer sure no the
master's study; it was all frills and flowers and
suchlike
trumpery. He hadna seen before the woman on the
bed, half
in and half out of a nightgown you could see through anyway, but he
knew who she was -
got up like a hussy, the guidwives described her. This was the Leddie. This was Mrs.
Thomasson.
"This chiel was louking about, Ma'am. Keeking
about for some'ut to pyke, mor'n likely. Shall I see him off,
proper?" Big Jock sliced the air with his strap.
"Well, young man? Were you looking for something to
steal? Shall I have my ghillie give you a thrashing on your bare behind?" She licked her lips.
"Och no Leddie, I came ta ca'. Aboot a
matter o' cattle. I ha'e bit land, a wee bit, o'er
fell."
The English lady looked mystified.
"I mean, Mrs. Thomasson, that I have a small plot of land on
the other side of the hills. And I have a prop-o-si-tion to
our mu-tu-al advan-tage abou' live-stock." Rory could sound
like a southron
when he wanted to.
"Jock, leave us."
When the ghillie had gone out and slammed the door behind him, the
Leddie spoke to Rory: "So, young man, you want to proposition
me? To our mutual advantage?"
"Leddie - um - Madam - um - " Rory realized
that there were some
things for which he didna ken the southron
words. He whistled. Quickly, but
not so fast that his claws scratched the floor, Cap trotted up the stairs and came into the
room,
sat doun at Rory's heel, and looked up. Rory's own bitch Moss was not so
obedient. She pranced over, and licked the smaller dog's face, and
lowered her chest, and whinnied. Rory clicked to release Cap, and the smaller dog
jumped up and nipped the big bitch on the shoulder by surprise, and skitted
away,
sliding into a space under the bed where she couldna get at him.
"It's them, Ma'am. Your dog Cap, and this bitch Mossie. My bitch. That
they should - um - "
"That they should ..." And then Mrs. Thomasson rolled
on
her back and did something so obscene that Rory couldna believe his
eyes. With her hand in her crotch, she moved her body back
and forth in a way that left no doubt of her meaning, and her eyes
showed her passion, and her tongue licked her lips, and she let out a
series of gasps, getting louder and louder and quicker and quicker, and
then she let out a great sigh, and her whole body slumped.
Her nightgown had fallen loose, so she was in the skud altogether. Rory noticed her
wrinkles. When she was in the heat of passion, she
looked younger, but when it was over, you noticed the wrinkles again. It was as if she aged a decade in the
moment of the sigh.
Rory recognized that sigh. And those gasps, quicker and quicker, up to a
sigh like dying. It was what if felt like to - do it. But lasses
couldna do it.
Could they? They didna ha'e anything ta grab onto.
"Moss is the best collie in Ayrshire," Rory pronounced.
"And Cap is - well maybe it's Cap who's the best collie in Ayrshire.
Tha's wha' folk all say. It's just me that think Moss is
better. You would get a pup. Of course you would ha' the
pick o' the litter. But for the stud. It canna be
in cash. But I could do a trade - a service. We
could agree to payment in kind."
"So your proposition is, that a male
who lives on your farm ..."
Mrs. Thomasson stood naked in front of Rory and undid the buttons of his breeches.
" ... should put his stud ..."
She let out his hard stonner and gave a hard pinch to his sheathie.
"... into a female on this
farm. And service her."
Mrs. Thomasson swayed her hips while working Rory's rod with her
fingers. Her slit was inches away. She said:
"Payment
in kind. That sounds very fair to me. At what time
were you thinking of starting your service, young man?"
Rory's stonner stood proud
and tall in front of him, sticking out through the ballop of his
breeches. She was right in front of him, spread wide open.
But he didna move.
She said: "Of course, if this is to be payment in kind for my
dog servicing that randy bitch of yours, it should be the other
way."
She got on her hands and knees on the bed, or rather her hand and knees, for one
of her hands was in her crotch. Her body shook and writhed, her back
arched as if in agony, and the gasps were louder, like little shouts,
faster and faster until the sigh. Her nightgown
covered her, but
it was thin and flimsy and draped into the shape of her
doup. Then she took it off altogether.
She got off the bed and bent over in front of him, presenting her
her doup to him, touching the tip of his stonner with her soft warm flesh. Rory realized that
lads and lasses would fit together this way as
well, from behind in the way of all kine. If she moved backward an inch, she would
impale
herself. If he moved forward an inch, he would skewer her. She said, "well?"
He moved back - he had to, to keep his swelling stonner from going in.
"Leddie Thomasson, I canna."
She stood up and looked him in the eyes, and put her hand on his
rod - near the tip this time, and pinched. She said: "You are not a
virgin. I can always tell a
virgin. Are you in love? A bonnie
lass? And you've had a roll in the heather?"
"Aye. An unco bonnie lass." The sensation of
pleasure in his stonner was so strong it was making him gasp and dance.
"And I'm not. I know that. But I may have other
attractions. I have a proposition too. A
game. You must be naked, and I will kiss you all over,
except on that. On your lips especially.
You must kiss me too. If you can
be with me, naked and kissing, and resist me, then you
win. You shall have Cap's stud, and anything you like.
Cap himself, if you want him - he loves your pretty bitch,
anyway."
"What if I lose?"
"Then I have my prize already." She pinched the skin on the top of his stonner, hard enough to really hurt.
"It would belong to you forever?"
"Not forever, you conceited little cad - for today, tomorrow, and
Tuesday
and
Wednesday of next week - I'm in Glasgow over the weekend - I think
- no, I'm afraid I just can't get out of it. And then I
must go to
England on Thursday, so we have only those four days. And we can't play the game here,
we'll need somewhere private. I'll go
riding,
meet you, and we tie our horses to a tree in some place we can be
secret. You must know a
place."
"No."
"No you don't know a place or no you won't -
Oh. I see. Suppose I call the
ghillie and have him thrash you after all."
"It wouldna matter."
"You want to be a martyr for your bonnie lass. Well, fine then, that's
sweet, - what's your name?"
"Rory. Um, that is, McAllister. Rory
McAllister of Houn Fell."
'Well, Master McAllister of Houn Fell, tell me this: when you had your roll in the heather with your
lass, did she have pleasure the same way you did? Not just
enjoying it, but mounting higher and higher, to a peak that feels like
dying? You've had it, I'm sure, when your seed
comes? Sometimes the
first few times with a girl aren't so grand for a lad, but you must have had
some good wanks with your hand."
"I know the kind you are talking about, Miss. The slow
ones. Hard to reach. Pleasure with a sigh of sweet
regret."
"Rory, girls can have that too. More pleasure
than
men, and longer. But the man has to know what to do, and
I swear no man in Scotland has any idea - only Frenchmen know how to love. But I can teach
you. So if you learned you'd be doing it for her."
"I'd have to ...?"
"Just what do you call it in Scotland?"
"Fucking. That's the Scots word. Fucking. I dinna ken the English."
"Well, wha da ya know? And here I was worried there was
nothing to do in Ayrshire except catch trout. No, you don't
have to fuck me,
Rory. But you do have to play the game. Naked
together, kissing. If you can be naked with me while
I
teach you all I know about a woman's pleasure, and you resist the urge to
fuck me... But you won't."
"No. I will learn how to give Katherine pleasure, some
other way."
"Katherine? Katherine Cairns?"
"Aye."
"I can't compete with Kat Cairns!"
"Is she so remarkable?"
"Don't you think she is? My son says she's Clara Bow
and Lilly Langtry and Helen of Sparta, all wrapped up in a plaid skirt.
He thinks the moon and
stars revolve around her. He says she'll be a top star if she
goes into the talkies - he wants me to talk to a cinema producer about
her."
"Jeremy is in love with Katherine! I canna believe it!"
"My son is shy, and he tells lies to his mum. He told me that
they
had kissed. But I will talk to him again. If
you have
the prior claim, he will behave like a gentleman, I'm sure.
But Rory, your intentions are - honorable - aren't they? If
the master of Houn Fell just wants a good time with a poor crofter lass
... Jeremy loves
her."
"No, Leddie, my intentions are no honorable."
Rory's stonner softened. He could not ha'e dreed the pain
o' it so hard much longer.
"My intentions are no honorable for cause I can ne'er marry
her. I might as well dream of gi'ing her the moon.
You said I should meet you, out riding my horse. My
horse! I dinna e'en own a calf! My entire possessions
are a two piglets, twenty-one ewes, the best bitch
in
Ayrshire and a big black cat. I tend other men's cattle, and I grow a few swedes
and cabbages on land I owe ten years rent for.
I forgot the poultry - I also ha'e a dozen rabbits and a hen. But I will
ne'er be able to marry on thon! It would be honorable to
stand aside, and let Kat have a chance of happiness wi' the Laird's
son, which she will ne'er ha'e wi' me. But I ha'e no
intention o' doin' so - I willna let Jeremy ha'e her, if I can keep her."
"Jeremy is not a laird's son. My husband is not a laird."
"Compared to me, he's the Emperor of China. And now
call Jock Campbell and have him thrash me and kick me oot the
gate. No one has ever deserved it more."
"For what?"
"I let you think I was maister o' a farm and such as owned a horse.
Now ye ken what I am, ye'll no be wanting to play games wi' the
likes o' me!"
She kissed him, very tenderly, on the lips. He did't pull away.
"And I would have lost the wager, anyway, Maister o' Houn Fell. You would have
kissed me on every part of my body, and thought only of your bonnie Kat
Cairns."
"I think so."
"Sit down, Mr. McAllister. Button your
trousers. I will teach you, and you don't have to
play the game. This, this bit of flesh here, is called the
clitoris. Katherine has one. It is the most
important place for pleasuring a woman. It's like this spot here
- don't flinch, I won't touch - which as you know is the
most important spot for pleasuring a man. But I do not
recommend you start with the
clitoris."
"Where should I start?"
"With a kiss, mutton-head."
"I ha'e kissed her. But we had a quarrel, and now she
willna let me kiss her."
"A lover's quarrel. They can be very sweet, and make
the fucking all the better when you make up - or even better if
you fuck while you're still angry. What
did you fight about? Did she sigh for another shepherd i'
the glen? Did ye nae want ta tak yer fists ta her?"
Rory was nettled by this mocking of his accent, and he switched into
his southron speech. Or at least he tried to; he couldna keep it up beyond halfway
into the next sentence.
"No. She wanted me to flog her, but I wouldna - wouldn't.
And then, when I was keeking at another girl as get her britchen striped - a shepherdess 'i the glen, if
you mun know - I got a stonner, and I
used my hand ta ... - and it was like you said, an unco good
one. Better than the time inside o' Kat. And now Kat
says I should go get Anne ta kiss me instead."
"I've never had a birching. They say it's the best, and here you - well, I've always wanted to try it,
someday. Are all the crofter lads like you or are you
something special?"
"Special?"
"Two lasses sighing to have you birch them. Make that three
lasses."
"It wasna me. Some other lads were playing too. It started wi' the stinging nettle."
"Stinging nettle! I give up! You should be teaching
me. What about nipples? Do you lads in Scotland know how
to pleasure a woman's nipples using your teeth and tongue?"
"Mrs. Thomasson --"
"Caroline."
"I canna suckle your titties."
"No, I suppose not. Let me show you with my
fingers. This is called the areola. The border
of the areola is most sensitive, a good place to scratch with a
fingernail ..."
"But Mrs. Thomasson ..."
"Caroline!"
"you may suckle my titties."
Mrs. Thomasson did not come down
to lunch.
Her plan had been, to see Rory for no
longer than she
might be expected to take, to talk to him about a dog. Then he
would leave, and she would just happen to go riding. The meeting would be
secret even from the servants. But he would not promise to
meet
her. Against his own will, she had the power to keep him from leaving her bed, for as
long as she pleasured his body, but she did not have the power to make him
promise to meet her again, once he was out of her sight. And at noon, when the
lunch bell rang,
negotiations between them were at a delicate
point - and he was naked at last. They had spent half an hour on
pleasuring
nipples, his nipples, and then an full hour
on just two different sorts of kissing - French, and kissing the
eyes. Kissing was all he would do.
The kissing made his cock hard, but he refused to take
his pants off. Then she had
gotten him naked by a simple trick - she told him he
smelled, and insisted he take a bath.
The soap-down had turned into an orgy of kissing on places he wouldn't
let her kiss before. He had given in and suckled her
nipples. And then he had asked, on his own, to suckle her
clitoris. And on every part of his own body, except his
cock, he begged for the touch of her lips. She had never had a
boy like him - he shuddered with pleasure at the
softest caress,
anywhere on his body, but he howled with pleasure when he
was scratched, slapped,
slippered, or bitten. He had a hundred different ways of showing
his pleasure. Only his penis remained strictly out of
bounds.
But
he
had accepted and enjoyed the enema without question - she had told him
it was the
way
English people washed. But he got even more excited from watching her piss.
She pointed to his cock. "That looks painful, Rory."
"It is. Nothing makes it as hard, as your tongue in fud o' my arse."
"What would you pay, Rory, to use your hand on it?"
"Tha's the game, Caroline. I canna use my
hand. I mun endure the pain o' my stonner. If
I fuck ye, ye ha'e won the bet - and then I ha'e ta meet you
at holly tree, and fuck you hard all day for four days - thon's the wager if I lose."
"But I will let you masturbate one time, now, for a price."
"What price?"
"I want a birching."
"So, I should thrash you, when I wouldna do it for Kat?"
"If she asks again, will you deny her the pleasure? Why won't you do it for love, Rory?"
"She dinna ask it for pleasure. It isna
pleasure. She asked it for that I got a stonner watching Anne
whipped."
"So whip Kat, and take pleasure in whipping her, if she's the girl for you, and she offers."
"I couldna."
"Rory, don't you long to take a whipping for her?"
"If it would gi'e her satisfaction, I would die for her."
"But can't you believe her love you for you, could be as strong as yours
for her?"
"Love!"
"What else is it, if she wants a whipping, just to give you a
good wank?"
"But thon's absurd."
"It's love. A women needs to cause arousal in a man. If I
knew that watching me whipped would arouse you, stronger than you've
ever been aroused before - then your arousal would make that whipping
utterly pleasurable for me. Utterly satisfying.
Utterly. I mean - um
- that is - uhh - that's the way it would
be, if I was in love with
you. Which I'm not. Of course."
"If she really wants it. If she really wants it.
Och, De'il tak it, I will do wha'e'er she asks me do.
Whipping or no, I canna say no to her. But she will ha'e ta
whip me, if she wants ta be whipped hersel. If I disna feel it, I canna do it."
"And I want the same, Rory, just to have fun - just to have a
romp. Here's the
birch. I will use the riding whip. Ten strokes each,
and then we swap. So you will get twenty strokes altogther, and for
that payment you may use your hand on your cock, until you come. Is
that fair?"
"What is this thing?"
"A birch. They say it is the most exquisite pain in the
world."
Rory smacked his bare leg, and half the twigs of the birch broke
off. "It is all dried out."
"I guess they need to be fresh."
Mrs. Thomasson had the riding crop in her hand, so Rory bent over the bed first. Ten
fast cuts made his britchen burn like fire.
"How do you like it., Rory?"
"It hurts horribly. I canna dree it. But I
canna wait for the other ten!"
"But it's my turn next, Rory." She lay down flat across the foot of the bed
eagerly, all excited. The first stroke made her howl, and
before the fourth fell she had gotten her doup away from the whip,
backed up against the wall.
She was crying. "Fuck it! Fuck it! All my
life I've wanted it but now I can't take it after all.
Every time I fuck, every
time, I think about being birched. And when I
masturbate, of course I think about it then!
And I always said I would, some day. Will I even be able to
come any more? I imagined I would be
satisfied after a hundred strokes! And now I know it will
never happen. Becasue I'm a coward, I, uh, I, uh ..."
She sank sobbing to her knees. Rory lifted her up, and
kissed her, and hugged, his hard wullie pressing into her
skin. Her tears made him feel a whole new way, tender but strong. The pleasure of this fucking wasna just
happening to
him any more, it was changing him in his heart.
He said nothing to comfort her, although his heart ached, only he hugged
and kissed her, until the
sobs subsided. His heart pounded in his chest that he could not
dree it, he was so on fire. He could not get a thought finished,
before his mind lept to another one. She spoke first.
"You've done your part, Rory. You can masturbate now.
Or do you want the ten more strokes with the whip, first? You
said you couldn't wait for them."
"I want them, but I canna dree them. Is that nae how it
feels? Wanting them and not wanting them?
I'm nae different nor ye : I long
for them, but I am nae strong enough ta ask fer them.
But you can help me, Caroline : tell me I ha'e to tak them."
"I understand, Rory. I know what to say."
Caroline Thomasson took up her pose as the leddie o the manor,
lecturing the crofter lad. "Houn Fell, the deal was twenty
strokes for
you, and then you could masturbate. You agreed.
And you need to masturbate now. You've had an
erection since ten o'clock in the morning, and there is only so much the human male
can stand : that's been scientifically demonstrated. So take the other ten
strokes, and earn your masturbation. Do it for Kat."
Rory bent over the bed. Mrs. Thomasson swung the whip with
vigor. When the ten strokes were done she asked him: "How does it feel?"
"Painful. It's nae any pleasure. But I did want them. And now it's o'er I
feel satisfied, like when my shoulders ache but I look down at the
cabbage patch, all weeded. When I'm at thinking o' fucking and mastrubation, a whipping
still hurts, but I want it. It hurts but I want it - thon would be very
handy in schuil, fer the dominie's beltings, but I canna mastrubate there."
"Masturbate, Rory, not
'strubate.' And, Rory . . . ?"
"No, Leddie Thomasson. I willna let ye do it. Put away yer hand, noo."
Rory went into the cludgie for a little private time, to do what he had
paid for the right to do. Lying on floor with his head
against the pottery bowl. He knew rich
people crapped inside o' their
houses, but it wasna something he liked ha'ing to think
about. But there he was, wi' his head up against the
crapping bowl. Ans so it wasna one of the good ones, and it took
a fair
deal o' rubbing, but he
got it out eventually, and there was an awful lot. And then he
had a little problem. He
couldna wipe it off wi' his shirt for he was i' the scud, and he
didna want ta use the Leddie's fine linen, tha she used ta wipe her
hands. And he
couldna leave it on his belly for the Leddie to kiss. So he
scraped it off as best he could with the whip-handle. When
he
returned he was feeling very tired.
But Caroline
was bouncing with energy and excited to see him : "I need to be tied up now, mister. And be given twenty strokes
of
the whip, even if I beg you to stop. That is what I want."
"From yer husband, Caroline, or a lover. But not from me."
"No. I have no right to ask you."
"But I could gi'e you one skelp wi' my hand. One isna much,
if you
thought of a hundred strokes o' the birch. But a skelp wi' the
hand can hurt a lot, when's a strong arm and nae mercy; it will hurt
more than ye think. Och just one will hurt ye so, that when ye
ha'e it, ye willna ask fer another. So I offer only
one. It's the best I can do. But och, it'll be
exciting, to wait for even one. Aye?"
"Too exciting. What do I have to do?"
"Bend across my lap."
His lap was where he kept his penis. Face down across his
lap, Caroline thought: this is as good as it gets - this is where I
want most to be. But then she thought of how good it had
felt
to be in his arms, when he had comforted her, kissing
away her tears. The thought of a spanking had always been
exciting, but she had never thought of it mattering who spanked her.
But Rory could tell how she felt. And he cared about her.
She
felt his hand run caressingly over her bottom. Waiting for
the spank - waiting not for just any spank, but for his spank -
waiting for a spank from the boy who held her in his arms and kissed
away her tears. She was primed for it, and her bottom felt like
an
enormous clitoris; his lightest touch on
her ass made her
tingle all over - stronger tingles from a touch on her ass from him,
than from hard working of her clitoris by any other man.
"I have you held tight, Caroline.. You canna move, if I
want to hold you. I am stronger. I will let you up,
after the skelping. But for now you are
held. Are you ready? Ask for the stroke
when you are ready."
It was very hard to ask, but she croaked it out.
"YES!"
When the spank fell, she clung tightly to his legs, and didn't get off
his lap. He asked, 'Another?" She gaped,
unable to speak. And he gave her a second spank, without
making her ask. She managed to say,
"thanks". The third stroke was much
harder. She knew now the first two had been light, this was
the first real one. But she didn't get up after it,
either. She knew now she was going to
win. She had thought she couldn't take it, but she could, and
now for the rest of her life, sex would include this intoxicating
excitement: no longer a fantasy, but a reality more intense than she
had dreamed. Too excited to feel much pain, she asked for
the
fourth, and then the fifth.. She asked for an extra
hard one for number six. Then she wanted seven spanks
quickly, spread over her bottom, making it blaze like fire.
He made her wait a long time after that, as he rubbed her bottom again,
tenderly, talking to her in a soothing sing-song voice as if she was a
hurt sheep. Then, without warninng, a hard smack for
fourteen,
a tender caress, a hard one for fifteen, a tender caress, and a very
hard one for
sixteen. But when he gave number sixteen, he
said "twenty."
"Twenty? That was sixteen!"
"Ye had three with thon riding crop before."
"You counted those?"
"They hurt, didn't they? They left marks."
"You're still one short."
"When ye asked fer seven quick ones, I gave ye eight.
Seven is nae divisible by two."
"But I need more! I haven't been punished enough."
"Punished? Then this wasna a skelping fer pleasure?"
"It was. Intense pleasure. But it hurts, too,
and I feel I've been punished. But not enough."
"By
the rules of our game, Caroline, I am nae ta fuck ye, but I have ta pleasure ye
in ilka way bar tha'. So if ye want more skelping fer
pleasure, I ha'e to
gi'e it ye. Ye've nae need ta beg me, nor ta gi'e me owt in
trade."
"I do want more, but I'm ready to move on to the whip. I should be punished harder than a spanking by hand."
"What have ye done that ye need to be punished?"
"The worst? The worst is, spanking
Jeremy."
"He's your son."
"But I take too much pleasure in it. Not just giving him a spanking, but spending hours, with him on my
lap; spanking and spanking until his bottom is a dark, dark red. And then we hug
and kiss, and forgive each other, and chat. I just listen,
mostly. He talks about his trouble making
friends. I don't tell him he just needs to try,
the way his father does. He does just need to try, but I don't
say so. He's a very lonely boy, and I never hug and kiss
and listen enough, except after a spanking. I make him buy
his mother's love by taking spanks. He
misbehaves on purpose, and takes the spanking, for the listening
afterwards, which he doesn't get from anyone else but needs so
badly. And how do I know I didn't cause
his stammer? A hundred strokes with the riding whip won't be
enough, but it's a start."
"You need to hug and kiss him then, at other times, when he hasna just
had a spanking. Yer being punished isna enough."
"But I want to be punished for it now."
"Listen. I will meet you, riding.
Tomorrow. It's nobut a step - two miles past your gate, toward
the village, there's a holly
tree with ivy growing on it, with a hiding place under
it.
Ye've seen it - it's where the path down the fernie brae meets the
road ta the Manse. Ride up
that path to the wood a wee bit, hide your horse in the wood, and walk
down to the holly. I will be under it. We
can do ilka thing--except I willna fuck you--and I will whip you
fifty strokes wi' yer riding whip. Only come if ye can tak all
fifty wi'o' changing yer mind. But ye must first apologize to
Jeremy, and tell him you will never spank him
again. And that from now on he has to hug and kiss and talk
to his mum ilka single day until he sees you in your coffin."
"Yes, Laird."
"Och, I'm the Emperor of China! That's me!"
She gave him a spank across his bottom.
"That's for you, Emperor!"
He grabbed for her, but only got raked by her fingernails. "I'll do you fer thon, Leddie Lovely!"
She fled in real terror, not laughing any more. But she
wasn't
easy to catch. Her dressing table got bumped, and her
willow pattern toilette set slid off and landed on the carpet.
Then it became a chase around the
table. She began to giggle at his
frustration. She made a dash for the bed, laughing so much
she zigged when she should have
zagged, and he leaped, his open palm struck her shoulder, and
she tripped and toppled onto the bed. And then it was all
over, she was held down on the bed with her face ground into the
mattress, with Rory
holding her arm twisted behind her, and her legs hanging over the
edge. He took his pleasure on her bottom with his
hand. She screamed at him to let her go. He
didn't. Neither one counted the spanks.
When he stopped, he went over to the floor by the dressing table, and
started picking up the broken china. The scented
powder rose in great clouds when he tried to sweep it up.
'Rory, you shouldn't wear Shalimar - it doesn't suit you.
I'll ask Guerlain to mix you something special - Eau de Rory : heather and wet
sheepdog. And leather. Definitely leather." She rubbed her doup.
'I'm sorry I broke your fairlie things."
"They're yours. You're the Emperor of china. And
where did you learn to spank like that?
I found a book in Paris called The Art of Spanking. Do you read
French? When I squeezed my crack tight, the way
you forced me open with those sideways strokes was brilliant!"
"Och, tha's me mither. She's blind and strikes
wild. And I try to
move my britchen out of the way o' the strap, wi'o' her
kenning. I know which ways a whip can land, that hurt
most."
"And you spanked me on all of them. But Rory,
do you really get such a lot of whipping at home? You don't
seem like you would be a naughty boy."
"Nor Jeremy."
"But I think right now a naughty boy needs a whipping for breaking my
powder jar."
"Can you gi'e me the same spanking you gi'e Jeremy? On your
lap? A long one that turns my doup dark, dark red all over? With a hug and a kiss and a listen after?"
"You'll get your hug and kiss right now."
Something happened to him during that kiss, and Caroline knew it.
With nothing
spoken, she lay down on the bed with her knees apart. Rory
took
position above her. It felt to him a bit like applying medicine to a
ewe's cunt - not wild passion. But he didna ha'e the will
any more ta keep from doing it. He began to move his body back
and
forth, teasingly, stroking the underside of his cock on her stomach,
her thigh, her cunt. Then hard ramming strokes that stopped just
short. One went just inside of her.
And then he rolled over on his back, his stonner impossibly rigid and
impossibly red, pointing towards the ceiling. Blood ran
from his lip, and he was crying.
"You're going to win, Rory. I don't have any hope, now."
"I just lost."
"Only if you cum inside of me."
"Come inside of you? What are you talking
about. I did go inside you. My wullie went
inside you."
"I don't mean come as in go inside me, I mean you only loose of you cum
inside me. Don't you understand? 'Cum' is the
English word for it. For when you shoot your seed and
feel that little death."
"Come? Come? That's the English word for that? So in England if you yell out,
'Come here, Johnny,' it's like yelling 'Fuck here, Johnny' in Scotland?"
"Not exactly."
"What a language. So the game is still on. Don't
go easy on me, Leddie Lovely. I want to win fair, if I win."
"But how can we keep playing?"
"Ye can tell me more about fucking. And I lose if I do it--if I
fuck ye. Tell me abou' in thon book fra' France."
"What else can I teach you?"
"I want to know about cunts."
"What about them?"
"What do I do in there? The best thing you taught me,
was pushing yer tongue oop my arse. But Kat will ne'er
let me tongue her arse. Ne'er."
"She will, and she will tongue your arse, if you ask her."
"Gi'e away wi ye!"
"Or you could put your cock up her arse."
"You mean just the tip of it? Pushed against the fud?"
"I mean all of it, and I mean all the way in. It goes in. Let me show you. Did you see the
red hairbrush that was on my dresser."
"The big wooden one? It looks like it's for brushing a horse -
your other things are so fairlie and delicate."
"That hairbrush was a Christmas present from Jeremy. We're
going to use
the handle though, not the flat. Bend over, and pull
your arse cheeks
apart with your hands. I'm going to start with a finger,
just the way I showed you with my tongue. I'm using some of
my beauty cream. Slowly, very slowly. That's to relax the
anal
sphincter, so there will be no pain when the object is inserted."
"Leddie Loverly?"
"Yes. Rory."
"I rammed Kat's arse hole with a stick the size of a horse pizzle.
Uhh-YahGGH!"
"Rammed her like that?"
"Some'ut like that."
"Good. We can skip the part about reducing pain to the
anal sphincter. I did this to a man once, using a leather
penis, and he showed me a secret spot, inside. He came -
I mean spunk shot out of him - without me touching his penis at all."
"If you can do that to me, ye've won bet."
"Let's call it a draw, if it happens. I'm not sure I can remember the spot. Do you want me to try?"
"I have a choice? Then yes. I want
it.. And I think you may have already found it."
"This? I'm just pulling the handle in and out - this
is just pleasure from the sphincter."
"Uhh Uhh Stop!"
"Does it hurt?"
"Och no, it doesna hurt. It does anything
but hurt. I just canna talk while ye're doing it. More pleasure that than e'er playing wi' my pee-nis alone."
"But not as much pleasure as I could
give you by playing with your penis. Rory. The secret spot really is your penis - just the part that's inside you, like the part of a pole that
is buried in the earth. It can be reached through your
asshole and is located right ..."
"YAA-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh"
"Cum! Damn you! Cum!" Caroline let go of
the hairbrush and began spanking Rory's
bottom, above and below the hairbrush sticking out of his ass. Then she grabbed the brush again,
pushing it further in, pulling it halfway out, twisting it, wiggling it up and down, jerking it roughly from side to
side. Rory kept screaming. Caroline
pulled the hairbrush out of his ass. Rory sank panting to
the ground.
"Leddie Loverly. Leddie Loverly. Could you do
tha' again?"
"I will, Rory. But do it for me, now. Practice
for pleasuring your Katherine. Pleasure my anus with the brush,
but when you do it for her, with your penis."
"I could ne'er. I could push my stonner in hard, one time, but then it would be
o'er. How could I stop from - um - cumming - if I fucked her arse?"
"There is so much more I could teach you, Rory, if we were really
fucking. There are ways for a man to keep hard.
To make a man's pleasure last hours instead of seconds."
"Do women ha'e a secret spot inside their arses?"
"I think they do.
But I don't know where it is."
"You ha'e ne'er hunted for
it?"
"I've never had a man who cared for my pleasure."
"What about your husband?"
"I once mentioned the word clitoris to my husband, and he has forbidden
me ever to speak when he is fucking me. Raping me, I should say."
"He doesna like to nibble your clitoris, then?"
"He doesn't believe the clitoris exists."
"It exists all right. But we'd better find yer inside one
too. How about--THIS!"
"Ouch. That hurt!"
"Sorry. But doesna that feel good?"
"Not very, stick your fingers up my cunt instead. That's what feels good."
"But is your pleasure from your ... Hey! I can feel the
brush
handle! There just a bit skin between the brush in
yer arse and my fingers in yer cunt! -
Caroline! Are you all right? CAROLINE!"
"I'm all right."
"You looked like you were dying."
"I was. Over and over again."
But further experiments showed
there was no way to hit Caroline's spot, just using the hairbrush,
without Rory's fingers in her cunt as well. The secret spot
was not in fact inside her arse at all - the brush handle in the arse just helped
position it. So even if he
had been willing to fuck her, Rory could not have pleasured her by
fucking her arse. Even the fud of her arse was nowhere near
as
sensitive as his.
"But you ha'e a cunt, Caroline, as well as a clitoris, an' I think you
are unco sensitive in this spot inside yer cunt. More than ye ken. My tongue's no long
enough. And my fingers are nae guid. It will ha'e ta be my stonner."
Caroline made a strange choking sound.
"I mean, I mean - I dinna mean I will do it. I just mean, my fingers are nae guid - by theirsel. But let
me try tae fuck you wi' my hand, while the brush handle bides in your
arse."
"No. It's over, Rory. You've won.
Go away. Leave me to cry my eyes out."
"If it's o'er, ye ha'e lose thon bet. So you dinnae ha'e Rory
McAllister's stonner to
pleasure yer cunt, for three more days, a-fore ye go to Lunnon.
Thon's nae
the end o' the world."
"How could you think that! How could you think that?
How could you think I would only want you for four days?"
"You said so."
"You BASTARD! You BASTARD! Get OUT! I never want
to see you again as long as I live!"
It seemed ta Rory McAllister that he couldnae ha'e any luck wi'
the women. He got dressed and turned to go, clicking Moss
to follow him.
"Take Cap too. You won the bet, didn't
you. Rory. My love. My only love."
"Moss'll no be on heat fer a month. I'll bring her."
"It must be nice. In heat twice a year? I could just about
handle that. So when they were playing, earlier, she wasn't being
a tease? It was just play, innocent, like
children? When he nipped her on the shoulder, that wasn't a lead-up to a humping?"
"I dinna know how innocent. He knows she's a bitch all
right. But she's definitely no on heat."
"Rory, give me one last kiss."
She looked beaten down. Pressed with misery and
tiredness. Head bowed. Weeping. He spread
his arms to enfold her in a hug.
She raised her head, bit him on the shoulder, and ran laughing across
the room, pretending to be a dog. Running naked, she did
not seem tired or sad any more. He caught her, threw her on
the bed, undid his
buttons, and fucked her. Two thrusts and it was over.
She liked to run her fingers through
his curls.
"We ha'e three more days, Caroline. You won the bet."
"But I want to have your hard cock in my mouth now. You
won't believe the things I know how to do with my tongue."
"Caroline. Leddie Lovely. Can we just be
together? Pleasuring each other? And not make it fucking-schuil any more?"
"And what about when the three days are over? Will you
still want me?"
"I will. You know I will. You wouldna believe me if I
tried ta deny it."
"And for the three days? Are you just paying a bet?"
"In the end I couldna leave
you. Couldna today and willna, any day. Canna do wi'o' you."
"The fish just ain't bitin' today, Caroline - haven't caught a blasted
thing all day - Oh, Hallo, you've got company." Mr. Thomason had just walked in.
At that moment Rory was
fully dressed, except for two undone buttons of his
breeches. Mrs. Thomasson was in a housecoat - perhaps
on the modern side by the standards of rural Scotland, but quite proper
for receiving a gentleman caller in Edinburgh or
London. They were seated, very properly, on seperate
chairs. But the curly hair that Mrs. Thomasson was
twirling between her
fingers, was not that growing on Rory's head.
Mr. Thomasson might not have noticed that. He was looking at
and smelling a substance on his fingers. He had picked up
his wife's whip.
Rory was not transported to Australia.
And not thrown in jail, and not given a hiding. He
was politely shown the door. But something happened
worse than anything he had imagined: Big Jock Campbell was
given the sack. How any of it was his fault, Rory did not
know. Rory made it two miles to the holly, but he went no
further. Some sort of shock had taken him that far, deaf, half
blind, and mindless. But the full horror of what he had done
sank in at last.
He was shaken awake from a dead faint. The hand on his shoulder belonged to Jeremy Thomasson. The
stammering young Englishman held out his hand.
"M-M-My father told m-m-me once I needed to try to muh-muh-muh-make friends. I think you
m-m-may need one."
"What are you doing here, Jeremy?"
"I saw m-my m-m-mother. I talked to her. My
father m-m-made mm-me talk to her. He m-made m-me look at her bottom. Before he shipped her off
to England. I know about the game, M-M-McAllister."
"Do ye want ta kill me? I wouldna mind."
"Muh-Muh-Muh McAllister!
I know about the game. It was foolish, but very beautiful.,
what you did."
"It was horrid. Ye should hate me fer it."
"M-M-Mother has always had b-boys. She said you weren't
like the
others. That you didn't want to fuck her, wouldn't t-take
m-money. She challenged you to prove your love for
Katherine Cairns, by being naked in bed with her, without fucking
her. She said you had an erection for six hours, while she kissed and
caressed you, and you only thought of Katherine."
" I FUCKED YOUR MOTHER ! "
"Eveyone has, M-M-McAllister. Everyone does in the end. She's
had dozens of boys. She told m-me she won by a
trick. She was bound to win, you
know, she even cheats at Patience."
"It wasna her, it was me."
"What are you going to do now, M-M-M-c-Allister?"
"Starve. Yer Dad will talk to the McCall, and we'll be
booted off our croft, and we'll starve."
"We is you, and your m-mother?"
"My blind mother. My blind mother is going to starve in a
ditch, because I couldna keep my wullie in my breeks."
"Perhaps we can m-m-manage about that. Is there anyone
who would take her in? If I could pay, oh, ten shillings a
week?"
"Half a POUND!
A WEEK!
Hamish Cairns would keep her fer half a pound a month. Maybe he would fer half a pound a year--with her work fer it, and she cooks and cleans and does most things better nor most
folk. And he's widower, and all those wee-uns.
Though he may not think she can raise a wee-un, now."
"Because she's blind?"
"Because she raised me. But I think Cairns would take
her in for nothing, ta help wi the wee-uns, for a' she raised me."
"So it is not so bad, you see. Even if
M-M-McCall would evict a blind old widow woman. Which I know he
can't - unless he wants to lose this seat to Jennie Lee
at the next election. Your m-mother is not going to
starve in a
ditch
because of what you did. I m-m-mean, what m-my m-m-m- mother did to you."
"I wasna noble like she said, Thomasson. She dinna trick
me. She
gi'e me so much pleasure today, that I wanted more o' it, that's all. I
couldna
thole nae to ha'e it, it was such pleasure. So I ha'e no right to
Katherine. I
ga'e her up for three days o' pleasure wi' your mother.
I'm just another o' your mother's pleasure boys. I'm nae
worth the time o' your day."
"Muh-Muh-Muh-MuhcAllister!"
"Och, ca' me Rory, if it such a problem."
"Hah - it's M's today, but it could be R's tomorrow!
I'll be calling you Ra-Ra-Ra-Rory!
But I know you're not just another boy to m-mother. She said she
isn't going to spank m-me again, ever. She that said she
had pleasure spanking
m-me, and it wasn't right for a m-mother
to feel that way about her son. And she said you m-made her stop."
"Thon isna true."
"And she said that you had
made her promise to kiss m-me! She was crying her eyes out over you,
Rory, but that's happened before. She's had
strong desires
for other
boys. You, she respects. You, she obeys.
M-m-mother doesn't obey anyone - never has. She's not going to
get over you in a
week, like the others."
"So tha's why you're here, Thomasson?"
"Thom-m-m-masson's what they called m-me at Eton."
"So thon's what I should call you?"
"I hated it at Eton.
They had to pull me out. They had to take m-me to an
alienist. Rory, the pleasure my m-m-m ... my m-m-mother
gave
you - she used her tongue in your bottom, and she spanked you, didn't
she? I know you whipped her. I saw the m-m-m ...the m-m-m
... I saw the signs."
"She thrashed me wi' a riding whip. An' I spanked her."
"Ooo. A riding whip. Is that even better than a
spanking? The canings at Eton hurt too m-much to feel good."
"I thought the whip hurt too much, too. And for a' it hurts too
much, it is o'er too quick. I ne'er want to do it
again. The only pleasure is after, when yer britchen feels
warm. A long skelping that wasna too hard - to mak my
britchen warm, and keep it warm. I'd like to try tha'."
"It is too utterly wonderful, Rory. And that's just the way my
m-m-mother spanks. Hard but not too hard, and it just goes on and
on. It is m-m-more fun than wanking.
Wanking is only that last split-second. But if it was wrong for
m-m-mother to enjoy spanking m-me, it's even worse for m-me to feel
that way about my muh-muh-muther, when she spanks m-me, isn't it?"
"Do ye nae play at spanking wi' your friends in England, then?
At school?"
"They tortured me at Eton,
Rory. Because of my im-m-m-m-pediment. I couldn't tell them I wanted to be
spanked."
"Did ye no enjoy the tortures, then?"
"No. Well. occasionally. A little
bit. I like rem-m-membering some of them.
But its no fun being bullied. They m-made m-me suck
their c-cocks, and swallow it, and they pee'd on me. I thought I was the
only boy in the whole world who wanted to be spanked."
"You're not. When we played at doctor, Sandy Beattie wanted
fifteen stripes wi' the belt."
"How do you play doctor?"
"You were in schuil for the 'spexion by thon D.H.O, were ye nae, Jeremy? We play like thon.
First you get a 'jexion in your doup, with a thorn o' the
hawthorn. Then you get a 'spexion o' yer pee-nis.
And then ye
ne'er
know wha' doctor will say. He may say ye'r nae so bad,
and gi'e ye just a bit o' heather fer yer medicine, but he may
say ye'r sick wi'
the woullies and wugglies, and then ye need the strong medicine."
"Which is?"
"Stinging nettle. Or you could choose t'
belt. The game is tae see if ye can tak your
medicine. Sandy greeted like a babe, but he tak thon fifteen
stripes, and he would ha' ta'en more. So we said he had ta'en
it, for a' that he greet."
"I think Scotland is a paradise. At Eton, when they
had m-me naked, they m-m-made m-me crawl in a circle and lick their sem-m-men off
the floor. Each boy whacked me a stroke as I went round and round, and they stuck things in m-m-my
butt, Rory. And they
despised m-me for it, because I wouldn't fight
back. When it's a lot of boys - looking at m-me like
that, I can't talk at all. I gape and I can't make a
sound. Not even 'Please stop!'
Not even 'NO!'
So they just kept on and on, whacking me, saying 'Ask us to stop Thom-m-masson!
- Ask us and we'll stop. You m-must want it, Thom-m-masson. You don't even ask
us to stop.'
"And the only place I could wank at Eton was in the
bog. When the other boys had a wanking party I was only there to be whacked - they wouldn't
let m-m-me wank. But after they did - it
- to m-me, I had to think about the whackings in order to
cum. I can't cum any more unless I think about the times at
Eton when I was beaten with a cricket bat. As if I wanted
what they did to
m-me! But playing doctor would be wonderful.
Being
flogged with everyone watching, adm-m-miring me because I choose to
take
the
pain. That's like a dream! Whatever any other boy took, I
would take double. I wouldn't care how m-much it
hurt! Next time I m-m-m---m-m-m-masturbate, I'm going to think
about playing doctor. Do you really think the boys would ever play it with me?"
"Ayrshire's no a paradise. We flogged Anne Campion when she
was nae willing. And we lads all wanked from pleasure as we watched her tak it. I did. I wanked from pleasure as I watched her take it. We thought she deserved it."
"I'd like to be punished when I deserve it. My m-m-mmom won't spank me any more, even if I'm bad. Do you think
Sandy Beattie would strap me, if I needed to be punished?"
"He wouldna do the belting i' the game. Ian Selkirk is your
man. Or Patrick. Or me."
"I want a spanking from you more than anything."
"Aye. But I'd like to try a spanking too, Jeremy."
"M-Me spank you?"
"A long one. On yer lap. I might not like
it. But I'd like to thole a long one, with no stopping early, and then when it was over, decide."
"I've hardly dared to dream of spanking a boy. Giving you a spanking. On my lap. Oh-Ahh."
"But you want to?"
"Oh, yes."
Jeremy took off his English jacket,
his tie, and his high-collared shirt, and carefully folded them and hung them over branches,
smothing them with his hands. Then his shoes and socks, trousers
and knickers, carefully not letting his socks touch the ground.
Rory thought of the times when he had just dropped his own clothes on
the dirt. His clothes were cheap, ragged, dirty, and
common - Jeremy's tailoring was exquisite. And now, as they
regarded each other naked, Rory realized how much deeper than clothes
it went. Rory thought : I'm a slovenly swine, and he's a fine gentleman
to his skin. Not every poor crofter is a slovenly swine, but I
am. Not every rich English southron is a gentleman, but
he is.
Jeremy looked around as if he expected there to be a chair.
He brushed off his doup, and sat carefully on the smoothest bit of ground, with his legs
out in front of him. Rory stretched across his lap.
"I can't spank you. Your bottom is a m-m-mass of welts."
"Twenty cuts with a riding whip from your mother, and it's still unco sore.
That should make it hurt more. Go on, please."
After a few timid spanks, Rory said, in his posh fake-English accent: "I guess I am too coarse to appreciate
this refined pleasure."
"It's the bruises. I can't bear to hit you on
them. Spread your knees apart and I'll slap you on the
inside of your thighs."
"Och, that's a bit stings."
"This isn't a good spanking, is it? I can't bear to hurt
you. It's my shyness. Trying to spank hard is like
trying to talk loud."
"Well it's fine, Jeremy. I ha'e no need o' a
skelping. I thought you might like to gi'e one.
Do you still want one?"
Jeremy swiveled from a sitting position, to his hands and
knees, and then dropped to his elbows. He thrust his erse up, and
back, and apart, presenting the hole. Rory got into a kneeling position and gave him a few good
hard swats, hitting one
cheek at a time, and cupping his hand to match the shape of the
cheek.
This wasna fun - it wasna hurting enough ta be
satisfying ta either o' them. It had been so much fun
to spank Jeremy's mother, hard, when he'd been teased into laughing
rage. But that had been a serious spanking with a riding crop. There was only a faint blotch of
red on Jeremy's white, goosebumped skin. Jeremy bowed
his head to the ground. Rory remembered his story of licking
semen off the
floor at Eton, on his hands and knees.
"This is going to take a while, Jeremy. I think it
would be more comfortable for both of us if you were across my
lap. Are you warm enough? You could put your jacket
back on."
With Jeremy's naked body stretched across his legs, Rory could tell
better
what Jeremy was feeling. He switched from a cupped hand to
a flat one, and then spread his fingers, trying to find the way that
hurt most. He spanked Jeremy's doup, and the backs of his
thighs, and between the thighs. It took a long time before the
whole area was red. More than a hundred spanks, and Rory's arm got very tired.
Jeremy didn't react at first, but
hard spanks on places already red made him whimper.
At the end, Jeremy was so sore he flinched under Rory's hand as if each
skelp hurt as much as a stroke of the
belt. Rory stopped. Jeremy swiveled
around and hugged him,
and kissed him on the lips. Rory was used to being kissed
- Scots lads kiss. But Scots lads kiss shyly; Jeremy
was a real smoocher.
"That was super, Rory. I want more. But first I want to try spanking you
again. I think I can hit harder now."
Rory resolved to dree the spanking, whatever happened.
But there was no hint of fun or pleasure in being beaten on his bruised
doup. He seemed to have no strength of will to endure it, and to
his shame he
had to ask Jeremy to stop. Then he asked to be
spanked on his thighs, where there were no
whip-welts.
The slaps on his thighs stung like blazes, but he could dree
them. Rory
licked his lips, and thought with dread and excitement that they would
hurt more and more as he got red and sore. He settled in to
dree it.
But he didna like it. It would ha' been so nice to be
spanked by Jeremy's mum. When she kissed, Frenchie
style - that would have been oo-la-la
if he'd been on fire like this. Lip warmth and tongue
warmth and britchen warmth at the same time. Or to have her
tongue in his fudd, when his fudd and his crack and his cheeks had
been skelped red and sore and raw. He needed pleasure, to mix with the pain - not just pain. He wanted the
hairbrush handle up his arse and touching his secret spot. Or
something even thicker. Something warmer. Something that
just happened to be sticking into his belly at this moment, in
fact. Rory half rose and turned so he was looking Jeremy in the
face.
"Ye're very hard, Jeremy. Do ye nae want do
some'ut about it?"
"Do you mean wank? I can feel how hard you
are too, Rory. Do you want me to suck you off? I
don't want to keep you hard for hours, waiting for it, like my mother
did for six hours. You don't have to do anything for me."
Rory kissed him, just as smoochy as Jeremy kissed, and then the two lads were rolling on the ground in an
embrace that pushed their hard cocks against each other.
Rory hadna meant to do it, but he mounted up so quickly to the little death, from his cock rubbing in
the groove between Jeremy's leg and belly, that he could not stop it.
Caroline was
right - sometimes the pleasure was unco guid.
He had been underneath in their tumblings when it happened, and his
juice landed mostly on his own belly. Jeremy bent down to lick
it off. Rory pushed his head away. Taking
Jeremy's wullie in his hand, he used it to mop up the streaks of semen on his own belly,
transfering as much as he could to the English boy's hard shaft. Then he
turned over onto his hands and knees.
"Do you mean you want me to ...."
"They did this ta ye at Eton. I ken that's
what ye meant, when ye said they put 'things' in your
butt. Did you ne'er want ta do it to a lad, Jeremy? Will ye? Please?"
"But it hurts when someone does this."
"I want it to."
"I can't"
"Please, Jeremy. This is what I want most."
"But I can't hurt you."
"It won't hurt if you are gentle. This is the most pleasure
for me. And - I
WANT YOUR COCK!"
"Sir!"
Rory felt Jeremy's cock, slightly soft, run up along the gell of his
doup. Then Jeremy pulled back and began to
spank instead. Not as hard as Rory wanted, but it
seemed to work for Jeremy--spanking Rory made Jeremy's cock hard, and it was like wood
when he finally pushed it firmly
into Rory's welcoming hole. Rory knew it couldna
last - he couldna believe any lad could last long, doing this ; an
arsehole was just too tight. He tried to feel happy for Jeremy's
pleasure. As Jeremy got near the end, he grabbed Rory's
soft cock, and stroked it in time with his motions. Rory felt Jeremy's
climb, as if he could feel pleasure from a second stonner. Rory shuddered and gasped with
pleasure as Jeremy's juice went into him.
But the intoxication of pleasure
and the kissing afterwards was brief. Rory had lost
everything - had
himself ruined everything he had. And he'd hurt others more
than himself. He hadna forgotten Big Jock
Campbell getting the sack. He hadna forgotten his own mother, and what this would mean to her. Or
Katherine, if she cared about him enough to be hurt by
his betrayal. He hadna forgotten Mrs. Thomasson, and what had
happen to her because of what he had done. And having found
Jeremy, he
would lose him too.
"You are going to England, aren't you, Jeremy? It nae yer
fault. A quick roll in the heather
with a crofter lad. A lad you would ne'er see
again. You wasna the one that wanted it - I
was. It was all my doing. But
this
wasna a one time thing, with me, Jeremy."
"Only one time! What are you saying? But I am not going to England. Was
to
have done. But Father is punishing Mother, by
depriving her of me. He made her strip naked in front of me to show me
the marks on her bottom, and he's never done that
before. She's a slut, and he knows she's a slut, and
he lives with that--but
that she allowed a boy to whip her; that made him angrier than
I have ever seen. He never beats her, he
just canes me,
and makes her
watch. Since he can't make her watch when she's in England,
he'll make me write letters to her, describing it. I
suppose I'll get
two
canings a week, for as long as I'm in Scotland, and have to write
a letter describing each one. But that doesn't matter - I
don't
think reading
the letters can really be as hard for her as having to watch. So
I'm glad - really I am - that she's in England and I'm in
Scotland. We'll
be here
for a month at least. You
and
I can
be
together for a month! And I'll be back next year. As long
as I don't let him know I'm
happy. As long as he doesn't suspect I'm in love."
"And you will be happy with her. She'll forget about
me. I betrayed her, and I mean ta confess.
Of course she'll want you. I think you'll be busy with
her, and too happy to think about me. But if you have any
time to spare for me, I would
like to ha'e you for a friend."
"Did what just happened, not happen? Who are you talking
about?"
"Katherine Cairns. You love her."
"Katherine Cairns! Why would you think I love -
Oh. That was me. Telling
lies. I'll need a caning for that. I told my
mother I thought Katherine was pretty, that she made me laugh, and that
I'd kissed her."
"Kissed her. Not 'we kissed.' And not that you loved
her? A body in yer family needs a caning, Jeremy,
but no you."
"Katherine is yours, Rory, if she forgives you. And she
will, in time, if you don't betray her again. You did
betray her. With my mother, and now with me.
You betrayed her and you betrayed me, doing what we did, when all along you loved
someone else."
"You are right. And now I've lost a friend for it
too. I will miss you."
"You may betray the one
you
love, but
I'm not going to."
"What are ye haivering abou'? Wha' de ye mean?"
"You."
"What?"
"I love you."
"
Me?"
"I have for weeks. I know you won't believe me. I
didn't believe it myself at first, I had to do some reading, about .. well,
you know, Greeks."
"Ochen, I believe ye, Jeremy. I can see it, noo. Ye said 'ye may betray the one
ye love'."
"So?"
"Ye said
may betray. Not muh-muh-muh-muh-may betray.
Ye've lost yer stammer."
|
VI.
The flesher's son's tale. |
|
|
Wee Jock stopped at the holly, the morn.
Jeremy had gone home with his love
the night before, to help in any way he could, when Rory had to tell
his
mother what he had done, and that they might be driven off their
croft.
Jeremy had promised himself he
would not be
shocked. But it was worse than he could have
imagined. He began to be aware of what it meant to
have fallen in love with a young man who lived in a dog kennel (for
such it had been built), who slept on stinking straw with his animals,
whose dinner that night consisted of nothing, and who had to cook it,
if it had existed, nothing. But the poverty did not excuse
the dirt and squalor altogether. Rory was slovenly. His
clothes, that he went to school in, were dirty and ragged, but his
mother's were plain rags. When she moved they did not cover
her, which she seemed not to know. But
the shocking thing was that Rory was not ashamed of it. Not
ashamed to have a guest see his blind mother's unaware nakedness. He just didn't care.
And in the midst of the squalor, not seeing it, was Rory's blind
mother.
June McAllister was an educated woman - a gracious and cultured
woman. And beautiful, except for the scars on her face.
Jeremy had been told her story - against orders, she had kept
driving her ambulance right through a big bombardment on the
Somme, and was blinded trying to save a soldier's life. She graciously accepted Jeremy's assurance
that he
would support her at Hamish Cairn's, or anywhere else she might prefer, but
she asked him not to worry, as she was sure they would
find
comfortable accomodation, should they be forced to leave their happy
home. She sounded like she was declining the offer of a scone at
a tea party. The place
stank. It crawled. And it was frighteningly
cold.
And
then Jeremy went home, and
was caned. He cried himself to sleep, sucking his thumb and curled up in his big
Rennie Mackintosh bed, trying to work
out if there was any way he could run away from home and live with Rory
and his mither at their wonderful croft. It was a long
night.
In the morning, Jeremy had hoped to be at the holly first. But Wee Jock was
out the gate a minute or so ahead of him, and was faster.
Jeremy thought he might have to run after the lad all the way to school, but the Scot lad stopped at the holly.
Jeremy was always awkward with servants' sons. "Will you t-t-t-take some meat pie, Jock."
Jock took some, of course. It wouldn't be polite to refuse
an offer from the master's son. Wee Jock led the way to the place
behind the holly - there was a stone to sit on, and every morning Jock
sat there to wait for Rory. Of course this morning Jock
expected it would
be the master's son who sat.
But the stone already had someone on it--Patrick Nethery.
"Hello, Jeremy. I've been hoping to talk wi' Rory. I cam by last night fer a wee chat, but he
was a' so busy wi' you, and I dinna like to intrude on yer private
business. But I gather ye ha'e been playing thon doctor
game."
Jeremy wondered just how much Patrick had heard. He said: "I was
t-t-t- I was t-t-t- I was accepting my
medicine."
"And I heard the guid doctor accep' some medicine too, I think, guid medicine - physician, heal
thyself. Well, I ha' just cam ta tell him I'm a minded ta tak my medicine too."
"What medicine?"
"Fifteen strokes o' the belt on bare britchen, Jeremy. How would ye lak that? A bit
stronger more thon medicine ye took las' night, eh, Jeremy?"
"I will t-t-t- t-t-t- t-t-t-take the same medicine as you,
Patrick. Whatever you t-t-t-take."
"Then I'm the man ta gi'e it to ye, English!"
"And I'll do you, t-t-t-oo, Nethery! Here and now! Before school! If ye dare, Scotsman!"
"Anytime ye want! But I'd like to have the same lads as saw
me refuse ta tak it before, ta be there ta watch."
"I want witnesses t-t- - also."
"Why d' ye want fer ta be whipped, English?"
"Why do you, Scot?"
"Ochen, it was thon Anne Campion told us t'would be fun ta play.
I think the whole schuil will
play, tonight. My medicine was three leaves o' nettle doun the gell o' my
doup - oo tha' stung, but I showed a' the lads I could
dree it, and I liked that fine. But then like a dunder-heid I asked which lad
had ta'en the strongest medicine, and Rory said it nae a lad, it was Katherine
Cairns!
And then I thought I had to tak the
same as she, or be shamed, and so I said I would tak it. But then I was a feart ta. But I
think I can, noo. I can tak it, and I think it will be unco fine to tak it, afore
all the lads. But that's the game, to tak yer medicine and
ha'e the lads see ye'e a stout heart and Scottish balls, or gi'e out ye are feart laik a Sassenach."
"But it's not just that. Not just boys proving their courage. Rory said you whipped Anne."
"Och but she organized it, Jeremy; she got us ta
play game. So when
her turn came, she should
ha'e
played. She could ha'e ta'en her medicine, or said
she was
feart - the same as any other body. But she said she wasna feart
but wouldna do it, for she didna lik ta
bare her britchen - she who had organized a game fer a' the other
bodies ta
play i' the skud!
And so we gi'e her what she had persuaded an other body ta tak;
fifteen strokes o' the belt, right guid and hard."
"Rory is upset about it."
"I'm upset about what?"
"Och, Houn Fell, there ye are. Are we going to play ..."
But Rory turned rudely away from Patrick while he was talking, and went
over to Wee Jock.
"Wee Jock, it was my fault, what happened. What will happen? Do yer folks ha'e a place to go?"
It was Jeremy who answered. "Jock Campbell was not given the sack,
after all, Rory. My father couldn't sack him, cause he'd have t-t- uh - tell the world why he was sacked."
Wee Jock said: "But he's nae butler any more, just outdoor
ghillie. Front door will be open by Mrs.
Hobson, the housekeeper, noo. And my Dad's been gi'en a cut i' his
wages."
"It's a' my fault, but I would ne'er ha'e dream your Daddie would be
punished, Jock. Mrs. Thomasson made
him lea'e us alone
together. There was nocht he could ha'e done."
"There was. Nae to stop you being wi' her, but to stop
Master fro' walking in on it. The master kens the Leddie
has a lad - she has 'nother ane besides ye, I mean, Rory. But the master'd rather
no ha'e it
thrown i' his face. So when Master comes in, me Daddie
keeps Master
down the stairs a wee bit, a haivering abou' estate business, and while tha's on I nip round ta get lad out
o' boudoir, quick as a wink oop the stairs ta attic. And
then later I
smouk his clothes up ta him. But last night Daddie had ta'en a wee dram too many, and
I was late ta get back fro' schuil, forby I had gone ta Houn Fell croft ta see if ye were
sick."
"Do I know this pleasure lad she has?" Rory's voice was dangerous.
"Aye. But you willna hear a name from me."
"Nor me." - that was Jeremy. But then he said: "I mean, Rory, that of
course I will tell you, love, but do you really want to know?"
Rory was clenching his fists, but he shook his head. His
eyes continued to smoulder with dark hatred.
Jeremy said: "Patrick, you wanted t-t-to t-t-talk t-to Rory about the
doctor game?"
"Aye. Patrick. Ye were saying?"
"Are we going ta play Doctor after schuil today?"
"I ha'e other things on me mind, Patrick."
Jeremy said: "I think we should do it, Patrick. We don't need Rory. Jock, t-t-t-tell all the
lads
t-t- come. I'll be there t-to watch you get your bottom
striped, Patrick. And ye can do me the same strokes. Agreed? We don't need Rory."
"We'll all be striped if we dinna get ta schuil."
Jeremy handed out the rest of the meat pie, and Rory and Patrick ate their slices as they ran.
At school, Jeremy stood up and
walked to the dominie's desk, and had a whispered word.
Then he faced the class to make an announcement. But
nothing
came out of his gaping mouth. His face turned red, and then he hid his
face in his hands, gasping for breath and turning blue.
Patrick Nethery
stood up and said he knew what Jeremy meant to say, and could
talk for him. Dominie Sewell looked longingly at the
bairns' slates he wanted to fill with his lesson, but Patrick pointed
at Jeremy,
and Jeremy nodded in reply. Jeremy was, after all, the lad of
the Auld
Manse. So the dominie allowed Patrick to speak for Jeremy
Thomasson as his representative.
Patrick went to the front of the class, and cleared his throat: "Um. Ye all
know, or ye'll hear it soon, that the master of Houn Fell was
discovered in bed with Mrs. Thomasson, at the Auld Manse."
To judge from the gasps, they did not know.
"I want ye a' to ken what really happened afore ye hear some wild
tale. The Leddie o' the Manse invited Rory inta her
bed, but he refused. He
said he had a true love, and wouldna betray her. I willna
say who tha' is."
Every body in class turned around ta look at Katherine Cairns. She blushed.
"But Mrs. Thomasson said : 'Houn Fell, if yer love be guid and true, ye can be naked
in bed wi' me, and do nothing.' And she offer him a
wager. Now we know tha' Rory is a guid son, and has great
need o' money fer his mither's med-cine. And so he took thon
wager. And the master of Houn Fell fixed his pure thoughts on his pure true love.
"But no sooner had he seen the temptress naked, than had a great
stonner, standing before him like a caber. And so he
lost the first wager. But she offered him a second wager, so he
could get his
money back and more, that she could kiss him on ilka pairt o' his body,
and it would cause him to so desire her, that he would kiss
her. And he took this wager
too, with this proviso, that she might not kiss nor touch him on his
stonner. And he thought he could win this wager easily.
"And she kissed him and she carressed him, on ilka pairt o' his body, on his
lips, on his titties, on his eyes, and on the top of his head, and on
the
soles of his feet, and on owt tha' is between. Except one thing,
as I
ha'e already mentioned. She kissed him for an hour. And
his stonner remained for a' this time, unco hard, and it ached. For
he had stunnerfu' great desire, but he fixed his pure thoughts on his pure true
love, and didna kiss the hussey.
"And the temptress wondered if
there was any tiny spot on his body that she hadna kissed, and she
kissed his hands between forefinger and thumb, and she kissed behind
his knees, and she kissed a' the places which she hadna kissed afore.
She kissed him for a second hour. And she made him stick
out his tongue, and she kissed
that. And Rory was
in agony from his stonner, that couldna dree it, but he tried ta dree it for his pure true love.
"And then she
thought of the one tiny place on his body that she had not yet kissed,
and she made him bend over, and she kissed the very fud of his
arse. And that made such pain i' his stonner that he
couldna dree it, and so he kissed her; he kissed on her
titties and her eyes and the place between her legs. On ilka
place on her body except her lips, since these had touched the fud of
his
arse. And from his anger he skelped her hard, and very hard, and
long. And he kissed her and kissed her, and skelped her and skelped
her, and kissed
her and kissed her, for an
hour. And his
stonner remained for all this time, and it ached. And so he lost
the second wager, because he had kissed her on her cunt."
The dominie's tawse smacked down on his desk. "How dare you
utter such an obscenity!"
Patrick flipped up his kilt and bent over the desk. He hadna any trews. "Belt me
then, but I mun finish the story. Belt me a stroke for ilka wicked word,
but I mun finish."
But the dominie couldna belt him. The puir man had a great
stonner
and couldna
rise from behind his desk or a body would see it. And besides, he
really had to know
how the story came out. His wet dreams at night were about
Mrs.
Thomasson's jugs - for she came to Kirk o' Sunday in an unco low-cut
dress. He
told Patrick to pull up his
breeches and finish. But Patrick finished his tale bent
over the desk, with his bare doup offerred oop fer tha tawse.
"Now Rory had lost money he did not have, so when she offered him a
third wager, to win it back and more, he mun tak it. And
this wager was, that she should command him, to do anything to her body
that she should name, and he must obey. Except that she could not
command him to fuck her. ..."
The dominie slapped his desk again with the tawse. Patrick shrugged.
"And the wager was, that if he should succumb to his desire, and fuck
her, in her cunt with his cock, then he would lose his wager,
but if he could hold off from it, and keep his semen inside hissel, he
would win. So he would lose also, if he should
masturbate hissel. And
then she made him bite her lips, and suckle on her titties, and lick
her cunt with his tongue--ta stick his tongue deep in her
cunt. And because earlier, in his
passion, he had skelp her o' the britchen wi' his hands, she guessed he
had
muchle desire to do that, so she commanded him to skelp
her. And that was the first hour. And she commanded him to
put his
fingers in her, in her cunt, and ta fuck her with them, another
hour, and that was the second hour.
And she had very great pleasure from all that she
made him do, and she showed her pleasure by her soft moans and by
panting like a dog, and this greatly increased
his desire, and she commanded him to bite and suckle on her titties,
and finger her cunt, and skelp her, all at once, while she showed her
intense pleasure by loud panting and gasping, which she did over and
over again for an hour--and this was the third hour. But he
fixed his pure thoughts on his pure true
love, and in spite of all
the pleasuring of the temptress that he was compelled to do, he did not
fuck her with his cock. And all the skelping and
fingering and
kissing and biting she made him do, was altogether three
hours, and all this time his stonner remained unco
hard, and it ached.
"And it seemed he had won the wager, for she
could not make him so forsake his true love, as to fuck. And she
said he should get dressed and go, and
she would send his winnings after. And since he
had, at this time, had a stonner for six hours, he was quite anxious to
go, and find some private place.
"But then the temptress happened to spy her snow white mare, grazing on
the lawn. Grazing there because she was on heat, and must be kept
from the common stallions. And the temptress signed
to a servant, and whispered, that the servant should loose onto the
lawn the storm-grey stallion, a beast that had become so wild, that it
could not be ridden. And the servent whispered back that
this
must not be, for the foal of such a sire would be wild. But
the temptress said she would sack the servant on the spot if he did
not obey, and so
the stallion was let to the mare. And then
the temptress leaned far out her chamber window, naked as she was, and
she invited Rory to watch the running of the horses.
He had never seen such beautiful animals, and so he lingered to watch
them run; and the mare fled from the stallion, but he overtook her,
and bit her, and she was forced to submit as he mounted and tupped
her. And then Rory found that he had tupped the woman, bent
over
the window frame in front of him. And so he lost the third
wager.
"Then Rory had to confess he had wagered money he did not have, and
so he belonged to her as a slave, to labor to pay his debt.
And she said his labor would be to fuck her three times, coming to her
without fail whenever she sent him one of her rings, and each fuck must
be harder and longer than the last, two hours, four hours, and six
hours, for he had proved he could keep his stonner longer than any man
alive, for no man has e'er kept a stonner fer six hours w'o' he died o'
it. And
she showed him the three rings on her fingers, and he learned them
each well. And to seal the deal he offered her, as a free
gift,
three kisses. And it was during the last kiss, which she
made ta linger for an hour, that her lord came home. And as
she
was carried to torture chamber, she wispered to Rory that he
should
expect the three rings."
The dominie thought this fantasy was a bit ornate, and that the cause
of
Scottish literature would be helped if this particular budding poet got a chance
to suffer for his art. He stood oop from behind his desk. He would just have to hope that his
students dinna look too closely at their dominie's crotch.
|
VII. An Ayrshire welcome. |
|
|
And it was indeed, as Patrick had predicted, the whole schuil at
the holly for evening surgery.
All the lads, anyway, and a hantle o' lassies. The lads had worked it out that the Auld
Manse
had neither a snow-white mare, nor a
dangerous gray stallion. So they understood, or at least
the
brighter ones did, that therefore Patrick's story was not, strictly
speaking, true. But no one thought that the mere truth would be
worth knowing. And so, while there were many questions
about what really happened at the Auld Manse, they all asked them of Patrick.
It dinna occur ta a body ta ask
Rory.
Patrick's story had improved
the younger lads' vocabularies. The dominie had belted Patrick
not for each wicked word, but for each letter of each word--18
stripes in all.
He had spelled the words as he struck, but not loud enough for anyone
but Patrick to hear every letter. The young lads wanted to
know which of
the words
they
had learned, were really bad - which were the ones they'd get a belting
for, if they said them in schuil? Which words would the
dominie spell out in stripes on their bare doups? But Patrick
wouldna tell
them. "Masturbate" was their favorite; they were sure
it was the most obscene
word in all the Scots language, and they liked the sound of it, and
they all
tried to spell it out and count how many letters it had, smacking each
others' doups with their hands in their play. They had
all dared each
other to say it in schuil, and some of them had taken the dares and
pledged to say "masturbate" in schuil tomorrow, so the number of
letters
was rather important. John and Duncan Cairns made up a
masturbation song:
Ye may say that cunt is great
I just want tae masturbate
Ye may want tae fuck a quean
I would rather kiss a stane
When my sis do catch me do'it,
she mun skelp me on my doup.
Some day I will fuck a lass
But for now - go kiss my ass!
Ian Selkirk insisted it was his turn to play patient first.
It wasn't until
his breeches were down, waiting for his 'spexion, that they realized
they had nae a body ta play nurse; Kat Cairns wasna there.
The other lassies were quite shocked when Rory asked fer a lass ta play nurse--fer a lass ta
finger Ian's wullie, ta gi'e him a stonner. The lasses
didna e'en want ta look at Ian wi' his breeches
doun. Not if a body noticed them a looking, anyway.
"Since we ha'e nae a nurse, Doctor Thomasson, will you assist?"
Jeremy nodded, and shyly fingered Ian's cock--it stayed soft. Rory gave Ian his 'jexion, but he handed the fat
stick to Jeremy. Jeremy pushed the tip of the stick at Ian's fud, but it didna go in.
Rory said: "Jeremy canna talk, Ian, when we're all looking at him laik
this. Could you help
him?"
Ian asked: "Jeremy, could you push a little harder, please. I'll try to let
it in."
The stick went in, in a rush, as if Ian had sucked it in. He
groaned, and writhed, and Jeremy looked at his hand with
horror. But then Ian turned around.
A red stonner the size of a stallion's stood out in front of him,
rising at an angle of forty-five degrees. His courage-bag too was
like no other the lads had ever seen--huge, deep red, and rough like a
coconut, with a visible black center line.
Rory said: "There is nocht wrong wi' you, patient Selkirk, as any fool
can see. Yer healthy enou' ta fuck a horse! Ye've nae need o' thon medicine."
"Och, doctor. Do ye no need to gi'e me a 'spexion?"
"Doctor Thomasson, will ye gi'e patient Selkirk a wee 'spexion so I can
earn m' fee?"
Ian laughed as Jeremy ran his little finger between sheathie and
head o' his penis. And Jeremy
laughed. And Jeremy got playful. Ian
stopped laughing and a great gulping gasp came out of his throat. Semen arched through the
air. Jeremy had to pluck some ivy leaves to wipe it off his
trousers.
The young lads, who were more interested in giggling with each other
than watching what the auld folk were doing, fell into shocked silence,
except the ones who weren't watching at all, who clammored to know what
had happened. Then they began to sing the masturbation
song again. Then there was some fighting as they realized, all at
once, that they had to stand in queue if they hoped to see doctor afore dark.
Tom McCall was at the head of the queue, but Patrick asked him to let
Jeremy go next. Jeremy removed his shoes and trousers under
the holly, and blushed as he came out, bare below the
waist. He minced as his tender feet were prickled by the
fallen holly leaves. He smiled shyly and the Scots all
smiled
back at him. Then he turned around for his 'jexion.
"Yer ... arse ... it's ... it's "
The Scots were used to the cheerful blood-red bands across the
britchen, made by the tawse, but
they didna care for this English savagery. At least two
dozen jagged, raised welts had been
slashed across the English boy's behind, with a cane. There
were scabs - this caning had drawn blood, and the wounds were pussy and swollen and red. Patrick said
they should storm the Auld Manse and give Mr. Thomasson a taste of his
own
medicine.
Jeremy tried to talk to the staring faces. A strangled gurgle was
all that would come out of his mouth. Rory led him away, under
the holly.
When they came back out, Jeremy was i' the scud altogether.
Rory asked
the young
lads to sing their masturbation song, loud, and to sing it, if they
could,
on key. And to clap to keep time. Rory started,
absurdly, to
dance. A step-dance, with high leaps, and a hand held over his
head. Patrick, giggling, joined in,
then Jeremy, heedless now of his bare feet on the prickly ground.
He was the only one naked, and the step dance made his half-erect wullie bounce up and down; the lassies turned
away and wouldn't watch, but the lads stared, goggle-eyed, and it made them laugh and they
started to dance, and they opened their ballops to let out the stiffening meat. Every lad who wasn't dancing was stamping,
clapping, singing,
shouting, in time to the music. Rory joined the song, and
then, very
softly, mouthing the words, Jeremy. Rory encouraged
him, and soon the naked English boy was belting out the silly Scots
words at the top of his
voice. Without stammering. His stark white naked
body shone in the evening
light, among the ragged
dirty sunburned Scots who danced around him. He was a head
taller than any of them.
Rory and Patrick stopped dancing, and the singing petered
out. Rory spun Jeremy around, and pushed on his head
with his hand, signalling the English boy to bend over. He ran his hand
over Jeremy's welts, and then jabbed in two thorns, and left them in. Then he took the fat
stick in his hand.
"Are you ready for your 'spexion, patient Thomasson?"
"Aye."
But instead of shoving the stick up Jeremy's arse, Rory beat him with
it,
smashing each arse cheek a hard blow, on the proud flesh of his swollen
welts, and drove the thorns into his doup like a hammer on a
nail. Jeremy visibly struggled to dree the pain,
wilting a bit under the blows, and weeping, but then raising his arse high, as if
expecting more strokes. One of the scabs
oozed bloody pus. The watching audience let out an angry gasp, like
a hiss.
"Rory! Wha' the cunt!" - that was Patrick Nethery.
"Well ye
know, Patrick, I don't think Jeremy ever got his Ayrshire
welcome. Did ye ever hear if he did?"
"Nae."
"So we should each give him a pair o' smacks on the britchen. Is
that nae how we do it in Ayrshire? Welcome to the new lad?"
"Are ye daft, Houn Fell? To hit him on his wounds when he's been been beaten like this?"
"Och, but ye see he was expecting the welcome. He was
warned o' it by the dominie. Since he was the new
boy, the lads
would pull down his bags - that's what they call it in England - and
gi'e him his choice, sticks or stanes? As we did for Ian
last year, and Ian is nobut fra' Kirkcudbrightshire; the dominie warned
him tha' fer a lad fra' England it'd be a lot more. Jeremy
was waiting for it
- he'd made his choice already - he would tak
sticks. But the welcome ne'er came. He thought we
didna consider him one o' the lads - since he was gentry,
since he was Sassenach, he wasna ane o' us farm lads.
But he was willing to tak the welcome, he wanted it - he didna ask to
be treated any
special as gentry, he wanted ta tak his welcome, lak any lad.
So you mun gi'e him a hard blow wi' the
stick, Patrick. Two blows. To show he is
welcome to
Ayrshire, and one o' us lads."
"Houn Fell are ye blind? Do you no realize how much it
will hurt? And we ne'er beat Ian so hard as ye hit Jeremy! Would ye be able to dree such a blow on top o' such
bruises?"
"Och, no I. No I. But
he can dree it, Patrick - I've hit him twa already so he
kens how much it hurts. And yet see, there he is, waiting for
more. Wanting more. You coundna dree it, and I coundna dree it, but he can. Hit him, unless
you think he is nae one o' us lads, Patrick. Tak the stick.
Hit him, Patrick!"
"I canna - I willna. Houn Fell, ye'r daft! We can do it when he's had a
chance to heal, if we mun do it, at a'. But nae two hard blows fra' ilka body o' us - on top o'
what he's had? It's nae human."
"Aye. But he wants to prove hissel. What did he say to ye at morn?"
"That he wanted the same medicine what I wanted - and that was fifteen stripes wi' the belt."
"He said tha'
this
morn? When ilka step must ha'e been agony?
When you or I would ha'e been moaning and groaning on oor
beds, lyin on oor bellies? He said he wanted fifteen strokes wi' the
belt?
This morn? He wanted fifteen strokes of the belt on
this?"
Jeremy stood up, stretched, yawned, and then got back into position
with his welted bleeding arse raised high in the air.
"Aye, Rory. Tha's what he said. I didna know he'd been caned. I didna guess."
"Nae ye did no guess! For Jeremy Thomasson would nae ha shown
his pain - he would ha keep thon stiff English lip! So suppose we let him
prove hissel. Some'ut that willna
hurt extra because o' his caning. It's no traditional, but suppose for
his welcome we each gi'e him a strap with the belt across his back, or
his legs?"
"Or wi' stinging nettle?"
"Aye, that would be fine. - Patrick, tha's brilliant! Stinging nettle will help him heal
. It is the cure my mither uses for bruises and cuts."
"So Doctor if he gets thrashed wi' the nettles, across his britchen, that will soothe him?"
"Soothe? Well, no. I do no recall that
any o' my mither's cures and poultices do exactly
soothe.
It hurts like torture when she whips me with nettle when I bruise
myself - and it makes the bruises itch, too. But she says
that be the power of the nettle doing its work."
"Aye, so we mun whip him wi' the nettle. You go first, Houn Fell."
"I ha'e hit him already for his welcome."
"Hit him again wi' the nettle. You mun go
first fer the res o' us ta follow. But then ilka body o' us mun whip him, e'en the
young lads."
"Aye." Rory picked up a wilted stalk of nettle and
barely touched it to Jeremy's bottom. He said: "Aye."
Patrick cut a large stalk of fresh nettle, and whipped Jeremy two good strokes with it, on the backs of
his thighs - at the bottom edge of the area criss-crossed with cane welts
and bruises. He said: "Welcome to Ayrshire, Jeremy."
Wee Jock Campbell, Ian Selkirk, Sandy
Beattie, the younger Geordie
McCall, Wullie Murdoch. Then Patrick cut a fresh stalk of
nettle. Roger
Cairns, Tom McCall, the Muir twins, Ian Smith. And
all the lads in the whole schuil, waiting a turn; to give two good
strokes of fresh nettle across the English lad's britchen, and he all willing and waiting. But
when the twelfth lad took the nettle, Archibald Boswell, Patrick put a hand on his arm,
and
pointed to Rory. Rory was curled up on the ground in a tight
ball, shaking and
shivering, and breathing in choked, rattling gasps.
Patrick told Archie, "Enough."
Arch put his hand on Jeremy's shoulder. "It is over,
Jeremy; Rory canna thole any more. I canna whip ye,
but welcome ta Ayrshire all the same. From ilka lad in schuil."
The naked Englishman turned to look at the gathering of Scots. He said: "I am glad t-t-t-
t t-t-t- t- I am glad t-t-t-
t-t- t-."
Then he cleared his throat, looked at them all, and said: "I am glad
to be in Ayrshire."
|
VIII. A tickling for trout. |
|
|
With a little help from Rory, who had a poacher's knowledge of the trout
in Cassnock Water, Jeremy became a fisherman.
According to the ghillies, Jeremy's father
"couldna land an auld boot, if he cast fer one at the
soutor's."
But Jeremy took to casting like a natural, and he understood Rory's
whispered instructions about where brown trout like to hide. And so, after a Friday
evening when
Jeremy landed four large trout and his
father not any, the older Mr. Thomasson was quite happy to agree that they
should cast different reaches on the Saturday. It meant of
course that a single ghillie couldn't serve them both, but Jeremy said he could easily find some local lad to carry his gear.
"The ghillie isn't just to carry our gear, Jeremy. He's a guide -
a local expert. It's his job to know where the fish are."
"But father, I don't really c-c-care if I c-c-catch anything."
"You should try, Jeremy. You don't really try to be best at anything."
But Jeremy did hire Rory as his "local lad," and so they had Saturday together. Alone
together. Alone was the important part. They were
together all day in school, and for a few precious minutes every morning,
they were, thanks to the tact and understanding of Wee Jock
Campbell, alone together under the holly. More than that Jeremy could
not
risk. He told his father that he had no friends, that the
local boys made fun of his stammer, and they spoke broad Scots that he
couldn't understand. And his father wrote to his mother
that
Jeremy was miserable but he would have to stay in Scotland, as he could
not be in the care of a slut.
If his father knew that Jeremy was kissed by a
dozen lads and lasses of a morning, that he'd been given
invitations to take tea
from half the
houses in the parish, that he and Patrick were the captains of
every lunchtime game of footba' or chickie mellie, and that he was
happier with his friends than he had
ever been, to say nothing of being in love, then his father would have
sent
him
home to
Chiddingfold at once. He couldn't let his father know he
had friends, so he came straight home after school - and
then he spent
his
evenings fishing, under his father's eye, while Rory played doctor
at the holly with the lads. In a week and a half,
Jeremy had not
managed to be
alone with Rory, even for half an hour, in any private place where they could play
the
game that
started with taking off their clothes.
But alone with Rory he had contrived to be, for this whole glorious
Saturday, and Rory would even get paid.
They went
up the path to the upper half of the reach, above the bridge, where the
Auld Manse owned the trout rights. In spite of the early
hour, they did not have the path to themselves - they met a
tinker, a collier, and the Free Kirk minister. Rory knew them
each,
and passed a word or two.
They learned that Staunton coal pit was to close down.
Jeremy had hoped it would be private along the water, but along the
upper reach, the well-used path ran near the bank, and on either
side there were open fields.
There were cottages in the fields. Someone could look out
of a window, or someone could come along the path, at any time.
"But there's no one in sight now, Rory. We could kiss."
Rory pointed to a cottage : "A body in thon bothie micht see us."
"But we'll only be seen if someone happens to look out of the window at
just the wrong moment. That's not likely. And anyway
they wouldn't care. It's only a kiss between lads, and this is Scotland."
"Guidwives always know when to keek o' the
window. A body find some'ut to do at a
window and sit all day, churning or sewing or carding, just to watch ye, Jeremy, and
then call for tea at
at another biddie's, and earn their scone and bit jam wi' the fine tale they ha'e to tell, o' how young Jeremy
Thomasson spent his day o' fishing wi' thon no-guid Rory McAllister fer a ghillie . You spend the day at
some'ut else, Jeremy, o' the kind you ha'e in mind, and fer tha' muchle tale she'll maybe be wanting a wee dram."
"So we have to spend the day playing young master and his servant? Not even kiss?"
"A master wouldna kiss a servant. You could maybe skelp me. If I dropped yer lunch i' the burn."
"Spank a servant?"
"Aye. It's no uncommon tae thrash a fee'd servant lad wi' a belt.
Wee Jock ha'e been skelped already by thon Mrs. Hobson, the
housekeeper, since she took over the ruling o' the house. Do ye nae ken what is going on in yer own house?"
"Not below stairs. Nor above them, for that matter, I didn't
know Wee Jock was hiding Tom - I mean my mother's pleasure boy - naked
in the attic."
"Well maybe thon attic be a place, if we can smouk inta it. I
want to ha'e yer wullie in my arse, Jeremy, but we can nae do tha' here."
"You do? I thought you wanted Katherine Cairns."
"I'd rather ha'e you."
"So you don't love her? You love me instead?"
"Do I ha'e to say that, Jeremy? Do ye ha'e ta keep askin'? I'm unco fond o'
Katherine. Canna a body ha'e a friend, and a lass too, wi'o'
jealousy."
"You can have whatever you want, Rory. I don't have any
right to demand anything. But this month, while I'm
here, you want to be with me more than her?"
"As much as we can be together, I want to be."
"This is paradise. And you want to put your cock up my arse, as much as I want you to put it there?"
"Well I nae ken abou' that. But I want yer cock up my arse as much as I e'er wanted anything."
"And you want to be flogged with the nettle, as much as I do?"
"Nae. I canna dree the nettle. A long skelping is all
I care for. I'd like ta try a touch o' the nettle on
my titties, though."
"Perhaps I don't care for the nettle either. But I haven't
felt it since my welcome to Ayrshire, and I was expecting two
strokes from everyone. When the flogging stopped early, I
had a hankering for the rest of them."
"I hadna known it was pleasure to ye, Jeremy."
"It wasna - I mean it wasn't. But I was willing to bear it. I didn't want a cheap welcome."
"I can see ye're vexed. Shall we smouk into thon attic wi' some nettle stalks? And flog each others' doups?"
"It seems a risk. Is there nowhere else?"
"Aye, we can find a few trees right enou' where what we do will nae be
o'erlook. Most place along this burn, if we stand i' the
water, we are hidden by the willows o' the bank. We
could kiss. But we mun mind the path. Or
we could climb thon brae to Scafton wood and be secret as ye please.
But that we go up to the
wood
will be seen, do ye ken? And that we are no here, tha' will be
seen as well. What do ye plan ta say to
yer daddie tonight? If ye say ye spent the day a fishing
here on
the upper water, but in fact we spent it in Scafton
wood, there might perhaps be a body or twa who saw us go up ta wood - but there will a sure be many a body, who dinna see us be here a fishing as ye said we were. I
no say their tales will come o'er ta yer Daddie, but ye see the risk."
"I will say I couldn't catch anything, thanks to my fool of a ghillie,
and I decided to do something else - walk to a famous church or something. And that is just what I shall
do. And if the route passes through some woods, and
if we take a little longer to traverse those woods than we might have
done, I don't see that anyone need be the wiser. So
you just need to pick a place to go."
"It's a muckle step, but we could maybe go ta thon cairn, where Dr. McLeod
has been a' grave-robbing. That be some'ut ta see old bones
and swords o' the Vikings. I'd lik fine ta see thon."
"If you mean Beoch Cairn, it's Bronze Age, much older than the Vikings. But we'd be walking along the
road. Is there somewhere, where to get there from here, we
cut through some woods?"
"Terringzean Castle."
"But it's a ruin. What reason would I tell my father, that I took it into my head to go there?"
"Because your fool of a ghillie promised to show you some'ut at the ruins."
"What?"
"Red Cap."
"That's a kind of fairy?"
"He's no a fairie, he's a powrie. Fairies are nice."
"It seems fantastic."
"He's no fantastic. The minister saw him and it's
the speak of Ayrshire. We mun look out for his claws."
"Off we go then. I'll put some claw marks in you, Rory, and
show them to my father as proof of our adventure. No need
to carry all that - we'll come back here."
"It'll mebby be kyked. From here, we climb thon brae to
Scafton Wood. When we ha'e done oor business there, we go o'er
fell ta Darvel Road. Then it's past a row of miner's cotages,
around Staunton pit head, and then cut through park ta castle
ruins. There'll maybe be another guid spot in the castle grounds if ye ha'e nae got enou' kissing oop Scafton Wood."
"Carry the gear if you like, or leave it. I'll be caned
if pater's rod gets pinched, but I don't care anymore, I get caned anyway. I feel like singing,
Rory. Can't I even kiss
you, until we get into the trees? What shall
we do first, when we get there, and can strip off? After
kissing, I mean. And kissing and kissing and kissing. But after that I think I want to start by
giving you the pleasure of a spanking."
"Aye. First you warm the cup, but then ye mun put some'ut in it."
"Rory, this is wonderful. A month. And then next year."
"I may no be here, next year. I think I mun go to Glesgie before winter."
"Glasgow!"
"I canna stay here."
"And do what in Glasgow?"
"Shipyards."
"The shipyards are closed. Unemployment is fifty percent."
"The Army, then."
"There aren't going to be any more armies. Disputes will be
settled by the League of Nations. Wars were all caused by
Jewish capitalists anyway, and we know about the Jews now thanks to Oswald Mosely."
"If unemployment is fifty percent, then fifty percent ha'e
jobs. Money-paying jobs. And that's forty-nine percent better than here."
"But you've managed until now."
"Nae. Some folk gi'e us a bit food, for auld syne, as
they knew my father. And they do me the kindness not ta
call it charity. The McCall, who has the name of a striecht man,
has no asked me for his rent. But it's one thing to gi'e charity to
a blind widow woman and her wee-un - another for a grown man ta tak
it. It is coming on my schuil-leaving, in any case."
"It is not school-leaving for you yet. Why go before next year?"
"It's a matter o' fuel. I canna get my hands on enou' coal."
"But Ayrshire is a coal-mining shire!"
"With thon Taunton pit closed down, it'ill be a cold winter hereabout. And a fat
churchyard too, fer there's many a body will feel the pinch in Ayrshire aside the McAllisters.
Fuel doesna move in Ayreshire, but fer silver; I canna get a
cartload
o' coal to my croft fer love, nor fer a pair o' cabbages.
And I
ha'e got nae so much as a penny piece."
"And your mother, if you go to Glasgow?"
"I mun tak my mither to Hamish Cairns, and set her to bide at his
door. He canna
leave her starve. But he is nae so much better off than me, and
there be a hantle o' wee-uns at Cairns. I ha'e nocht ta gi'e
him. When I go, I mun gi'e my livestock ta the McCall.
It'd be ta sherrif's court fer me if I took stock off land, owing
rent as I do."
"I can pay some money to support your mother. I told you I
would do it, when you thought you'd get booted off by McCall."
"I canna be a hoor, Jeremy, I canna."
"If it was money from my mother, it would be for
that. Will you allow it if the money is from
me? My own pocket money? Given for friendship?"
"I may be able to send her some fro' Glesgie, if I get a job."
"So you see, it is only a loan.. Can we get you some coal
with it? A cartload? So you can stay here through the winter, and stay
in school?"
"If we can get the fuel, I will carry it to Houn Fell on my back."
"This month, that you've promised to spend lollygagging with me -
that's time you need, isn't it Rory, to get ready for winter. To
work your croft, and to do jobs for people. People who have done
favors for you, or who might do. You are sacrificing a day for
me, today."
The brae they were climbing was steep, and Jeremy had to rest. Rory sat beside him, and put an arm around him.
"It is no a sacrifice. I can spend a day o' leasure. And you know I want to spend it wi' you."
"But I don't want you to sacrifice for me, I want to help you. I want to work."
"I ha'e no great amount o' work ta do on my croft noo. I
wisht there was - but I canna spread muck when I ha'e nae muck ta
spread. And no a body has work fer me. There's nae work
in Ayrshire, and many a man ta do it. And if a body had work
they wouldna gi'e it ta me."
"You seem very popular."
"Aye, this past week I ha'e been a' the go. That is for yer sake, Jeremy."
"I love you so much, I almost believe I can make other people love
you. But it isn't me. I think it was Patrick's
story. And Patrick - well, Patrick calling you Houn Fell.
Patrick has been wonderful - I didn't think he liked you, but he's
changed. He
talks about you to the other boys - pointing out how good you are at games, and good at getting things done. You're more
famous in Ayrshire than William Wallace."
"The Rob Roy of the boudoir - that's Rory McAllister. With
his famous spear that will never flag. Him wi' the six-hour
stonner. But is no unco guid name to have. There
were some in Kirk said I should be shamed to show my face."
"Not some, just Mrs. Campion."
"Aye, but it's the gentry that matter. And she's on the parish
council, for a' she was a mill girl before she married. Ochen,
there is some'ut we can do. Mr. Nethery may ha'e a few wee bottles fer us ta carry."
"Bottles? But he's a butcher."
"This is whiskey that has nae paid its taxes. Let's do
it. Go to Nethery's in the the clachan and not to see
Terringzean Castle. But we mun kiss first. And the best
place is here - over thon fence and into the wood. No one will come upon us. If I was
alone in Scafton wood, the gamekeeper would think I was poaching, and
he'd be right. But with you there is nae matter. He's
nae going look in yer creel fer a coney."
"Kiss me, then."
It was a perfectly good kiss, and when they got behind a tree, Rory
dropped his breeches and
Jeremy unzipped the fly of his fishing pants. Rory bent
over and offered his arse. There was privacy enough,
but it was not a woodland bower - this was no bank of wild thyme
and of eglantine at the edge of Scafton Wood. Nor even the stony ground to lie upon - the
edge of the
wood tumbles down a steep brae, and the ground where they stood was so
steep they
risked skidding down the hill. Rory had to hold onto a
stump, and Jeremy had to hold onto Rory. Jeremy pushed the tip of
his
hard cock at Rory's tight hole, without getting it in. He
knew what to do about that. He found a foothold against a root,
and shifted his position so he could pleasure his lover's penis with
his hands.
"What happened to your unflagging spear?"
"Mastrubate it. It will come up. It always does."
"You are not really in the mood for it."
"I am willing. More than willing - I want to do it."
"Is it because it makes you a whore? My bit of pocket
change, given to your mother? Who I'd want to help
anyway? Have you changed your mind, Rory? Would
your cock rise for Katherine Cairns? Fucking Katherine
Cairns."
"I'm trying, Jeremy. Skelp me! Tak off yer belt and belt me. That will get it up."
"Do you think I can't tell? Do you think I can't tell what you want? Do you think I don't know why your cock is down for me when it was up for six bloody hours with MY MOTHER ! "
"I want ye, Jeremy. Only ye. No ta Kat Cairns
and bloody the hell no ta yer mother. She frightens
me. But it may be, what ye said, a little."
"It doesn't make you a whore, Rory, if I give a little money to help a poor widow."
"I'm a puir crofter, Jeremy. The widow's wee-un. No a
body ever paid me mind. There's no a body i'
the whole o' Ayrshire less important than Rory McAllister. And
now I'm famous in the whole county for
fucking a married woman.
I'm famous fer being good at it. I'm famous fer my hard cock, fer my six-hour stonner. But I ha'e nae wish to deprive ye o' yer pleasure."
"Rory, would spanking me make you a whore, or is it only having my cock in you?"
"None o' it mak me a hoor, Jeremy. I will do
anything. I will do anything ye ask, and enjoy it.
Ilka thing at a'."
"I can see you don't. And your cock proves it. Which way is the butcher's from here?"
"Jeremy, don't do this! Don't run away from me.
I wan't your cock, Jeremy." But Jeremy was
walking away. Rory could do nothing but pull up his breeches and
follow him down the brae again and all the way to the clachan.
In the clachan street, in front of Nethery's, they agreed that Rory
would go in to negotiate about the whiskey,
while Jeremy waited outside. Jeremy handed his lover some
money. When Rory walked in the door of his shop, the pudgy
flesher saw made a vulgar thrusting jesture with his fist.
"I wouldna ha'e lasted six minutes wi' thon quean if I saw her
bare-scud on the sheets," he said, laughing as if it he'd said
something funny.
And he reached under his bloody apron, and made motions as if undoing
his buttons, and then poked out a rod that made his apron bump out like
a tent. It would ha'e been a stonner ta match Ian Selkirk's if it had been
real, but it was obviously just his thumb. Rory showed a
sixpence in his hand and asked if Mr. Nethery would be willing to part
with a bit coal.
"Where'd ye get the sil'er, Houn Fell?"
"I'm fee'd as ghillie for young Jeremy up the Auld Manse, sir."
"Och, Aye. Well there's mebbe a bit more sil'er if ye will
carry a few wee bottles fer me, and we need say nowt abou' a bit fuel
you shall ha'e and welcome."
Mr. Nethery recited his list of customers, and Rory agreed to come for
half the bottles that night. The butcher offered Rory a wee
dram, and he couldna refuse. And then the time passed, and
the flesher blaitherd on. Rory couldna manage a polite way ta
leave. Then at last Mr. Nethery mentioned, quite casually,
that he'd heard of some man in Aberdeen becoming impotent from an
untreated case o' the woullies and wugglies.
Jeremy was left to wait in the clachan high street - which was indeed
the clachan's only street. He knew many eyes were on him -
he could see the twitching lace curtains. Then his father came out of
the post office/grocery with a bottle of Glenlivet.
"Jeremy! I thought you were fishing. What are you doing here?"
"Hello, Father. That fool Scot lad I hired, dropped my lunch in
the river I c-c-c-came here to get something to eat.
The lad's in the butcher's shop - he c-c-c-can't even buy c-c-c-cold
roast beef without taking all day."
"I hope you are planning to dock his pay?"
"He said he was q-q-q-quite willing I skelp him, but he begged me
not to k-k-keep back the money he needed for his poor old
mother. What does skelp mean, do you know, father?"
"Spank. But a spanking with your hand is not
enough. You must cane him. Tell him he can choose -
take the caning or take fair pay for his bad service, and no more work
from you."
"C-c-c-corporal punishment for a servant, Father? That sounds feudal."
"You are not in England, Rory. These are primitive
people. You have to treat them like their Clan Cheiftains do, if
you want any respect. They are of good racial stock, Mosley says, but I think they are
not altogether civilized."
"But a c-c-c-caning, Father? For dropping the lunch basket
by accident? A spanking is enough punishment."
"Spankings don't hurt."
"I think they hurt a lot. Mum spanks me."
"You mustn't compare yourself to a rough savage crofter lad, Jeremy. You are a gentleman."
Jeremy's father went into the butcher's shop, with Jeremy close behind
him. Rory was kneeling behind the counter, sucking on
Mr. Nethery's penis. The counter was a high one, so the
butcher's nakedness was not exposed, but there was little doubt of what they
were doing, and even less doubt when the butcher bent down to pull his trousers
up when the bell rang at the door.
"Rory, have you bought the c-c-c-cold roast beef I sent you for? Good morning, Nethery. Will
you sell me the strap you use to punish Patrick?"
"Morning, sir. Well, the strap. I wouldna mind the
strap. It is just the nettle I'm afeart o'. But ye've no
call to buy it, ye may use it and welcome."
The strap hang on a hook in the shop, handy for frequent use
on Patrick's britchen. Jeremy dropped a shilling on the
counter
and took the cracked worn-out
leather, He ordered Rory to come from behind the
counter, and strip. Rory stepped out of his
breeches and bent
over a lard barrel in the front of the shop, but Jeremy found his swing
was
impeded by some shelves, so he ordered
Rory
to move the barrel to the middle of the floor, and also to take off his
shirt.
The naked young Scot had to strain and huff to
shift the heavy barrel His emaciated frame made his thick
erect penis and heavy balls
seem even more potent, like a primitive fertility charm, and they were
dark red against the pale skin of his belly and thighs--a shocking
sight in a simple country shop, his bare white body and huge red penis
in among the skinned carcases of pigs and sheep hanging from hooks in
the rafters. Jeremy
could have
shifted the barrel easily, but years of work and hunger had left Rory
strong and wiry, but very thin and very short, and the barrel of lard
weighed
more than he
did. At last he got it into position, and bent over the barrel
head. He
had to push his rigid penis down with his hand. He folded his
legs to get into position, and his knees gripped the sides of the
barrel like a a rider on a horse, so the underside of his huge
penis would be take the blow if the strap went wild and slipped
between his thighs.
Jeremy
took some warm-up swings, smacking the strap down on the counter.
Nethery pulled down the blinds. Young Patrick came quietly in
through
the back
door, and sat on the stool behind the counter, with a good view of Rory
from the back.
"This is for dropping the lunch hamper, lad. I have to teach you to be more c-c-c-careful."
"Aye, sir. Thank you, sir."
Jeremy thrashed with all his might. It seemed so easy when
the Dominie did it, but the ten stripes Jeremy laid down were not a
work of art. Sometimes the tip slipped between Rory's legs,
and hit his penis. Jeremy's father studied
the marks carefully, looking at the way the leather did what a cane
could not : strike the skin between the legs and deep into the crack of the bottom.
"Jeremy, is this strap like the one used at the village school?"
"I've only gotten the tawse on my hands at school, Father.
A tawse is a split strap, so I'd say a blow with the tawse is like
getting two c-c-c-cane blows
at once."
"We will use it then, if you need any more punishment while we are in Scotland. It is the traditional precision instrument of the country."
"Whatever you choose, father. And thank you. I
don't think I've ever thanked you for taking the trouble to punish me."
"I've always known how you felt, Jeremy. I remember the
birchings I used to get from my father, and how much I learned from
them. He took the trouble to birch me because he knew I had
talent.
I'll put together a birch for you when we get back to England--it's a
different sort of pain than a caning. Do you want to take a bit
more interest in the
management of the estate? You seem a bit at a loose end in
Scotland and
it would be something to do. There are the tenants and the
outdoor servants, and it would be a load off my mind - Mosely
wants my report on the Red Menace in the shipyards as soon as
possible."
.
"I'll try, Father. If you will help me.
I'll try not to dissapoint you. And you will punish me, if I try
and do it wrong? You will take the time for me?"
"As long as you try,
Jeremy. But one thing. You will need to
punish the servant lads, and I'm glad you've shown you can
be firm - I wasn't sure you had it in you. But I
should be there to witness any punishments. Especially the
lasses, I like to watch - um - I mean, it is important that I be there
to see that nothing improper happens."
"Of c-c-course, father. I'd like to go back to fishing,
but c-c-could I see you after tea? And you c-c-- could show me the accounts or whatever it is? And show me how to handle the servants; what you do?"
"I'll be back at six, Jeremy. Come to my study and we'll
have a glass of sherry. You're getting old for nursery tea. Make sure you bring the strap."
"Thank you Father."
Rory and Jeremy took the long way round back to the trout stream, rather than
going up and over the fell. When they passed the
holly, they ducked into the hiding place for a kiss.
"Why are you so good, Rory?"
"Good? Good at what?"
"I beat you unmercifully and you act as if nothing has happened.
I humiliated you too. I deserve you to hate me for it."
"Why did ye belt me so hard?"
"You stood up from Nethery and I could see you had a bloody pot handle! Why don't you get one for me?"
Rory turned around and undid his ballop. His flesh rose on
command like a man raising his hand. He pointed to Jeremy's
mouth.
"Let me tell ye about Mr. Nethery, love. Ahh Ah
h Ahh STOP. Ye need to be
gentler. Wait. Jeremy, I'm no angry
- I dinna mean ye're too rough, it feels wonderful. It's just
I'll last about two seconds, o' ye gang a' me laik thon. Gi'e a suck just now and
then, make me wait, make me beg for it. Do ye nae know when you're mastrubating how to mak pleasure last?"
"No. No one has ever taught me how to masturbate, and I've never done it with another boy.
They wouldn't with me at Eton. Except for that last half-second, I don't enjoy it. I'd much rather
have a long spanking."
"Well, go slow. And while ye're abou' it, I'll tell ye on
Mr. Nethery. His cock willna rise fer nowt, and he's got it
in
his fancy that he has thon woullies and wugglies."
"But that's not a disease - you just made it up."
"And I told him so. He thinks I'm so brilliant I ha'e
discovered
a new disease, but tha' I'm too modest to call
it
McAllister's disease. Ahh yah hah hah hah.
Yahh. Jeremy, this is way more fun than
mast ... Yah HA, yaw, aw, aw, uh .... more fun than mastru - ahhah, ooo -
mastrub - oh yah. Oh no! Dinna stop. Oh please
dinna stop. No, stop, stop! Ahh, what are ye
doing? Let go my hand. Ooo.
Ah. Yah. Yaaaha. Please, Jeremy.
Ahh. Oh this is good. Ah Ah.
Ahhhh.
Jeremy swallowed the first cum he had ever wanted to swallow, and Rory
kissed him, and probed about in his mouth with his tongue for any taste that might be
left. Moss licked Jeremy's hand.
Since the thrashing at the store with the wonderful smells, she had
been wary of that hand - whatever master might think, Moss was quite
sure she
didna want a
thrashing. But this game had made master happy, as well as
smelling very interesting, so perhaps Jeremy was a good person after
all. Perhaps he would play it with her. She had a
hankering for a cock inside of her, these days - she could feel that time coming on, and Jeremy had such a nice-smelling crotch.
Rory let out a sigh of satisfaction. "And you say no one taught you to mastrubate? You're brilliant."
"It doesn't make you feel like a whore? You'll let me keep
doing it? We don't have to do anything else, I just want to
pleasure you. That's all I want, to suck on your cock. To suck on your cock forever! You're not a whore
if I just pleasure you. You can't be a whore if I never get
any pleasure from it, if you're the only one who gets any pleasure when
we're together."
"Let me tell ye the rest o' the tale abou' Mr.
Nethery. He insisted on medicine, so I said that the
medicine for thon woullies and wugglies was to be flogged
wi' nettle, or the belt. But he said he was feared
o' thon nettle, and would choose the belt. What he has in mind, is that I
will fuck Nell Scuton, his shop girl, while he watches, and
mastrubates.
That's who he's impotent with - he didn't mention his
wife. He said the sight of me fucking, wi' my famous
stonner, would help his ta rise. And I am ta flog her, too,
as well as him. He dinna say she wants it; fer owt I ken she
dinna wants any o' it, but he'll sack her if she willna do it.
In the
shop just now, he laid his
limp wullie across the stool, and ask me ta flog it wi' the strap,
while he held my stonner in his hand, and mastrubated me.
He dinna say he'd pay
me for fucking Nell,
but he said he'd pay me in good
coin fer
carrying the whiskey, fer which he ne'er paid in sil'er
afore. And
he said he'd
give me bit coal fer nowt. So tell me,
Jeremy,
if I'm no the stud hoor of Ayrshire, what was he paying me fer?
In coal and coin!"
That evening, when he went to see his father, his father wanted to
try the tawse, and Jeremy offered his own bottom. Mr.
Thomasson
sent
instead for a servant lad, because he wanted to watch his son swing the
strap
and offer suggestions on technique - and puir wee Jock Cambell was
the soul who
answered the
bell. But after that was over, Jeremy
got the account books, and as his first official act he told Big
Jock that wee Jock should get whatever treat he wanted from the
kitchen. Then he ordered a cartload of coal delivered to Houn
Fell croft.
As an afterthought, he added what was undoubtedly the
bonniest gift Rory ever saw. A whole cartload of well-rotted cow
shit.
Or perhaps the bonniest gift was Jeremy himself, in the skud,
spreading
a bit
muck on the swedes and the cabbages, laughing as they flung handfulls
in
each other's faces, while his mother smiled at the sound of their
games. They played their other skuddy game together
too, quietly, in the cabbage patch. They thought that because Mither
could not see, that
she was blind.
Half the shire knew before Rory.
Four glorious weeks had sped away, and Rory was sitting wi' his mither on bench, in kirk o' a Sunday.
Mrs. Campion, in a whisper that rattled the kirk windows,
hissed: "That Rory McAllister's not ashamed to show his
face, when he has got his lass with child! He mun go on the cutty
stool!"
After an interminable sermon, on the generations in the book of
Numbers, Rory ran - on sabbath - to Cairns croft.
There was no one there yet - the Free Kirk minister could talk
for even longer than the Kirk o' Scotland one could. So Rory sat
down to wait, wondering if Hamish Cairns would kill him, or just kick
his balls until he was as dry as Mr. Nethery. He
saw a lad running - running on sabbath - up the road to Cairns
croft. It was Kat's brother Roger.
"Rory - I thought ye might be here. Ye mun go, Daddie will kill ye."
"And welcome. But - has he hurt Kat? I canna thole it if he's hurt Kat."
"I'd say it's ye tha' has hurt Kat. The parish council said Daddie
was not fit to raise wee-uns, since mither is deid, and they took Kat and
put her with a godly family in Glesgie."
"Why didna the council come to my croft and punish me? It was my doing, not Kat's."
"Maybe they will."
Rory thought of his mother, left at the Kirk. He
imagined Mrs. Campion and the minister's wife, screaming insults at
her. It was his fault, and it was only the start o'
what she mun thole for his sin. But what he'd done to Kat was
worse.
"What do you think it means, being sent to a godly family in Glesgie?"
"Mrs. Campion said they would love the sinner by purging her
sin. I dinna ken what that means exactly, but
Mrs. Campion told Daddie that if the belt canna
turn us from our heathen ways, we'll be placed with godly families too.
She asked us questions from Bible, and made Daddie belt us for the ones we dinna know.
We be suppose ta study Bible ilka day. For
what Kat did, I think they will belt her ilka
day, until the wee-un is borned."
"Aye, Roger, they will." - It was Mr. Cairns. He had
come, with his wee-uns trailing behind him, at as fast a walk as he could
without a sabbath-breaking run.
"He is ta whip her ilka day. He - Mr. McFarren, a Kirk warden -
is ta whip her; it is agreed wi' the parish council. But I know
these godly men. Whited sepulchers of corruption : cant
and fine airs fer show, stinking rot and corruption inside.
I think he will whip her i' the skud, and he will
tak it in mind to whip her on the site o' her sin. And if
he does not then commit the sin he whips her for, I will be unco
surprised. You mun save her, Houn Fell."
"What can I do?"
It was Roger who answered. "Go tae Glesgie, Rory. See
her. Find out what her
life is. It may be that they are truly godly folk, and it
is nae so bad. If it be only the belt e'ery day, she can thole it.
We ken well how ta thole the belt, we Cairns. But if it is - if it is -
um, bad; then we
mun.... If it is bad--bad laik thon--then tell her that we will save her
- and then we mun think o' how ta do it. But ye mun save her,
Rory. Will you marry her?"
"I canna, Roger. I ha'e nowt. And the parish
council will put me with a godly family too, to be whipped ilka day,
as I should be."
Mr. Cairns answered him - "They will not. Kat and
Roger both, they came inta this vale o' sin afore I stood up in Kirk wi' their mother, and she
was whipped well fer each o' them, but I wasna whip at a'."
"I deserve ta be."
"Aye. But ye willna be, an ye can marry her if ye
will. I have no
fear for ye, Rory. You ha'e the
gift, the gift o' sil'er drawn te ye o' its own accord. I
wisht I had it. You are
the lad ilka body in Ayrshire wants, Rory. Ye are Houn Fell - a
master, a respected master o' a farm, and ye but a wee lad. You can marry
and raise the wee-un,
and ha'e more
wee-uns, and ha'e nae fear that they will starve."
"I canna hope it will come out so well, Daddie, but I would want tha'
more'n anything. I will go to Glesgie. Ye mun nae whip
me today so I canna walk. When I coom back from ha'ing a
word wi'
her in toon, ye may whip me proper then."
"If I raise my hand to ye, Houn Fell, I think I wouldna stop until I
killed ye. And then what should I do for a
son-in-law half so guid? Ye did nae more nor I, as a lad, and ye're
better placed to marry the lass than I was. But ye
remind me - Roger mun tak fifteen stripes, for run on sabbath. And then we mun read i' the Guid Book."
There was a great moan among the wee-uns. Roger said: "But
ye canna whip on sabbath, Daddie. Do ye mean I will
ha'e thon fifteen, on Monday morn?"
"I canna whip on the sabbath, son, but here Rory is nae so guid a
Christian. I ha'e nae heard the Kirk o' Scotland forbids
it. Houn Fell, tak a belt ta laddie. Ye may do, in barn."
"Roger ran to warn me, Cairns, to save my life. He thought you
would kill me. It was his Christian duty, and Christian charity, to run."
"Ye waste yer breath, Rory. Daddie says, if it be so important
ta be worth breaking sabbath, it be worth the belting. I knew I would be belted for it. Would ye no ha'e
done the same? Ta'en a belting ta save my life?"
"Aye."
"Well, in truth I had hope it would be just five. But as
it be fifteen, I like better to ha'e them now of ye, than wait fer morn and my Daddie's belting."
"I canna do it ta ye, Roger."
"Ye ha'e laid many stokes on Kat's britchen, Rory, just as sure as
if ye belted her yersel. Think o' her when ye belt me."
But then Mr. Cairns said: "If it was ta save his father fro' the
sin of
mourder, it was nae a sin for Roger ta run on sabbath."
Roger was surprised, but he dinna look too pleased, for all he had escape of a belting. He said, angrily: "You
got out of belting me, Rory. But you are guilty o' all the
beltings Kat will get, all the same. I hope for yer sake ye know yer
Bible. Mary, who
were the four evangelists?"
That should ha'e been an easy one, e'en for wee Mary, but she mun ha'e been nervous. She said "Matthew, Paul, Luke,
Mark, and John."
Rory started to say: "Think, Mary! Say
your answer again." but Roger shushed him with a
hand.
"You said five names, Mary, so yer answer is wrong. Ye
will have five stripes fer such a glaikit answer. Rory
will beat you." And Roger glared at Rory, satisfied to make him do this thing.
Mary lifted her wee skirt, but she bent over Roger's lap, as if
she hadna understood she was to be whipped by Rory.
Such a wee britchen seemed more fit to skelp wi' the
hand. It was a
strange, dangerous, way to whip, with the lass on her brother's lap; a
wild blow could hit Roger in the
face as it came down, and Roger did nothing to make it
easier, and he glared in hatred at Rory for what he was doing,
even
as he was
making Rory do it. As Rory raised the belt to bring it down on
the bonnie wee doup, Roger's hand jumped forward, and he took that
first stroke on the back of his hand. Roger sat on his hands to
keep them in place.
Rory gave another stroke, thinking as it flew that he'd struck much too
hard, much harder than he'd meant to. It made an ugly mark on
the baby-soft skin.
"Tha's no hard enou', Rory. It doesna count. Do it harder."
Rory swung the strap harder. Roger said "harder" after that
stroke too, but he didna say it didna count. Rory
whipped as Roger made him whip, hard, and at the same time Roger glared
at
him with hatred for beating his wee sister. Roger moved his
face so far into the path of the belt that Rory was forced down on one
knee, as the only way he could bring the strap to play on the lass's
wee doup without taking out her brother's eye. Mary
did not flinch
or jerk or moan, as if the belting was light compared to what she was
used to. When five strokes were over, she stood up and
asked him:
"Are you going to marry oor Kat, Mr. McAllister?"
"Aye."
"I miss her. Can I come bide with youse when ye be married?"
"If yer father allows it, ye may come visit us."
"And sleep wi' Kat in her bed?"
"Aye."
She raised her arms, wanting to be picked up, and when he picked her up
she kissed him. He kissed her back. When he
went to put her down, she fussed, so he swung her on to his
hip. Hamish frowned at such
carrying-on on the sabbath, but said nothing. Roger went into the
house for the Bible, and when he came back he opened it at random and
held it out for
Mary to read, still on Rory's hip. The book fell
open to the story
of Joseph's coat, which Rory knew by heart, and he helped her with the
hard
words. Mary, who had not made a sound when she was
whipped,
sobbed for Joseph thrown into a well by his brothers, as if she had
never understood before what the words were saying - the murder of the
young lad by his older brothers. Rory asked her to read the passage over again when they got to the end,
and she did it with no mistakes and with real feeling, to make anyone
who heard it weep for Joseph; and when she was done she looked at her
own brothers and sisters, who were beaming with love and admiration. And
she
looked up with adoration into Rory's face as he helped her pronounce
"Midianites" and told her who the Midianites were,
and mentioned that Moses had married a woman of Midian, the daughter of
Jethro, priest of Midian.
"Do you ha'e a question for our Beth, Rory, since ye ken yer Bible so well?"
Rory did not want to skelp a body more, so he asked a very easy question. He asked Beth: "Who betrayed our Lord?"
Beth got her easy question right, and so did Eleanor, Duncan, and
John. Rory had to sit on the
ground, as he now had a
wee-un on each knee, and two more clambering over his shoulders, as he
helped each one to read a passage. Each
one gave Rory a kiss, and wanted a kiss in return, for getting it
right. Duncan boasted to John that his kiss had been the better,
since Rory had hugged him as well as kissed him,
and
so John
had to be hugged too, and kissed again, though he was all of eleven,
and
torn between wanting the kiss and thinking he was too old for it.
The younger ones knew that Rory was the man who was
to marry their Kat. Nae doubt they'd heard too--it was the
speak of Ayrshire--the story of Rory in the Leddie's bed,
but
they were too young to know what this meant - that it was a
betrayal of Kat. And so their loving welcome into
the
family made Rory feel quite ill.
And he began to see that this family, which he had so much envied, had
its troubles. He could see now, what he had never suspected
before,
that Hamish could not read. The Bible reading and the
questioning was run by Roger - and by himself. The
children were not well cared for, and they had the haunted look of
children too much beaten - children afraid of their father. They
clung to Rory. Rory's own mother was no believer in sparing the
rod, but she was always fair, and Rory was never afraid of her, as
these wee-uns were of their Daddie. Their reading was not
what it should have been. Rory did not do well in schuil, but
he had read to his mother every day since he was a tot;
he read from the Bible every day and also from borrowed
books, and he talked to her about what they read. His mother had
been to university,
and she had met most of the Scottish authors - Grey and Gunn and Doyle.
Rory realized that he actually he
knew quite a lot, compared to the Cairns.
The Cairns wee-uns could read, but they did not understand, nor even
know
that
the Bible could be understood. Rory's
explanations seemed to them like things of wonder.
There was another Cairns lass, Margail, but she was in service. So
that left Roger. Rory asked the lad about what was, for Rory, the
most-read story in all the books of Moses.
"How were Hagar and Ishmael saved in the wilderness?"
"I do not answer."
"Ye mean ye dinna ken the answer? Do ye take yer five stripes, then?"
"Twenty, Rory. I ur a little older than oor Mary. We'll do it in barn."
The strap - the same as he had used on Mary's wee britchen, was not
heavy or stiff, so twenty strokes was not so very many for a lad of Roger's age. In
the barn, Roger dropped his breeches, but he did not bend over - he knelt in front of Rory, and took his hands, and begged.
"Rory, ye mun bring oor Katherine back. We are falling apart."
"What do ye mean?"
"Daddie's not much use, since mother died. Perhaps not
much use,
before. Kat has been our mother. She's
been master o' Cairns. I canna do it - I canna be
master. I dinna
e'en get food for the
wee-uns - not enou' - most day. I dinna prepare
today fer Sabbath dinner - I dinna ken what ta do. Duncan and
John willna do
what I say. I canna deal wi' wee-uns and do my milking an a' tha'
needs ta be done - I canna do it; I havna slept, Rory; not since they
took Kat; not slept proper in my bed. I fall asleep doing the milkingi. And it isna
just - not just that we need her to cook and run the croft - the wee-ans
are lost wi'ou' her. I ur lost wi'ou' her."
"But Roger, if I marry Kat - and I dinna see how tha' can be - if I marry her
and tak her to Houn Fell, I should then ha'e taken her from ye, just the same."
"When ye are married, I think the parish council can no object if ye
live here. And until ye get her back - could ye come live
here?
Ta help me? Ye saw how the younger ones are. They'll
obey you. They need you. Ye owe it to us. For what
ye did to Kat."
"May be. When I go ta Glesgie - ahh ..."
"What?"
"I think I know how it mun be. When I go ta Glesgie, ta see Kat, I mun set my mother to bide wi' ye."
"Another mouth ta feed ... a blind woman?"
"A mother. If she has eyes - if wee Mary will be her eyes and see
for her - she can run this croft better than else a body in Ayrshire. And she will be wonderful wi' the
wee-uns. I may be able to get my hands on a bit food, and a bit
fuel - fer her keep, and more - fer ye ta feed the wee-uns."
"I knew this is how it would be, Rory. When we found out
Kat had a wee-un, and you were the Daddie, she dinna think ye'd marry
her, but I knew ye would. I know ye'll be Daddie to her new wee-un,
and be Daddie to the wee-uns
she's been mither to. Including me."
"May be. But I ha'e nocht yet."
Hamish opened the barn door. "Ha'e ye nae done the belting, Houn Fell?"
"Just about to, Cairns."
Hamish dinna shut the door again. Rory whispered to
Roger - "Did ye truly nae ken the answer? Do ye nae know the
story o' Ishmael?"
"Aye, I know it, Rory - in the Wilderness o' Beersheba the angel o' Elohim
opened Hagar's eyes. She saw the spring, and so Ishmael was saved."
"Ye took twenty stripes just so ye could talk to me?"
"Ye are Kat's man, married or no. John and Duncan won't obey me,
but they will you. See, there they be, a keeking a' the door, ta watch how well ye gi'e a belting - and I want
them ta see it. Strike me hard, hard ta put fear in John and Duncan, but then you
mun come back ta tak care o' us. Wi' Kat or no, ye mun help us. That's why I tak these twenty stripes."
"Roger, do ye want a hug and a kiss, like John and Duncan, for knowing the right answer?"
Roger looked at Rory's face for many long seconds.
John whispered to Duncan : "Rory'a a' ta kiss oor Roger!" Duncan
whispered "Gi'e away wi'ye, they'll no kiss!" And indeed
at last
Roger said: "Nay."
Roger stayed on his knees, and he lifted his shirt up to under
his arms, and bent over. John and Duncan smouked in and
knelt by their brother in a row, looking for a' the world as if they were
waiting a turn. Their clothes were all patches, and they had
no
shoes, but they had
eaten better all their lives than Rory; and so their bodies had full calves
and thighs and buttocks. Rory
thought they were three unco bonnie fair-hair lads. He stroked Roger's
britchen with
his
hand.
"What are ye doing, Rory?" John asked. He stared at Rory's hand caressing his brother's arse.
"This is the way a blind woman belts. My mither'll be
raising ye, John, no me. And she is unco strict; ye mun get
used ta long hard skelpings."
John gulped and rubbed his doup, as if he was already easing the pain
of an imaginary belting. Roger took his stripes patiently, but he
was tetchie about the
stroking with the hand Rory gave him before each
blow. Rory
thought he knew
why. He looked at the boy's crotch, and he was right
- Roger had got a
stonner. Roger grinned sheepishly when he saw Rory
looking, and John whispered "Oor Roger's got a stonner!" All
three boys pyked a keek at Rory crotch - which was quite under
control, thank ye, for all that Rory was belting in the skud
the bonniest britchen he had
ever seen. Rory had too much to think about, to think
about that. But
if his stonner did not rise, he was certainly aware of belting a lad
who was stunnerfu' bonnie, from face to foot. Jeremy, his
love Jeremy, was
really quite ugly in comparison to Roger. All the Cairns lads
were bonnie. And the lasses too. Especially the
lasses. ...
Duncan poked his brother "Eee! Noo oor Rory's got one too!"
While he was beating Roger, Rory thought of Kat, and what he would have to
do. This coming week was to have been the last he would have with
Jeremy this year.
They wouldna be able to spend it a week o' pleasure, as Rory had hoped,
but that was
a small thing. The important thing was that he still
had Jeremy for a week, and Jeremy could help him. Jeremy
was willing to steal from the household
accounts at the Manse; Rory had refused until now - but now he would have to accept. Everything had to
give
way to way to the main thing - saving Kat. And - Rory
gulped - the baby. His baby. His wee-un.
John and Duncan kept count of the strokes, not wanting their brother to miss a single one, and when they said
it was twenty, Rory said: "So now ye ask me a hard
question, Roger. Pick
one I can't answer, and gi'e me a belting. As long and as
hard as ye can, I willna mind. More than twenty; a hundred. I ken ye want ta punish me for
what I did ta Kat."
"I canna whip on Sabbath, ye remember? And a belting that killed ye wouldna be
enough. Come tak care of us, Rory. Thon's yer
punishment. Fer yer question : who was Jesus's mother?"
Rory answered, said farewell, and took
off - there was so
much he had to do.
He went to Nethery's
first.
He knew that the flesher's supplies of untaxed whiskey came from a
Glasgow
gang, and
he hoped for a job carrying whiskey to and from Glasgow, in exchange for some
meat for his mother and all the Cairns wee-uns. But he was going to
accept any job Nethery had for him to do - any job at all,
including the one Nethery wanted him to do most.
When he
came into the shop, there was a Glasgow man there - from the
gang, Rory suspected, but he pretended not to recognize
him.
And there was someone else in the shop, an auld Ayrshire
farm hand named Tammy
Rourke. Tammy was good
with cattle, but he was no longer quick on his heels nor clear in his
eyes. And anyway there was nae work in Ayrshire, not even
for fit and sober young men.
The old man was begging - "You wouldna tak my dog, Mr. Nethery.
You couldna. A shepherd canna make a living if he no ha'e a dog."
"What can ye pay?"
"No money. This is all I have."
Paddy pointed to a dead rabbit on the counter, with some vegetables
from his
garden. Rory doubted he could spare them.
Part of the old man's debt was Rory's fault. On his first
night carrying whiskey, four months ago, Rory had handed
Tammy the bottle
before Tammy
handed him the money - and he had to report back to Nethery that
Tammy Rourk had tricked him. Nethery had given Rory a
thrashing for it. Rory had objected - "Can ye nae
just put the bottle on his tick?"
But Nethery said he would
put the bottle on tick all right, but he dinna expect that Tammy
would
e'er pay up his tick, and so he munnae be gi'en any more credit, as he
had told Rory before. And it seemed Nethery had
been right; Tammy had never paid up his tick.
Mr. Nethery looked at the vegetables and said: "It is not enou',
Tammy. I mun tak the dog. Ye mun see I ha'e ta tak her."
"Do what ye like ta me, sir, but dinna tak me dog!"
"Ye say that 'cause ye think I willna, Tammy. But here's Houn Fell ta do it."
"Ochen. The nettle - I canna dree the nettle.
Please Mr. Nethery! I ha'e no a piece o' sil'er i' the
world tae gi'e ye. I canna pay. I can maybe spare
ye some more cabbages."
"See that you bring more, next week. It's the nettle next week - this is just ta help ye
remember." The flesher took a strap from its hook and handed it to Rory.
"Bless ye sir, Bless ye."
The old man looked coldly at Rory. If he was grateful to Nethery
for letting him off with a licking when he could have taken the dog, he
did not have any blessing for the lad who would be swinging the
leather. Rory glared back, and the old man nodded.
"Rory McAllister. Ye'll do it?"
"Aye, Tammy, I will belt ye."
Tammy dropped his breeches and
steped out of them, and bent over the lard barrel, which was still out in
the middle of the floor, where Rory had put it, a month ago, for his
own strapping. Rory took the strap - he
had ta do this, if he hoped ta ask Nethery ta spare a bit meat
for Cairns. And anyway, he dinna like Tammy
Rourke.
He dinna care for Papists much at all, really. But
no body should
ha'e ta gi'e up his dog.
As Rory got ready ta gi'e Tammy the belt, he asked him: "Why did ye think I would use the nettle, Tammy?"
"Och, havena I been a' hearing o' the game youse lads play? - ta
see who can dree the most
pain? They say ye invented it, Rory. Are
ye
going torture me wi' nettle, next week? I havna got enou'
cabbages ta give ta Mr. Nethery, e'en if I dinna eat a one!"
"Do you remember the time ye pyked thon bottle from me, Tammy?"
"Aye, Rory, I do. And I'm unco sorry."
"Mr. Nethery belted me for that, when I came back with bottle gone
and no money ta pay fer it. Ten stripes. I will gi'e
ye the same, and then we're quits. Tha' fair, Tammy, is it
no? I'll gi'e ye nae more than is fair. And next week ..."
"I'll bring twice as much next week. I'll bring some money. Whate'er ye
say. I canna dree the thought o' the nettle. I heard
Tom McCall boast he had ta'en the torture o' the nettle on his
ba's. He said it was ek-ek-skwizitt, but I couldna. I
couldna. When I put my hand in the nettle, i canna dree ... - and I could no ever
dree ta think o' the nettle on my ba's! Gi'e me a tha' belt, hard, hard, hard, but nae the
nettle on my ba's, I couldna dree it."
For all his reputation as the Torquemada of Ayrshire, this was only the
third belting Rory had given in his life - and the first two had been
wee Mary's and Roger's, an hour ago. Roger's belting had
been so light it was
almost
tickling. This would not be. Ten stripes hard - the same as
the belting Rory had gotten for Tammy's trick.
Rory would do it, but it made him feel sick. He gave the first -
- and was stunned by how good it felt to do it.
All his
stored anger at the old man came flooding back. Tammy
whimpered like a hurt animal. But Rory dinna feel any
sympathy, just disgust. Even wee lads, playing doctor
at the holly, were braver than Tammy. The second
stroke landed crooked. This was a new strap of home-cured hide--since Jeremy
had bought the old strap--and it was wide and thick and harder than any patent leather. Lining up
ten stripes the length of Tammy's britchen would take pinpoint
precision. Rory eyed his target, and let fly - and Tammy
howled in pain. This was fun. To fit in
ten stripes, without landing one on top of another, the lowest one
would
have to be only a bit above the backs of the knees. Rory
did that one next. Tammy dinna cry out for that one -
perhaps it didna hurt as much there. The next
one Rory landed just where the doup joins the tops of the legs - the
most painful spot of all, as no one knew better than Rory.
But Tammy managed to stifle his scream. He was getting braver as
the whipping went on.
But Tammy's bravery, although he admired it, didna make Rory want to
hurt him any less; indeed it made him enjoy hurting the Irishman even more. It was fun to cause the pain that
Tammy struggled so hard to dree. For the next
stripe Rory aimed high,
but it went crooked again, and landed mostly on top of an earlier
stripe. Tammy dreed the pain by clenching his fists, like Wee
Jock, and Rory exulted in the pleasure of hurting
him. There were four more stripes to go, and Rory wanted each one
to
hurt more than the last. He aimed the next stripe right on the
line where two stripes had already hit. Tammy's
courage was equal to it. Rory felt sympathy enough to want
Tammy to win through - to bear the stripes without the shame of weeping
or
begging. But his sympathy didn't want to make him go
easy; instead he wanted to hit hard, to give the old man something ta be brave about.
Rory had been thrashed on this same barrel.
But Tammy was lying across the top of the barrel with his
legs together.
Rory, about the same height, had squatted and bent and squeezed the
barrel between his knees like a pony. So when Rory was whipped the
belt tip had thrashed his sensitive inside
thighs. Even worse, his wullie had been flat against
the
barrel side, and with his knees spread so far apart, the tip of the
belt had snouk in yonce or twa and skelped it. That
was the
most agonizing pain of the whipping, and the most
frightening. Rory wanted to see if
Tammy's courage was equal to
that too, so he made Tammy spread his legs for his last
three stripes. Tammy's wullie was unco thin,
and it was limp. Rory's had been as hard
as wood for his thrashing. So
being whipped was very different for Tammy than it had been for Rory.
But as soon as Rory took position to strike the belt across Tammy's
spread thighs, he could tell there was a change in the old
man. He walked behind him to confirm what he already knew -
that the old man's wullie wasna limp any more. Something had excited
the old
man, perhaps that his wullie was now exposed to the belt.
Rory manhood had survived the belting, but he
was young - Tammy was old, and Rory was afeared it was dangerous to whip
an old man's engorged rod. Rory gave Tammy
an unco hard stroke, but aimed high up so there was no chance of
the tip slipping
between the old man's thighs. The blow landed on top of a
stripe, and the pain must have been terrific - but the old man didn't show any pain. Rory had been
whipped often enough ta know quite well it doesna hurt as much when you have a
stonner, especially not when that stonner is on the edge of spilling.
Only two more. Rory changed his mind again. It
would be safe enough to strike between the legs, if he was careful and
dinna strike the old man's wullie too hard. The blow hit just as Rory planned it, the tip
skelped across the underside of the old man's hard thin stonner. Tammy's breathing changed and Rory knew he was
very close - it was almost as if Rory felt it himself. Tammy
gripped the rough barrel and his
feet lifted off the floor - responding to the agonizing pain, or to some emotion. At the
right instant, Rory struck his last stripe - with the tip slapping
Tammy's stonner again. White milk streamed down the side
of the barrel. Rory felt an exaltation that was not much short
of shooting his own milk. Tammy reached back and grabbed his arse
cheeks in his hands, spreading them apart, presenting the fud of
his arse for penetration.
Rory wasna going ta do thon, even if the old man truly
wanted it, which he dinna think he truly did. And anyway Rory
wasna hard. Without
asking Mr. Nethery if the punishment was enough, he told Tammy to put
his breeches on, and
go home.
"He seems a puir soul," Rory said when the old man had gone.
"Why did ye belt him then?"
Rory pointed at the rabbit and the vegetables on the counter. "I
wouldna mind ta gi'e him the belt ilka week, like ye said, Mr. Nethery. But no ta
mak him go hungry. No ta tak fra' him the food he needs ta live."
"He's no so puir. He gets sil'er fra' parish council, and he buys
whiskey
- from Mrs. Muir. I ken he does. I ken she resells
it ta him fer more than I sell it ta her. And
besides he always has enou' for that mangy dog o' his. Did
ye mean
what ye say, Houn Fell? Ye'd be willing to gi'e him the
belt yonce a week? I ha'e told him again and again if he
canna pay the bit, each week, I would tak the dog. But he
knows I wouldna, and I canna belt him. If he faced the
belt, faced it ilka Sunday like he sees his Papist priest, he wouldna
be
paying
my bit sil'er ta Mrs. Muir fer ta buy thon whiskey
... And then there's some others that are slow ta pay ye could mebbe help me with."
"Aye. But I'm going to Glesgie. Mr. Nethery. I mun set
my mither to bide wi' Hamish Cairns, and I'd like it fine if ye could
spare a bit meat from time to time, for her and the weans at Cairns.
For that matter we spoke of, concerning the curing of a certain
disease, I'd be willing ta do what ye asked o' me, afore I go tae
Glesgie. And perhaps ye ha'e a package ye need carry to
Glesgie, or some'ut tae fetch when I come back?"
The man, the gangster, who had watched the belting with obvious
interest, perked up his ears at this, and spoke at last. "Ye are coming to Glesgie, laddie?"
"Aye, as I said. And ye are?"
"Ca' me Hinton."
"Och, well then, Hinton, I am Rory McAllister o' Houn Fell, and I am
and a' going ta Glesgie, if my business wi' Nethery be any o' yourn."
"And nae doot the master o' Houn Fell always stays at the Ritz - or
maybe he prefers the maids at the Caledonian. But if the Laird be willing to humble
hissel to hobnob wi the common folk, I could maybe offer him a bed."
"And why would ye offer a place to stay ta the likes o' me?"
"I ha'e some work for ye."
"A job? Ye can get me a job? I dinna mean ta be
so rude, Mr. Hinton. But - what kind of a job?"
"The same work as here. Helping those that owe money ta see it is guid ta pay it."
"Aye. Well, Mr. Hinton, I am coming ta Glesgie ta find a woman. Perhaps ye can help me."
"I'm the man fer ye, laddie. I ha'e quite a
few lasses. And when they owe me, it'll be part o' yer job
to mak them
pay. How ye do that is for ye ta say - I can see ye ha'e
the tools fer it - so I think ye'll ha'e nae shortage o' lasses.
And if ye want, ye may ha'e a lass or twa ta
manage. I ha'e a new girl
who is unco bonnie - bee-yoo-ti-full she is - she'll be guid earner, yonce
she's tame, she'll be a right world-beater ... and I mind ye're the man ta tame
her.
She needs ta rid hersel o' a pudding in the oven, and I wan ye
ta help her see the wisdom o' that. There is
a patch o' nettle I could show ye, growing right i' my own close, and I
ken the lass needs ta feel it on her britchen."
"I mean I'm looking for a particular lass, Mr. Hinton. She's
been put
wi' a family called McFerrin. I dinna ken where he bides in
Glesgie; but he is a church-warden; I heard
tha'. Wee Frees, I ken it would be, fer thon's wha' her family is. The lass ha'e been placed there as a
slavey, by the parish council here. She's fifteen.
Tall for her age, dark haired, and unco bonnie. Brown
eyes. Unco bonnie eyes. She's wi' child, but it
shouldna show."
"A Wee Free church-warden called McFerrin. There canna be monie
o' those in Glesgie. Ye want ta get this lass free fra' McFerrin?"
"I want to find her, and talk. I may need ta get her free."
"If ye do, ye'll need ta hide her. Ye canna bring her
back here, tis first place they'll look. Ye'll ha'e ta hide her in Glesgie, wi' the rozzers
looking. A runaway, they'll call her. I'm the man ye need ta hide a body in Glesgie."
"That's why I'm going ta work for ye. And I'll do owt the job requires."
"Weell I can mak inquiries abou' this McFerrin, fer ye then, master o' Houn Fell."
"I mean ta start fer Glesgie in morn."
"Start? Ochen, ye mean ye plan ta walk it? I'll gi'e
ye the train fare, McAllister. And here Nethery'll run ye ta station
in flesher's van. But I ha' no need o' ye so soon."
"I'd like ta start looking."
"I'm no ready fer ye. I'll send ye telegram."
"Whate'er ye say, Mr. Hinton."
"Guid then. Ye'll be the man ta come ta East Ayrshire, ta arrange for
deliveries wi' Nethery and a few others. I've nae time fer it any
more, and I need a man o' parts as knows the lay o' things in Ayrshire. Nethery, meet yer new boss."
Rory said: "Aye. I laik tha' fine. And Mr.
Nethery, I ken ye've been a guid man ta me and me mither, and I've a
mind we'll get on fine. Fer thon service ye asked fer, I've a
mind ta do as ye ask, fer the curing o' thon disease, and ye ha' no need ta gi'e me owt fer it."
At that, young Patrick Nethery, sitting behind the counter and not noticed by anyone, let out a gasp.
|
X. The Mastrubation of Jeremy. |
|
|
The crofter lad and the pimp shook hands.
Rory
wanted to talk more with Nethery, but Hinton did too, to talk to
Nethery about Rory. And Rory thought they'd do that better
without him
there, so he left the
shop with his ears burning and headed for the Auld
Manse. He met Jeremy and
his father on the road, with fishing rods in their hands.
"Just the m-m-
man we
wanted, father. Rory, come tak this bit gear."
"On sabbath?"
Jeremy blushed. But Mr. Thomasson answered: "I know
the village will talk, Jeremy. But it's the only day I'm
free, and
we're off to England in a week. I dare say they'll have
forgotten by then. And, Jeremy, I don't want you aping their
foul low dialect; don't let me remind you again - you are an
Englishman!"
Rory said: "They'll nae forget I carried yer gear o' sabbath."
"If you don't need the money, young laddie, then I guess we won't be needing your services again."
Rory didn't answer, but took the creel, hamper, and rod from Jeremy.
"You see, Jeremy, you just have to be firm with them. It's
the only thing they respect."
When they reached the little burn that flows below the Manse, Jeremy
pulled out two good-sized browns with his first three casts, and then
nothing for four casts. Mr. Thomasson got nothing at
all. Jeremy said: "I think I'll walk over to the
river. I don't think there are any m-m-more fish here."
"You shouldn't be so impatient, Jeremy. It is steady effort that wins in the end."
"I want to try the river."
"Go along, then, if you're ready to - give up.
I'll keep trying here."
Rory didn't go with Jeremy, but lay back on the grass, looking content
to rest all day. Mr. Thomasson noticed
him. "You can
run along with Jeremy, laddie. No lolly-gagging about on
the time I'm paying you for."
Looking crushed, Rory picked up the creel and ran after
Jeremy. "I dinna ken yer Daddie likes me, Jeremy."
"He thinks you're bad luck. Somehow he's noticed that when we go out together, I never, ever catch any fish."
"I wonder why?"
"Perhaps I've been casting with the wrong kind of rod. What
do you think Rory? Is this a good rod for brownies?
Do you think I'll catch anything with
this, Rory? Do you want to go
fishing? O Rory, you got us another day, Rory, another day! Ye
smouked us another day, and you made pater pay you for it! You're a
genius!"
"Put that thing away. A body will see it."
"And you don't think they'll see the cudgel in
your pocket?"
"Stop it, Jeremy, I've some'ut to tell ye. It's unco
serious. It's unco bad. It's - Och,
Jeremy how can I be serious when you look like that?"
"I can look how I like. But if you do
that, Rory, someone really will see us."
"We'll go to the holly. We'll go to the holly NOW. Or I may ha'e ta do some'ut on the road."
"Remember what happened last time, Love, when you and I fu ... - when you and I did what you call
doin' some'ut, under the holly? I was
pumpin' away and Patrick was there listen'
behind the ivy."
"That was the last time I had yer cock in me, Jeremy, I havna forgotten it
- what ye think?. And we're going to do that again.
Noo!"
"No we're not, Love. It's - it's - God, Rory, don't you think I wish I didn't
have to give you money. I'm
glad you
are too proud to take charity. But if you don't eat and don't
have any coal, you'll get sick and so will your mother.
And as long as I'm giving you money, I can't have sex for it."
"I'm nae proud any more."
"You've said that before. But it's obviously not true.
You are as proud as a - ... as proud as a Scotsman. And you have more right to be proud than any man
in Scotland. I can't make you into a whore, and if I take any pleasure
in your asshole it's pleasure I'm
paying you for, and that's just a fact. And you can't make me
believe you don't care."
"It's different noo."
"No, Love, it isn't different."
"Jeremy, it
is different - things have changed. I ha'e agreed ta
fuck Nell Scuton. Ta flog her and then fuck her while Mr. Nethery watches. He's asked me
again and again, and today I said I would. I'm doing this for a
bit meat, for my mother and the wee-uns at Cairns, and a bit sil'er
too, if he'll pay it. So don't tell me I'm too proud to be
a hoor. I do it fer tha' money - I feel nowt
fer Nell Scuton. I hope my famous spear doesna disappoint
her. I dinna e'en ken an' she's agreed ta it - ta the fucking nor the flogging."
"You d-d-don't have to do this, Rory.
Love. Let m-me get you the m-m-money you need. Love,
don't do this.
I CAN'T STAND IT!."
"Ye are in love wi' a hoor, Jeremy. You should lea'e me alone and find someone who's worthy o' ye."
"This ought to make me angry, but it doesn't. I
want . . . Take me roughly, Rory. I mean,
Sir. No, I don't mean Sir, I mean Houn Fell. I
want to call you Houn Fell. You are the Master. Master of
Houn Fell. My Master forever. Take me roughly.
Nothing
for my pleasure, only yours. Punish me, Houn
Fell. Treat me as you would Nell Scuton.
Fuck me as if you didn't care about me, and flog me. And I'll pay. Be a whore
for me - but not for someone else."
"But I still mun do the thing wi' Nell Scuton and Nethery."
"Love why - I mean, why now, Houn Fell? After a month?"
"I'm doing it noo, Jeremy, fer by I mun go ta Glesgie."
"But why? You have enough coal for the winter, don't
you? If you don't, I can get more. What could you need
in Glasgow?"
"Kat's in Glesgie."
Jeremy, whose English upper lip did not quaver when he got a caning that drew
blood, staggered. He was crushed. He sagged to the ground.
"You never said you loved me. I knew you
didn't. You don't love me. You would have said, if you
did. But you never said. Ror-ree! Aghh! I thought ... Well, you did seem to ... to
care for me. I thought ... I thought ... Oh
fuck. Fuck! . But you did say you'd
rather be with me. Once you did say that. But you ... I ... uh .. uh ... "
"Jeremy, please. Please don't cry, Jeremy. Please stop
crying. Let me kiss you. Please, Jeremy. Oh why did
I have to do this in the road? If we were at the holly I could ...
Please Jeremy, it's nocht to do wi' whether I'd rather be wi' her
than ye. Please stop. Jeremy, she is
carrying my wean. I mun tak care ..."
"SHE'S WHAT?"
"I have a
child, Jeremy! I mun
tak care o'
it."
"I want to go home now, Houn Fell. Please. I don't
feel ... I think I'm going to be sick. You can go be
with her. You can go to Glasgow - go to Hell if you want to, I don't care. Of
course you want
her more, if she is giving you a child. I can't give you a
child."
"STOP. Jeremy, I need ye."
"Of course you need my money - you've got a woman and a child. A
wife and child - you'll marry her you noble bastard. Fuck!
Fuck you McAllister! You'll still get my money. It wasn't payment for
your time with me. I know you think it was, but it wasn't.
You'll still get the money."
"Jeremy, no! I need ye Jeremy. Canna ye tell how much?"
"I thought you wanted me. All month I've thought you
wanted me. I thought I knew things, even though you didn't say them ... And all the time you were ... I
guess I was wrong. I shouldn't have assumed things you didn't say."
"Jeremy, I should ha'e told ye how much I wanted ye. But ye were
going in a
month; I knew that from the start. I wanted this month to be happy - it has been
happy. Do you wish we had spent it weeping - writing
poems about how we would never see each other again."
"Never see each other again? Is that what you thought? But
I'll be back next summer!. And there are trains -
Scotland isn't the moon. I can get you train fare to come
down to Surrey for a week-end - you could camp somewhere and I could
sneak out to be with you. And I'll write. I had it all
planned. We were never going to be apart - not really. A
month or two, writing every day, and then I'd somehow get to Scotland on the overnight
train, or get you to England. Letters every day - every day -
I would have written every day.
I
know that's not what you wanted - you don't love
me. But if you are happy with Kat Cairns, that's all
I want."
"Happy? Wi'out ye? Ye think I can be happy? I can't dree ta think o' it."
"You'll miss me?"
"It will hurt so much. It hurts just ta think abou' how much it will hurt."
"Do you ... ? No, you don't. You can't."
"I'm no a good person, Jeremy. I dinna care more for yer
happiness than my own. That's what love is. My own happiness is what I care
about. It's just that my happiness is - you."
"Not a good person, but you are going to Glasgow to care for your woman
and child. Everything you do makes me more miserable."
"I dinna ha'e to go ta Glesgie
before ye lea'e fer England. It's ye tha's lea'ing me."
"But you care more for Kat Cairns than me. You care more
for the baby than for me. The Rory I love would. Of course you do. Of
course you do."
Jeremy was crying, and Rory stopped trying to comfort him, and let it
run itself out - deep wracking sobs and streaming tears.
Only a little he pulled the Englishman's hands away from his eyes -
Rory was no stranger to tears, and knew that red puffy eyes were bad
enough without rubbing to make them worse. And all this while
they were walking along the road, saying nothing. Five
minutes brought them to where the path from
Houn Fell wound down the ferny brae, to an ancient milestone that
marked where three ways joined. Nearby was
the tiny spring where the lads harvested nettle; a
spring swampy and choked with
dog-roses, ringed by five ancient
round barrows, worn down and only just visible.
One road went to the clachan, there to join the main route to Glasgow -
a route
older than the Romans. In the
other direction, the road narrowed, and ran for two miles
further, past the Auld Manse, and then went on, narrowing to a track,
climbing the fells to the
scattered ruins of a Celtic monastic school, founded, the locals
claimed, by St. Mungo. And the third
track was oldest of them all; from before the time of
Stonehenge it
had run, from the high pastures of Houn Fell, down the fernie brae to
the holy pool.
And there, where the three roads met, was the holly. The
last
survivor of
what was once a small grove; there was the stump of an oak,
and a hollow
where
the
roots of an elm had once been, fallen in a storm which the oldest carlins
in the parish could still remember. Once the spring had fed
a pool, shaded by a sacred
grove. But the pool had filled in and was now just a patch
of swampy, nettle-choked ground, and only the holly was left of the
trees - perhaps a
sapling of the original sacred holly that had once shaded the sacred
pool. Jeremy faced Rory at
the
milestone, and placed a hand on it, and raised his other hand as if to
say a solemn and final farewell.
But Rory had other ideas. He dragged Jeremy up the path to
the holly by sheer force, though Jeremy was head and shoulders taller
than he was. His attack was so violent that Moss growled,
and danced about, wanting to bite this enemy of her master, but not
quite able to bring herself to do it. But the
snarling angry dog was enough to make Jeremy submit.
Once in the secret space inside the ring of drooping ivy, Rory pulled Jeremy to the
ground, got on top of him, and kissed him.
It was a long kiss, and Jeremy did not respond. But when Rory
pulled away at last, Jeremy pulled him back. Now he had his
arms around the Scots lad, he hugged him tight, and rolled
over. He ripped off Rory's shirt. The patched
torn fabric ripped to bits, and Jeremy sank his teeth into Rory's
nipple. Moss bit him on the neck. Rory tried to
reach his belt buckle, to get his breeches off before Jeremy ripped
them off, while at the same time yelling
SIT at
Moss, to stop her from biting off his lover's ear.
Jeremy gave up his attack
on Rory's chest, and pulled away from the dog, using Rory as a shield
from the flashing teeth, at the same time Moss
obeyed and sat. The collie and the
Englishman
glared at each other, challenging for possession of the very
erect Scotsman, his breeches down to his knees, who
was between them. Rory had a hand on his dog's
collar, a hand in his lover's hair, the two of them snarling and both with
bloody
teeth. Neither one seemed likely to listen to reason.
So Rory
let them both go at the same time, and dropped flat on his face, pushing his massive
stonner
into the damp, prickly loam of fallen holly leaves by shear
force, as Jeremy
spanked
him, braving Moss's growls. The loam was soft enough, and
his stonner was hard enough, that he soon poked a hole, and he fucked the ground, but he had to
stop
almost at
once. Rory
could keep his erection, and get intense pleasure from shoving it into
things,
for hours without a climax. He was famous
for it, after all; he was the Rob Roy o' the boudoir, Rory McAllister
wi' the
six-hour
stonner. But not today. He was at the
point of
too-late-to-stop before he knew it, and he rose to his knees, and waved
his fingers at his stonner. Jeremy finished him, enjoying
the taste and feel of dark gritty humus mixed with Rory's sweat and
semen. He
savoured it a while without swallowing.
Rory turned around on his knees and bent over, spreading his arse cheeks with his hands.
Jeremy said: "No, Rory, I won't do it."
" MOSS, BITE HIM
! "
Moss had not been trained to do any such thing, but Jeremy did not
know that. The poor bitch was hurt and confused to be
yelled at. The look on her face, with her brow wrinkled and her ears back, was enough like viciousness
to scare Jeremy. Now he was no longer so wrapped up in
Rory's climax that he couldn't feel his own body, the dogbite on his neck
was starting to hurt.
"I'll do it."
Jeremy spat out the semen from his mouth onto his fingers, and worked
Rory's hole - which was far from clean - for quite a while, slipping in
first his index finger, then his thumb. They did this quite
often - it was one of Rory's favorites. But they had never done it as preparation for the
thing Rory wanted most of all. And that thing, Jeremy was
ready to give
now - he was as hard as a rock. He pushed in
deep.
A month ago, Rory had given Jeremy some urgent instructions about
how to pleasure his secret spot, but Jeremy had not had his cock
inside of Rory since then, and when he thought of his cock
in Rory - which he thought about all the time - it wasn't
Rory's pleasure
that he thought about. In Jeremy's imaginings - his nightly,
daily, hourly, imaginings -
of this consummation, Jeremy always came at once, on the first thrust,
but now he was actually doing it, his cock slid in and out, and it felt
good, but nothing like as good as he had expected.
Now that he was supposedly
the one getting the pleasure, instead of the one giving it, he missed
the sounds of Rory mounting to
a climax - Rory was enjoying this, perhaps, but Jeremy knew Rory
wouldn't come from having his asshole fucked. And anyway Rory had
come just a bit ago, and Jeremy knew to an instant how long it took for
Rory to be ready to come again. And Jeremy
wanted Rory's
climax - he wanted it urgently, he longed for it. Nothing was as
satisfying as working on Rory until he came; the bond between them so
close he could feel everything Rory felt; he could feel that glorious
unbearable unendurable wonderful -- and utterly undescribable climbing
and cresting that was Rory McAllister shooting his wad. There was
nothing that felt so good in all the world. Jeremy wished
they were doing what they always did; that Rory was
fucking him. He wanted Rory to
come.
It occurred to Jeremy that since he liked to hear
Rory's pleasure so much, he should let Rory hear his own, and stop
being so silent, like a fool of an Englishman. It wasn't
natural to him to sigh and moan with pleasure, but as he slid in and out of Rory's arse he said "ooo, ooo,"
and "ah, ah,
ah," trying to copy Rory's groans and
sighs. It sounded stupid.
Then he switched to words; he said: "This feels really good,
Rory. Really, really
good. I like ... I like to watch it go in and
out. It's - it's fun. It's more fun than
catching fish. It's fun, and it feels good." Rory
was so natural about his body, about his pleasure. How did he do
it? Jeremy
felt absurd. What he was saying now seemed inane, stupider even
than his forced moans of pleasure. But how else
were you supposed to say it felt good to fuck? He felt
stupid saying it, but he could tell Rory liked hearing.it.
"I'm going to go slow for a bit, Rory, to make it last.
Do you think that's a good idea? Don't you try to make it
last when you fuck me?"
"Ye're the one ta tak his pleasure fro' me arse, Jeremy.
Ye're the one knows what ta do. . But tell me, do I need to
squeeze? Am I doing it right?"
Jeremy didn't like talking about his pleasure because he couldn't think of
anything to say that didn't sound stupid. But Rory talking about
giving him pleasure - that was better than pleasure itself.
Jeremy had to pull out, or he would have come at that moment, just from the sound of the voice.
Rory's lilt was a fuck-drug.
Rory turned around and tried to get his mouth down to Jeremy's
shit-covered penis, but Jeremy easily held him off. But
while Jeremy was holding off Rory's shoulders, Rory just used his
hands.
Jeremy screamed "NOW!" and Rory spun around and bent over, just in time
for Jeremy to drive into him like a hammer, and explode. Jeremy
was a head taller, and had the muscles when he chose to use them.
He picked up his wiry, squirming, dwarfish,
unburned, skin-and-bones lover like a naughty spaniel puppy, and turned him over to look at his face.
They
glared into each other's eyes.
"I've just taken my pleasure, Rory. I give you money every week, so
your mother doesn't freeze, and I've just taken my pleasure in your
asshole. I bought that pleasure. You're a whore, Rory. I love you desperately."
"I've wanted yer cock in me fer a month."
If you think
you've wanted it, think how much
I've wanted
to put it there.
You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. You are
so much more to me than any pleasure I could ever get from your
asshole, but - I have a lust for it. Not for you, I love you.
Lust to do that to you, to fuck your asshole. Lust to make
you a whore. It's all I ever think about, doing that to you. But I
will give it up. It's not worth it if it makes you feel
like a whore. And don't say you're a whore anyway, for
Nethery, so you might as well be one for me. Don't be a whore at all."
"I ha'e to do this thing for Nethery. And I am a whore, but
not for anything ta do wi' you. Let me ha'e inside o' me, the one cock I
want inside o' me, and nae talk abou' hooring. I dinna want ta hear it."
"Rory, if all you get
from Nethery is a little meat, worth a few shillings, I can find a way
to get you that much. I can borrow a few pounds from the
Vicar at
Chiddingfold, and send
it to you as a postal order. I'll have to tell him
you're a
girl, that you're the one who's pregnant. He would draw the
line at sodomy - but a little rural
fornication is something he'll understand. He told me
to do it, actually, when I went to him and told him I wanted to be spanked as
penance. He
told me it was the natural way for men to spank woman, and I should
became a man with a girl, and spank her, and
then I would grow out of wanting to be spanked. He even
suggested
a
few girls I could ask, village girls who had come to him to confess about their urges -
for a vicar he has some
very modern ideas.
So
when
I ask him for money, I'll say I have a lover in Scotland,
and that my lover is going to have a child. I don't have to
mention that
my lover has one of these things."
"Jeremy, ye are so much better ta me than I deserve.
Ta tell yer vicar that ye're the one got a girl wi' child, when it's me tha's done it! And
then gi'ing the sill'er ta me. But I will tak
it - tak it wi'o shame. But I ha'e more ta
tell ye. Kat's in Glesgie,
but I dinna ken where.in Glesgie."
"Then how do you know she is in Glasgow? Didn't she tell you where she was going?"
"The parish council ha'e ta'en
her from her Daddie, calling him unfit guardian for ta let her get wi'
child, and they ha'e put her with a godly family in
Glesgie. Cairns says she will be whipped ilka day fer her
sin."
"My God! But how can we find her? We
could walk by the house and not know it. We'll go, of
course. I'll just run away from home. We'll look everywhere in Glasgow. We'll find her."
"Jeremy, thon man we saw other day, we were right abou' him.
Hinton his name is, and he is the man supplies Nethery wi' whiskey. All I know
about Kat is: that she's wi' a family named McFerrin, and he's a
churchwarden o' the Free Kirk - the Wee Frees. But thon
Hinton - he says he can
find her. And he can hide her."
"But why would he help you?"
"Because I said I would work for him."
"Work for a criminal?"
"Aye. I'll be the body manages whiskey delivery to
Ayrshire. I can do it, I think. I know all the
carters and higglers. I know who can be
trusted. I'll be the body collects the
sil'er fra' Nethery and a' the other local distributors - pounds and pounds. And so I owe Nethery ..."
"Is that why you're fucking Nell Scuton, Rory?"
"It was Nethery who told Hinton I could - um ..."
"Be trusted?"
"Ochen, Hinton doesna
trust me. I ken I'll be another corpse i' the
Clyde I steal fro' the gang.
Nae, what Nethery told him is tha' I could
do it. Told him I could
organize - run the operation. Told him I could choose guid men. I
think I can. But no one else has e'er believed it o' me."
"I have. I knew it the first day. You keep your head
down, and pretend to be stupid. You even fooled Kat, and she
loves you. And maybe you are stupid, about school
stuff. But you're... Oh, I don't know what, but you're something.
You're ... Rory, Love, tell me this. Who doesn't love
you? Who at school? Who in the village?"
"Anne Campion."
"Ha! She's jealous of Kat, because Kat has you and she doesn't. That's how much Anne doesn't love you."
"I can ne'er be wi' Anne Campion, wha' e'er she wants. I used to think Patrick Nethery was no o'er fond o' me."
"He admires you; he pointed at you my first day at school, and
told me you were a young lad o' pairts. If there is
a leader here,
it's Patrick, and Patrick thinks you are his only rival.
He's trying to be as admired as
you. To your face, he won't admit you are better than he is, but
he told me about you my first day. There is no one who
hates you. Do
you have any idea how rare that is? At Eton every boy hates
every other boy. One or two friends, at most.
Everyone else is an enemy; scheming, trying to get into the popular
crowds,
trying to stay in. There are 'popular' boys at Eton, the
leaders of gangs. But no one loves them. When those boys
tortured me, no one was kind to
me, not even my 'friends' - they were afraid. Things here
are so different! You are good and brave beyond my understanding."
"Tha's no me, Jeremy - I nae guid. I ha'e gotten Kat Cairn wi' a wee-un. And thon Mrs. Campion says..."
"Mrs. Campion is a bitch - and she does hate you.
She's like the bullies at Eton. But no one is afraid of
her. What about Roger Cairns? Do they hate you, at Cairns, for getting Katherine with child."
Rory said simply, "No."
"You are good, Rory. And loved. How can you want to be a
criminal?"
"Is it so diff. nor running whiskey fer Nethery? We done thon fer month, an ye wanted me ta do it!"
"This is much more dangerous, Rory. Can't you see that? It's not like a lad carrying a bottle
of untaxed whiskey. This can get you killed. There must be another way."
"Wha'?"
"If it's money, I will do whatever it takes to get you some. I will steal it from the household accounts."
"Steal, so I dinna ha'e ta be a criminal?"
"You won't take it? You took the coal I gave you."
"I earned thon coal. Hasna the running o' the Auld Manse gone well since I've been at helping you?"
"You know it has. The tenants hate my
father, and they love you, so of course things go well; they know you are
competent - and fair and honest and trustworthy. And
they respect you - Rory, you are
respected in Ayrshire. Not
just loved, respected. And you want to throw that
away and become a criminal in a gang."
"Jeremy, think! When can ye get me thon money from yer English vicar,
several pounds? After ye go
ta England, isna? An if ye gang wi' me ta
Glesgie, ta help me look fer Kat, instead of going ta England, ye
cannae get thon money at a'! Do ye know Glesgie,
ta help me find
Kat? Could ye help me ta
hide her in the back alleys o' the Gorbals? I canna e'en
get ta Glesgie, until I ha'e money, for I havna hosen nor shoen.
I havna got a shirt, ye just ripped off my last one. Ye'll
be gone to
England, and I'll be alone in Glesgie. If I'm nae wi' Hinton, I
am done fer
in Glesgie - I'm a shepherd, Jeremy. What
would I do? Find Kat, alone? Hide wi' her,
alone? What do ye expect o' me?"
"Well, be careful. Don't get dragged deeper in than
you need to be. Do some work for Hinton if you have to, but
tell him you draw the line at smash and grab robbery from widows and
orphans. I don't know anything about criminals, but you can
make deals better than anyone. Make a deal with
Hinton. Remember how many people love you. Remember I love
you."
The two lovers glared at each other.
They were rarely together without
getting into an argument. All month long they had argued about one thing -
Rory wanted Jeremy's wullie up his arse, and Jeremy wouldna put it there.
Now it had happened at last, but they were still arguing.
But in a month of arguing, they had made up a game for making
peace.
Rory made the first move. He reached for Jeremy's balls and
gave a hard twisting yank, and started to pinch and torture Jeremy's
shaft, at the same time he offered up his own for torture.
Jeremy snapped
Rory's wullie with his finger, again and again, as it quickly swelled
and stiffened. Rory was hurting Jeremy's hard cock too, but
not so much - he wasna truly angry. But Jeremy truly was
angry - and now he had Rory's meat in his hand, he hit it as hard as he
could - his anger, more anger than he had known he felt, drove his
beating hand.
The pain was intense and Rory simply couldna dree it fer
long. He sank to
his knees to apologize.
But when Rory knelt and Jeremy stopped hurting him and began to caress
him instead, Rory made a move from a different one of their games. Rory held his hands
out, left wrist in his right hand. This was a sign they had invented - it meant that Rory promised not to
mastrubate - he continued to say "mas
trubate" instead of "masturbate" to tease Jeremy - or to do
anything else to take his own pleasure.
His body would be limp in Jeremy's hands to work his magic, and he would not
climax until Jeremy brought him to it. By the rules of the game, Rory was not allowed
to ask for things, but had to just hope that Jeremy knew what he wanted. Jeremy usually did, but all the
same Rory held his breath, hoping Jeremy would guess right.
"Do you want a spanking, Rory."
Rory breathed again, but he gave no sign. It wasn't allowed.
Jeremy undressed for it. His fishing clothes were already
dirty, but all the same Jeremy wasn't going to roll on the ground
unless he was naked. When he was in the skud he found
a place to sit with his back against the holly trunk. Rory
noticed that he didn't pick the smoothest place to sit, but planted his
bare britchen on jagged roots; Jeremy was getting tougher. Rory stretched across
his lap, and waited. Jeremy didna start spanking right
away. Waiting, Rory found he felt like talking.
"Jeremy, ye won't let me bring ye to a climax. But ye do
think about us, together, when ye mastrubate afterwards? A'
times ye ha'e seen me i' the skuddy an ye dinna e'en get hard.
How d' ye think that makes me feel?"
"I
love you, Master of Houn Fell."
"Tha's no wha' I'm askin' Do ye get pleasure fra' my
naked body? When ye tak yer pleasure, de ye think abou' me
i' the skuddy? My wee wullie? My arse ye'r running yer
hand o'er? "
Jeremy didn't answer.
"I mind that ye say ta me, a time, that wanking was nobbut tha' last
ha'-second o' pleasure. Is thon how it is fer ye, Jeremy?"
Silence.
"And thon's true, it
is nobbut a ha'-second o' pleasure - but thon's
nae true, neither. I had in my mind fer a month, to
ha'e yer cock in me. I did
ha'e such a muchle desire fer it ye canna imagine! And it ha'e
been the basis fer a' o' my mastrubation. It's only a
ha'-second a pleasure, but I didna mind. Thon was what I wanted. It is nae thon ha'-second
o'
getting, I ken it's
the hours o'
desiring, that makes it guid fer me. Is it no
laik that fer ye, Jeremy?"
Jeremy continied to say nothing.
"How is it for ye, when ye do it, thinkin o'
me? Only thon last ha'-second?"
Jeremy said nothing.
"We-ell, did ye mastrubate last night? Jeremy?"
"No."
"Did ye mastr ... Jeremy, have ye no mastrubated at a'? Fer the whole month?"
Jeremy squeeked: "Once."
"Yonce? What did ye think abou'?"
"Eton."
"About being tortured at Eton?"
"I was
raped at Eton, Rory."
"So fer the time we've been together, Jeremy, you ha'e done all
fer ta gi'e me pleasure, but had none? None at any time?"
"Being with you has been everything to me."
"And ye gave up taking pleasure wi' me, taking pleasure inside o' me, to spare my feelings o' being a hoor?"
"I didn't mind, Rory."
"But I mind, Jeremy. I mind a heap. A michle heap. I was greedy enou' ta tak my pleasure, when ye had
nocht.
Before ye met me, ye were skelped by yer mither. Ye said
it was best, better than a ha'second o' mastrubation.
And I ruined it. And will ye not at least let me skelp ye, ta mak up fer it?"
"You didn't ruin anything for me."
"I have noo. I canna do it noo, Jeremy. I
thought ye had pleasure from my stonner in yer arse - I knew ye dinna
come, a' the time, but I thought ye did after - I thought it was - I
thought it was guid fer ye, that way. I thought it
was the best. I thought ye mastrubated after."
"I ..."
"It's no enou', anyway, if ye canna come."
"I only want to pleasure you."
"Do ye no understand what I'm saying? I thought
ye were the lucky one - ye had me, inside, and thon's what
I wanted."
"I am the lucky one."
"Can ye no understand? It canna work noo - it willna!.
I thought ye mastrubated after - I thought it was unco guid - as it
would ha'e been, fer me. Ha'ing yer cock in me - mastrubating after - thon's what I
wanted. And it ..."
"What do you mean, 'it canna work noo'? What can't work now?"
"I canna come inside ye any more, Jeremy. Can ye no feel my wee wullie?"
"But why? Why do you think you won't get an erection?"
"Jeremy, the one time ye've had pleasure this month. Tell me exactly."
"I'd rather not ..."
"Jeremy, when I mastrubate I think abou' thon flogging I got fra'
yer mither, although I dinna laik it at a'. I dinna laik it at the time, and I ha'e no
desire ta be flogged again. So ye can
tell me what ye think abou'. I willna think it mun be
what
ye want."
"Uh ..."
"And if ye willna tell me what ye think abou', Jeremy, ye can tell me exactly what they did ta ye at Eton."
"I told you. They made me crawl in a circle, sucking cocks, while they whacked my ass with a cricket bat."
"So I didna hit ye hard enough?"
"I
hated what they did to me, Rory. I don't think you could do that to
anyone. I imagine you wading in, swinging your fists, saving the
poor jerk on the floor."
"But it's no being saved, that ye think abou' - that wrings the milk out?"
"No; not being saved."
"They fucked yer arse. I know they did. And ye've let
me be like them, ta tak me pleasure in your arse while ye have
nowt."
"They did NOT fuck my asshole. They had to
like a boy, to do that."
"
Like him?"
"Some of the other boys, boys they picked on - but boys older than me,
boys
with .. boys with hair, down here - they liked it. Liked
being a
sixth-former's special friend. It got you out
of the circle, out of the whackings. I hated the sixth-formers,
I hated every one of them. But I wanted to be picked."
"And that's what I am to ye? The six-former who fucks yer arse?"
"You are Nelson and Drake and W. G. Grace to me, Rory - what am I saying, I mean Rob Roy and William Wallace."
"Aye. But I'd rather be yer pleasure-boy, like yer mother."
"You are not a pleasure boy to my mother, Rory. To my
mother you are - - Rory, my mother! My mother! She'll help
you!"
"Jeremy, it's nae guid. I ha'e shaken Hinton's hand.
His gang may ha'e found Kat already - and I ha'e promised him. I will run Hinton's
whiskey operation, and I will run it fra' Glesgie. There's nocht ta keep me any more in Ayrshire."
|
XI. to be left until called for. |
|
|
Master Jeremy Thomasson
c/o Pilkin's Tobacco and Sundries
Chiddingfold, Surrey, ENGLAND
To be left until called for.
Dear Mr. Thomasson, I hope you will forgive me for writing. It
must be dissapointing to open letter, and find it is no from Rory.
But I need to beg you to write my husband more often; write as often as you
used to.
Rory does not show me your letters, and I do not know exactly why you
no longer write him every day. But I ken from
what he said, that you think your letters are poor, and can do no good.
If I could only make you see how Rory starts, guilty and
trembling, and any sound that might be the postman's knock - how he
makes some excuse to run to see if the post is come - and I ken that
is all
for ye, Jeremy, for no one else writes us. But I cannot make your eyes
see our rotten tenement, from your fine house and parks and lands in
England -
and so I have stolen from Rory his greatest treasure, one of your
letters from
last month. I do not know what is in it - I would not read
your
letters. But this letter out of all the others he has read over
and over, read it to bits, as you can see. Send this letter
back : I took it without asking, and he will miss it, but send another like it!
Whatever you said in this letter, say it again. My
husband's life - his hope and life and reason - are in
your hands. The next letter you write could save his life.
But I fear that Rory has not been writing to you every day neither - can
you forgive him? He never wished me to ken, that he wrote so often,
but I did. And now as he is not writing you so often as he used to, I ken that
too. Please Mr. Thomason, there is nothing, except you,
except your letters, to keep him from despair. I'm sure he has
told you we have plenty of money - well no, I am no sure o anything. I've no ken
what he has told you. We do have plenty of money, but perhaps he would no tell you of that, for all tha
money comes fro whores. It comes from me, and from the other girls, from whoring. Perhaps he could
not write to you about that.
Perhaps he could not thole to tell you any of it. I do no see how he could. Perhaps
he has spun you a fine tale, if so forgive him, because the shame has
been too much for him. But I
will tell you all. Rory has gone to Ayrshire today, for to see
about
the whiskey. He has re-organized the entire Ayrshire operation, so
that whiskey in Ayrshire now moves, not by lory, but in famer's carts, or higgler's
packs, or fishing boats. It was safer, so he told Hinton - no risk of having a
lory searched by the police. A higgler with a few bottles in his
pack, if caught, would not reveal the scale of the operation, and the
loss of whiskey would not be so great.
And so Rory found a way to give a job to a hundred poor bodies in
Ayrshire, instead of to one lory driver fro Glasgow. But
it means that any o those bodies could send him to prison, if
caught and questioned by the police. The men he has hired know nothing of Hinton - the risk is all Rory's.
But Hinton has so much work for him in Glasgow now, that he can't
give time to Ayrshire operation as what he would like.
My husband
is in charge directly of only five whores, (he owns them, as Mr. Hinton
puts it). I am one of those five. And I can't begin
to
imagine that Rory would have been able to tell you abou that.
But I am muchle afraid
he has no told you anything at all; it is all more than he can thole.
But now I will tell you all; I think you need to know. Let me
say
it again: I am one of the whores my husband owns. If I did what
my husband wants, and stayed at home like a fine lady, he would have to
squeeze from the other girls, the other four, the money
that Hinton expects from five, and I can no allow that.
If I did, if I let him do that, if I let him whip and squeeze the other
girls so I did no have to work, that would hurt him worse than this, in
the long run. I am sure of that. As it is, the four lassies like
him -
I should say, we lassies, we five lassies, we five whores, we all adore him. In truth he
has made life better for all the whores in Glasgow.
You may find this hard to credit, but the whoring business
(and before Rory it wasnaet a business), was so badly run,
that no one was providing top-class service, for a luxury price, to the
rich men
on George Street. And no one had worked out how to do a cheap service, done very quickly against a wall, at a
price the poorest man can afford. Not before Rory.
There was no but poor girls and pimps what steal fra them, before -
no organization, no training. And the stunnerfull thing is, that he didn't think
it should be
the youngest, prettiest lasses for the richest men. He sat
us all down, and told us that every one of us was pretty enough for the
Prince of Wales, and we believed him. And if the good King would
just forget about that horrible Simpson woman, and look for a
whore from
Glasgow
instead, it would be one of us, one of Rory's lassies, because we are
the best, as any a body
in Glasgow will tell him. Rory has taught us how to
do for a man what a man wants. And Jeremy,
I have to tell you this; although my husband did not wish me to know
this, I
do know it. My husband has taught his lassies by having sexual intercourse with
every single ane o them.
And so now Rory, who has changed the whiskey business, and the whoring
business, is not allowed to spend the time he needs to in Ayrshire with
his higglers, nor
the time he wants to in Glesgow with his lassies. He used
to have
time for us, every night; making sure we were safe, drying our tears
(for there are many tears, in spite of all that Rory can do.
Lots of
tears for us poor country lassies, on the streets of Glasgow.)
We country lassies know nothing of men, and Rory helps us
see what a
man needs; he says that above all, a customer must feel safe.
He even taught us when to refuse, to tantalize, and when to give,
and when to ask fer a skelping. I buy the clothes
for all the lassies; he says I have a talent, and that the others would
spend too much. And we buy things for
the
lassie's flats, too, to make the customers feel more comfortable.
But
all
that takes money, and there's only one place it can come from; he has
taught us how to get customers, but the work of serving the
customers is still ours, and we must work long and hard. But at
least we had Rory.
He told me himself you can tip a copper the rozzie to
look other way, but a bribed copper won't save a lass
from a
bad customer for a bribe; he only does it for friendship. He
makes us talk to the coppers and
look them in
the eye and smile, and be friends, and give away a kiss - or more.
A body who kens Rory kens it be safe, to go wi one of Rory's
lassies. Rory
himself talks to
everyone as he walks the streets, and makes sure that everyone kens
which are his lassies, and
kens that his lassies are looked after. Without him on the streets we are
much
less safe. But Hinton these days has work for him elsewhere, and
he can no be spending his nights wi' us.
He has done so well that Hinton just wants more. Last
week Rory had to chase down a shipment of rubber johnnies.
Even crime lords can't always get them in Scotland, so Hinton
buys them wholesale
from the factory in Portsmouth. And that should not have
been Rory's job, to drive a lorry the length of England with a
load of rubber johnnies. But Hinton has no a man working
for
him but turnip heads, he says, except Rory.
So now you know the worst.
I can no believe I wrote that, and if it were no in ink, I would rub it
out. I would eat it, if it would no leave a hole in the paper.
Whoring is the worst, but only for me. It is not the
worst for Rory. The worst is, that it is his job to squeeze the
girls; all of Hinton's girls, not just his five bonnie lassies, when they don't bring
in the silver.
For his own girls, he is tireless; he makes sure we make
enough to pay Hinton. But for the others, if they don't make
enough, Rory has to
flog them, that's his job. And so he tries to help them, too,
to earn more, in his spare time, but he has no spare time. He helps the girls by showing them how to please a man.
This is no something a body would tell me, but what else am
I to think, when my husband comes home late and smelling of women,
and wi the spunk drained out of him? Should I think
he does it for pleasure? I ken what my husband's pleasure
is, Jeremy. I have kenned that fro the start.
And it has nothing to do with women.
And now you know it all. And I have told you to write, but
knowing all this
must make it impossible for you to write. Will you help him, Jeremy? Will
you help a pimp, by writing that you love him? I will have
to tell Rory
that I sent you his precious letter, and he will guess I told you the
truth. I don't know what I have done, to tell you; perhaps I
have driven you away. It will be terrible for Rory, knowing that
you know. But I could no let things go.
I would rather we took wee Helen back to Ayrshire and
starved, than keep on as we are. Write what you can.
- Katherine Cairns McAllister
Glasgow, Scotland
29 Sept 1936
"Partick! What are ye doing here?"
"Here in Glesgie, Rory? What am I doing in Glesgie? What does
any Ayrshire lad be doing wi' coming to Glesgie?"
"Do you have a place to stay?"
"I'm sleeping rough, as ye might o' kenned wi'o' asking fra the stink."
"I can find a bed fer ye, Patrick, ye might a' come ta me afore.
Nae doot ye be i' need o' some
provender? And some warm water?"
"Warm water? Ye ha'e the brass ta heat yer bath-water?
And would tha' be in yer solid gold bath-tub, Laird McAllister?
Or
do ye keep gold one fer sabbath and use nobbut sil'er fer
working days? Warm water? Och, wha' has a Ayrshire
sheep-lad ta do w' warm bath-water? I ken ye ne'er had a
hot
bath in yer life, Rory McAllister - and as fer me,
I'll tak a bucket i' the close, and like it."
"I'm nae doing so bad noo, Patrick."
"Aye, I got a letter fro' Jeremy."
"Jeremy! How is Jeremy? And where's Nell? In
she in Glesgie wi' ye? Is Jeremy, is he ...? He's no sick? That is, if ye dinna mind
me asking."
"Jeremy's fine. And no, why should I mind ye asking o' the
health o' yer own son?"
"My son? What do ye mean, Patrick?"
"Nell told me, so ye can stop pertending. Not tha'
I had need ta be told the lad wasna mine : he was born a fine wean,
Rory,
and no a seven-months babe as
any idiot could see, as braw and fine and strong as ye want it.
I kenned he wasna mine, but I had a notion he was me Daddie's ; but noo
Nell
tells me the wee-un is
yers fer sure, as yer cure fer the woullies and wugglies dinna work.
She says she got the babe fra the time ye fucked her fer my
Daddie ta watch. But yer
daft, Rory ... I said I had a
letter. He's as fine a babe as ye'll see in a day, but
did ye think he's been a writing
of the letters?"
"A letter from ... ye said from Jeremy? Jeremy? Do ye mean, ye
got a letter from Jeremy
Thommason? But tha's no possible. How could he be a writing ye?"
"Then tak a keek a' this : this is no his writing? Addressed ta
me, ta
Mister Patrick Nethery, if ye please. No, Rory, no
fingers! I'll no allow ye
ta read it. But I'll tell ye it is this letter tha' has brought
me ta Glesgie."
"I'm right glad ta see ye, Patrick."
"Ye disna look it. But nae matter, ye'll be less glad soon."
"Dinna come the cunt wi' me, Patrick! I'm no a puir crofter any
more. Tell me what Jeremy said! Let me see the
letter! What is it? Is Jeremy sick - and why the fuck
would he be at write ye abou it an no me? Let me see!"
"I ken he's sick enou', Rory. Ye mak a body sick. I
would nae be i' love wi' ye, Rory, fer a bank o' money. It's what
ye'r doing tha' has made him sick, Rory, sick o'
ye."
"What is wrong wi him?"
"Katherine wrote him a letter."
"Aye. I ken she did."
"Jeremy sent it ta me. He hasna told me he's sick, but ye can
see it in the writing. It's a sick man's writing.
I'd say yer killing him."
"Jeremy has always written like that. Scraggly
handwriting? Ink blots? Sentences that dinna
finish?"
"Aye. Is as hard ta read as ta listen ta him stammer."
"But wha' do he say? And why dinna he
write me? Why write ye, Patrick, and no me?
Does he say he hates me?"
"No in so monie words. De ye ken he's a muchle what-ha'e-ye
in London, he's a ..." Patrick consulted the letter " ... Private
Secretary..."
"An wha' body would ha' Jeremy as pray-vaht seck-tarry?"
"Private Secretary to the Deputy to a hoo-fa who is called thon Minister o' Supply."
"Private Secretary to the Deputy Minister of Supply?
Jeremy? But he's no older than me!"
"It's on account o' his daddie being a Member of Parliament or some
such, and thon Mr. Baldwin needing the support. And Jeremy
says he's ta stand in the next election."
"
Jeremy a Member of Parliament?"
"Well he's no elected yet. But's on thon account he canna ha'e anything ta do wi' the likes o' ye."
"That's what he says? That he wants nocht more ta do wi' me?"
"No Rory tha's no what he says. He says he'll gi'e the world and stars fer ye and he's going ta save
ye if he has ta embezzle the whole budget o' the Ministry o' Supply ta do it.
That's wha' he says. And he's promised me a hundred quid ta do his dirty work,
while he keeps his hand clean in Lunnon and gets ready ta stand fer
parliament."
"A hundert pound! How can Jeremy ha'e a hundert pound?"
"He's stealing it, Rory. You are no so very healthy fer
yer friends. That hundred quid I'm ta ha'e - and mind ye I ha'nae
seen it yet - is pinched fra' his office."
"I'm nae short o' the sil'er, Patrick. I dinna need Jeremy's hundert pound."
"Och, but I do."
"I willna tak any money."
"Aye. I ken
ye
wouldna tak it. But thon's nae what Jeremy has in mind;
it's me he's buying wi' his money. Do ye nae ha'e a wee dram fer
an old friend?"
When they got to Rory's tenement,
Rory showed Patrick the pump in the close, but it was being used - a
lad of about fourteen was being made to wash by his mother.
There were a couple of other lads waiting to use the
cludgie, and some
younger lads and lasses playing with their peeries, and they were
laughing at the boy under the pump, not so much for being in the
skuddy, since they all washed under the pump when they washed at all,
but his mother was washing him, rather than letting him do it himself,
and she called his parts
by little baby names--when she told him she was gang ta soap his
dingle, his friends
howled with laughter. And he was being ogled too by a lass -
she was waiting with two
huge buckets to fill at the pump.
Everyone called out hello when they saw Rory, except the lass
with the buckets, who curtsied.
"Good e'ening, sir."
"Aye, it's a braw e'ening, Ellen, and this is Mr. Patrick Nethery, who
has a fancy ta wash in the close, fer all I offered him the tub
and the water ye heated o' th' stove. But I dinna think
he kenned he'd ha'e such an audience."
Patrick scowled, but he took off his tie and his shirt and his shoes,
and then, blushing, his trowsers. Ellen took each item as
he handed it over. It is no uncommon thing in a close for
a man to duck quickly under the pump, when no one is about ta see,
rather than lug a pail to his room. And if a
body happens ta see such a thing, it's eyes doun and pertend nae
ta notice; for folk in a tenement close ha'e ta get along.
But this was a friend o' Rory's, stripping ta skuddy in the
crowded close, and bodies had a mind ta watch thon, wi' a few more keeking
fra' the windows. The naked boy, although he wasna finished,
stood aside and offered Patrick his pail and his brush. A wee
lad ran to work the pump-handle.
One of the lads shouted to the naked boy: "Here Malcolm and ye'll see how
a man soaps his dingle! I ken ye'll like fine ta see thon."
Patrick had hoped for a quick in and out, but with everyone watching,
he scrubbed well. The water was ice cold, and the brush
was stiff as wire, and Malcolm's mother didna offer him the soap. Glasgow's soot and grime
does not come off easily. Patrick was red and raw, and
shivering, by the time he finished. He asked Ellen for his
clothes--she looked downcast.
Rory asked: "Ellen, what have ye done wi' Mr. Nethery's clothes?"
"But sir!"
Ellen lifted Patrick's shirt out of her bucket, where she had put it in
to soak. When she wrung the water from it, it ran black.
"And there was, begging yer pardon sir, there was lice. We
canna ha'e such a thing i' the house."
Rory said: "Patrick, I am sorry. I shouldna ha'e teased ye about
washing in the close. And I ha'ena such a thing as spare clothes
ta fit ye, yer twice my size. I'll ha'e Ellen fetch a sheet."
"Och, ne'er ye mind, Rory. We lads like fine ta show the lasses
wha' they're missing, isna tha' so, Malcolm?" Patrick
tousled Malcolm's wet hair, and the lad blushed and ducked his head, but
he also got a little grin, when he looked down at his wullie, and
snouked a keek at Patrick's for comparison. Patrick said:
"Malcolm, come to Rory's flat when yer mither lets ye go, I ha'e maybe a
wee job fer ye. Ellen what did ye do wi' my purse?"
Ellen handed over the purse by one corner, as if she thought it was
filled with lice, rather than silver. Patrick gave Malcolm a
sixpence; the boy looked about for somewhere to put it, since he was
naked, but his mother held out her hand for it, and he had to fork it
over.
Kat was putting on her lipstick
using her bonnie looking glass when Ellen came in without knocking.
The maid put down a bucket of dirty laundry, took the sheet
off the bed, and went out the door with it. Then Kat's
husband came in, followed by a big man wrapped in a sheet.
"Kat, love, ye remember Patrick?"
"Och aya, but I dinna use ta see him in toga. Wha' ye be doing
home, husband? I'm just noo abou' ta go ta work, and there's nocht a crumb o'
dinner fer ye. Ellen, can ye run ta Caledonian?
A meat pie or a pudding, and a pail o' beer; put it on tick.
It's grand ta see ye, Patrick, but I mun run. Ellen,
the babe has had the breast, so she's no call ta be awake fer an hour,
smack her doup if she greets."
"Wait, wait - I've summut ta gi'e ye." Patrick took a folded
paper from his purse, and handed it over. It was damp and dirty,
and it fell apart when Kat unfolded it, but she knew what it was - the
letter she had enclosed to Jeremy Thomasson. She hung back up
her coat.
Patrick said : "Och, Mrs. McAllister : I've a bit ta do wi yer man, ye've no call ta stay ta entertain me."
"I'll stay, Mr. Nethery. Just how on eart' could
ye ha'e the letter I sent Jeremy?"
"I'm here ta thrash yer husband, Mrs. McAllister."
"Och! Well ye'll ha'e ta get through me first, Mr.
Nethery. And I ken ye can surely whip him in a fight - ye've a
half-dozen stone on him - but ye ken we ha'e powerfu' friends."
"Aye. The laird o' crime i' Glesgie can ha'e no fear o' me.
But Katherine: ye ken I ha'e little ta loose, and a muchle ta gain.
It's Jeremy Thomasson who is paying me. If yon Hinton
wants ta punish
him, he won't
need his muscle boys; a letter ta noospapers will do fer Jeremy
Thomasson. Fer me ye can ha'e me beaten and thrown i' the
Clyde. But that's what we're ta see. Is Rory
the criminal, as will turn on his friends, or is he still the Ayrshire
farm-lad?"
"We ha'e all changed, Patrick. We've grown up. This
isnae under the holly tree, ta play a wee-uns' game wi' nettle or
smacking doups, ta see who greets the first."
"And the lasses, Kat, who smile at me as I walk abou' Glesgie, and tell
me it's half-price and free the first time? Lassies who need my
sixpence if they are to 'scape a whipping? Are those lasses just
playing a wee-uns' game under a tree?"
"Thon's my husband's job."
"This is mine."
Rory spoke up: "I don't need Hinton's muscle boys to stop ye, Patrick;
all the lads in this tenement are my friends,.and I've only ta
shout. They'll stop ye before ye lay a finger on me."
"Shout, then. But I paid thon lad Malcolm to come here and
save ye the trouble Thon's nae doubt him now."
Patrick opened the door and there, scraping his bare feet on the
wooden landing and raising his hand to knock, was Malcolm, squeezed into
his Sunday best, which he had outgrown, and with his hair combed.
All the other lads of the tenement had crowded onto the stairs,
pushing and shoving to be first in line, in case any more sixpences
were on offer.
"Hello, Malcolm. No, don't shut the door. So Rory,
what's it to be? Take a thrashing with all these lads to
watch, or set them on me?"
"Jeremy sent you?"
"Aye. Judged and condemned ye, and sent me ta carry
oot execution. But he did tell me ta say, that he's
right sorry he couldna do it wi' his own hands."
"Then I submit. Of course."
Patrick picked up his belt from where Ellen had dropped his things, and
Rory, without taking off any clothes,
crouched down, and bowed his head. It was not a position
to be beaten in, but a posture of utter submission. The sheet
slipped and hung from Patrick's left shoulder, as he swished the belt
with his right hand. Malcolm
looked back and forth between the two men, and then stood between them,
facing Patrick, who was a head taller than he was. "Ye
will ha'e to get through me first, Mister" he said.
Patrick said, "Tell him, Rory."
But Rory did not say anything. He was making a crooning
noise, and shivering. Patrick had seen like this once
before, when Jeremy had been beaten with nettles by all the lads in
schuil. But that time, Rory had been weeping for Jeremy, this was for
himself. Patrick could not understand it - he had told
many a body that Rory McAllister was the bravest lad in Ayrshire.
Malcolm said : "Mrs. McAllister, what should I do? Does this man
have some sort of hold on oor Rory? Hey! Donnie? Alfie?
Come in here! Rory needs our help."
Not just Donald and Alfred, but all the lads on the stairs squeezed
into the flat, with their hands formed into fists. Patrick
said : "You needna bother, Malcolm I canna hit him, no when he's
like this.
If he greets and whimpers he'll get no whipping fra me. Who could
hit that? I thought he was a Scot. I'll
ha'e ta give Mr. Thomasson back his hundert poun."
"And I should gi'e ye back yer sixpence, but mither has it and I ken she'll no gi'e it back."
"Keep it, Malcolm."
"I canna; I have done nowt. We wouldna ha'e let ye hurt
oor Rory fer a few pieces sil'er. But I dinna think he'd greet so,
before a whipping. There were lads like him in schuil; lubbarts who greeted e'en afore they got the strap."
"Malcolm, I was in schuil wi' Rory, and he was the bravest lad facing the
belt o' all o' us. Folk change. Are ye a
brave lad for the belt in schuil, Malcolm?"
"There's no in schuil in Glesgie ta tak us in. When we
left Kilmarnock, I called it escape fro' hell, ta leave schuil,
but I'd go
back ta schuil noo if it was twice the belting. I'd rather the
dominie's tawse than me mither's tongue, cooped up all day i' the flat.
But we cannae gang back ta Kilmarnock."
"Wait till ye've a lass and a wee-un, and no work. At times I
want ta take my belt ta them both, when they are hungry and ragged and
cold and I've tried and tried and tried and canna feed them.
Ye are lucky yer mither gi'es ye only her tongue."
"When I'm just a wee bit older, I micht bring in summut."
"Och, ye can earn yer sixpence today. Talk to Rory."
"And say what?"
"I dinna ken. But I willna gi'e up on him! Talk as one brave lad ta another."
But Rory did not answer, or at most he grunted a mono-syllable, to
Malcolm's chatter. Patrick, watching, noticed the tension
in the room, and figured out the source.
"Mrs. McAllister, perhaps Rory would like to talk to me alone."
"And perhaps you woould like ta leave oor flat, Patrick Nethery! Ye've caused enough grief."
"I'm naked, Mrs. McAllister. I'm stuck here until Ellen washes my clothes."
"I'll get you some clothes. Malcolm, ye mind the baby." - Kat went
out the door, but she took the bucket with Patrick's clothes with her.
And little Helen, sensing her mama leave and close the
door, began to cry.
Patrick said: "Her mother told us to smack her if she did that, Malcolm, and ye're the body she bid ta mind the baby."
"All right. Here, her bottom is too tiny. You do it."
"I dinna ken how to skelp a wee-un. Dinna ye ha'e a wee brother? Ye take her."
Malcolm had pulled the rags away, to get to the baby's bottom to smack
it, and wee Helen did what wee-uns often do when they feel cool air on
their bottoms--she stopped crying. She thought it great
fun to be passed back and forth between the two men, and she laughed.
Patricks sheet slipped to the ground, as he held the wee babe
against his chest and tried ta get her ta smile. Just then, her daddie bellowed "check if her rags are wet, you
great galoots, ye canna skelp her if she's greeting fer she's wet."
And then, as she was passed naked from Patrick to Malcolm,
Helen started to pee, a great yellow shower of pee fer such a wee babe.
She peed all over Malcolm's Sunday best, like the spray from a
hose.
"I think we can rule out her rags being wet," Malcolm said.
But Patrick just left Malcolm holding the baby, in his pissed-drenched
Sunday suit. "Rory - ye've stopped yer whimpering."
"Och aye. I think it should be Malcolm that belts me."
Malcolm said : "Mr. McAllister, sir!" and Patrick said "Why should it
be Malcolm?" at the same time, and Helen started to cry again.
Her
Daddie took her, and tossed her in the air. Rory said to
Malcolm : "Hadna ye better get oot o' those clothes?"
"Why should it be Malcolm?"
"Some of my clothes will fit ye, Malcolm, at least as well as the ones
ye're taking off. Och ye wee babe ye stop yer greeting noo.
Peek a boo, I see you. And it's oop i' the air, oop i' the air."
"Why should it be Malcolm, Rory?"
"It should be me, Mr. Nethery, because my mother is a hoor, and Rory McAllister is her boss.
Her pimp - her slave-owner! But I ken Rory McAllister
does what he can fer her. Are ye fro' the gang, here to
punish McAllister fer nae squeezing my mither hard enou'?"
"Ochen, ye micht say so. Or ye micht say I represent
another gang - another criminal organization. We want Rory ta
work fer us."
"He's talking havers, Malcolm. He's a friend o' mine.
He, and another friend, dinna like that I'm livin' a life
o' crime. I dinna ken what good they see a belting is ta
do, but I canna deny I earned it." Rory handed his babe ta Patrick, and then removed his
belt from his breeches, and showed it to Malcolm. It was
fantastically wide and heavy, with a double row of holes, and the holes
had brass grommets. "Look at thon belt, Malcolm
I had it made special fer the whipping o' hoors. I
ha'e belted yer mither wi' it. But there's ane hoor hasna been
whipped yet." Rory inhaled, and his beltless breeches
dropped to the ground - there was nae flesh enough in his doup ta keep
them up. Rory removed his tie and undid his collar
button, and gave a shrug, and the shirt fell too; his body was so
skeletal that his chest and arms slipped through the neckhole of
his shirt with only one button undone. He wasna wearing
knickers, but his penis was so huge that his shirt hung up on it on the
way down - but when he pulled it out of the way his penis wasna erect,
just monstrously thick and long hanging on his tiny body.
With his shirt and breeches around his ankles like prison irons, he had
to hop to get a chair, and he came back with it, so he could bend over
and rest his hands on the seat, in the only place to give Malcolm room enough
to swing in the tiny flat. Malcolm began to strut nervously
in the narrow room, too filled with nervous energy to keep still.
He slung the heavy belt up and down, gently hitting the
table top - but even with a gentle blow the mass and size of the thing,
and the dark deep clunkitt-tt-tt-tt-tt-tty of the brass grommits
hitting the table, made him flinch. Finally he asked "Why did ye
nae whip me with this, Mr. McAlister?"
"Did ye think yer ma would ask it o' me? It's nae a belt fer wee-uns."
"But ye use this on my MOTHER?"
"Aye, if shes more than a bit behind in what she pays, like any body o'
the hoors, she gets three guid slypes ta put her i' mind o' what she
owes."
"I canna thole it that ye used this on my mother, but fer me, ye think I'm a wee-un and couldna dree it."
"Och well ... But it's me that's ta be strick taday, Malcolm. How
many's fer ye ta say; and if yer wickit at me, ye can slype me all the
harder."
"Tha's no wha' I mean, Mr. McAllister. If mother asks ye ta belt
me again, I am nae such a wee-un as not ta tak what ye gi'e ta her."
"Can we get on wi' slyping my arse, Malcolm? And leave aside whether yer a wee-un?"
"I'll show ye who's a wee-un."
Malcolm got into position, and pulled back his arm, but then he decided
he
needed to get out of his piss-drenched suit. Rory and Kat's flat
was larger than most in the tenement, but it was only one room, so he
changed facing the wall. He put on one of Rory's shirts,
although he could not button it, and there wasna a pair of breeks
i' closet. And even when he was done with that, he
did
not start the beating, but strutted nervously up and down, taking
warm-up swings on various peices of furniture, while Rory waited
patiently wi' his hands on the chair. Malcolm still had
not struck the first blow--he took some more
warm-ups--when his mother walked in. Her son was in
skuddy, her boss was in skuddy, and Patrick Nethery, the man she'd just
seen
wash i' the skuddy under the pump, was wrapped in a sheet like a toga.
Her two younger sons were watching her eldest lad gi'e her
boss a
belting. She gazed at it all befuddled, trying to decide
what to do. But before she could do anything, Ellen came
back from
the dram-house with a meat pie and a muchle bucket o' beer.
Even Donnie and Alfie took deep drinks when the bucket was passed
around; fer their mother was too sturtit ta notice. And the auld
folk and Malcolm dinna pay enou' mind, so the twa boys contrivit ta eat most o' thon pie, as weell.
Malcolm gave the first blow.
"Malcolm!"
Patrick had to stop Malcolm's mother from nearly tearing off her son's
ear.
Patrick said : "Ma'am, it is no a matter fer ye ta fret, Mr. McAllister has
agreet, and askit special fer Malcolm ta skelp him."
"But what is Mr. McAllister done ta be skelpit fer?"
"That's nae fer me ta say."
Rory stood up, and turned to the watching audience, his eyes downcast
in deep shame. Looking down, his eyes fell on his penis,
and he crouched down and covered it with his arms, but then slowly
slumped even further down, and used his hands to cover his face.
"What are ye ta be skelpit, Mr. McAllister?"
That question hung unanswered for several seconds. At last
it was wee Donnie who spoke up: "Och, dinna make him ta say wha' it's
fer, ma! When Rory skelps us, he dinna make us ta come over wi' what
we did, he's just ta gi'e us a guid belting and say were quits, and
shake hands and friends again."
"Donald, wha' ha'e ye done wi' thon pie? Ye pyked the whole o' it!" SMACK!
Alfie, whose face was also chicken gravy from ear to ear, tried to run for it,
which earned him, when she caught him, three smacks where his brother
had only got one. The smacks on the lads' faces were even
louder than the belt slyp had been on Rory's britchen.
But Donnie, with tears running down his face, which washed off the gravy and
revealed the print of a red hand, placed himself squarely before his
mother, and spoke looking squarely into her eyes. "But
I'm right, mither. Ye ha'e no call ta mak Rory tell o'er his
sin."
Patrick said: "Weell, I mun say -- if ye mak him ta say it, ta say
it a' in front o' the lads, ye ken, it would be o'er the tenement, and
folk will talk."
Alfie put himself in front of Patrick, and lifted up his slapped face,
and turned his cheek. "We wouldna gi'e it out, Mr.
Nethery. Not again' oor Rory."
Malcolm was trying to get Rory up from where he was slumped on the
ground. "Are we quits, Rory? Are we shake
hands and friends again?"
"No, Malcolm, we're no quits. I'll tell ye when we're quits. But yer arm will be sore afore I do."
"Aye."
Rory picked himself up of the ground as if his body was already a mass
of pain, and got into position with his hands on the seat of the chair.
"And I'll tell ye what it's fer, Malcolm, ye've a right ta know.
It's fer squeezing the last bit o' sil'er fra' yer mither."
"But Mr. McAllister! We're nae
wickit at ye! Yer the one tha' keeps us safe. When mither
brings a man ta flat, Donnie hides i' the cupboard, and keeks through
hole. And if the man hurts her, he's ta whisper ta me through
tha' wall, and I'm ta run ta fetch ye."
"A wee-un lik Donnie shouldna be a seeing thon."
"He's the only one still fits i' cupboard."
"I canna help tha' yer mither's a hoor, Malcolm, but if she's a hoor,
I'm the hoor o' all hoors. And my friends ha'e decided I mun be
belt fer it."
"A man canna be a hoor."
"Och I can. I mak my sil'er wi' this, Malcolm, so I
am sure a hoor. I use this ta teach my lassies wha' an English
leddie taught me, wha' she herself learnt out o' books o' the
Frenchies."
"I'd laik fine ta learn it all, sir. Ye see my ba's are oop, as big
as a man's. Can ye nae get me a job, sir, ta mak a bit sil'er
fer my mither?" Malcolm's mither was staring straight
ahead, a fixed smile on her face.
"I'll nat ha'e ye grow up ta be a hoor, Malcolm. This belting is
wha' my friends think I deserve fer being a hoor, and they're right.
Ye mun ha'e work ye can hold oop yer head. I mun find a
schuil fer ye lads, I've been of a mind to. It's just I'm so
busy."
"I want ta be lik ye, Mr. McAllister, I dinna want ta go ta schuil. And I dinna want ta gi'e ye a belting."
"Then ye'll watch as Mr. Nethery gi'es it. And ye should ha'e the
strap fer saying ye want ta be a hoor, Malcolm, but I'm no fit daddie ta gi'e it
ye."
"Och, ye're nae so bad. The man mither was wi' in
Kilmarnock, he hurt Donnie, so we had ta flit ta Glesgie. But we
wouldna be safe fra' him, e'en in Glesgie, wi'ou' ye. The
name o' Rory McAllister keeps us safe."
Patrick said : "Malcolm, Jeremy wants him ta gi'e up this life o' crime, and
bide in a palace in England, and eat strawberries and cream. I'd
lik tha' fine, myself."
Malcolm asked : "Who is Jeremy?"
"He's a friend o' ourn."
"No, Patrick, I bude ta tell him the truth. Malcolm, Jeremy Thomasson is my lover."
"Ye like fancy-boys? Do ye want me? I dinna think I'd lik it, but I'd do it fer monie."
"Ye'll be getting a belting, Malcolm, I'll no ha'e ye be a hoor. And Jeremy isna my fancy-boy, I'm his."
"Och I canna believe thon! They say ye've had more lasses than Glesgie Rangers, a' put together."
( 16 Aug 1936 )
And I ken my Daddie has the woulies and wugglies and cou' no be
the father. And fer a' the quaen dubbed the wean 'Jeremy,' I ken
thon English lad were no exactly man enou' ta do it, if ye ken what I
mean. Ochen I ken it was ye, all along; I ken th'
name was one the Daddie picked.
After three days a pitiful little note came from "Ragtime,"
saying he was in a huge military hospital, and begging me to visit
him. Catholic Sisters were in charge, and the rules were strict;
finally we saw him and others who had been dumped there. He cried
and implored me not to leave him. He said his wounds had not been
dressed for three days! Think of it! When we dressed him it was
two-hourly, and it was most necessary. The reason for the neglect
was that nuns were not allowed, so I was told, to attend to
men-patients
below the waist! The lady-doctor went round and pleaded with them
to let us have him back, but no, they would not. So I was determined.
Mademoiselle and I went round and asked for the General. He was
in charge of this great hospital. I told him the history of the
case, cried and protested with real Belgian emotion, and finally
the dear old General began to think that here was real romance!
He let me have "Ragtime." The lady-doctor sent her car
and we got him back.
To
the butler's astonishment the half the barrel
failed to fill the boys cup and he was loathed to open another barrel
but the laird ordered him to fill the cup no matter how much ale was
spent so the butler opened another barrel and just as the first drop
landed the cup was full; the boy thanked the laird and went on his way.
Some
years later during wars in Flanders the laird was caught and taken
prisoner and sentenced to death. The night before he was to be executed
the door of his dungeon swung open and the boy appeared saying, "Laird
o' Co', rise an go". Once outside the little boy (who was a fairy) took
the laird apon his shoulders and whisked him back to his castle in a
flash, a he set the laird down on the ground he said "Ae guid turn
deserves another. Tak ye that for being sae kind to my auld mither".