** LEGENDS OF LUST

**
** THE DARK WOOD - BOOK 1
**
** by Zadie Black

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© 2020 Zadie Black. All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be
reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without
prior written permission of the author, except as provided by United States of
America copyright law. For permission requests, contact the author via email:
[email protected].

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* PROLOGUE

NIGHT WAS FALLING outside the snug little cottage on the edge of the forest. It
brought with it an icy gale. The winds began to howl. On their wings they bore
little flurries of snowflakes.

“I must hurry home,” said the man, pulling on his fur-lined leather boots. “I
dislike the sound of that wind. A blizzard is coming, I’ll wager.” Although he
still wore his dark hair long, it was shot through with streaks of gray.

“A blizzard!” exclaimed the young woman. Her pretty blonde hair was bound up in two
braids which hung down her back. She wore a simple blue kirtle with puffy white
sleeves. Despite her plain clothing she was beautiful, and she had a fine, full
figure. “Do not go. It is too dark already. If you leave, I will be frightened you
have gotten lost in the storm.” She threw her arms around him. Their lips met for a
brief kiss. He pulled her in tight against him and they kissed once more,
passionately.

“Stay the night here,” she begged him. “I will sleep so much better knowing you are
safe and warm.”

“Stay the night?” His blue eyes twinkled. “I like the sound of that, my sweet. But
what will the neighbors say?”

She gave his broad chest a gentle shove and pulled away from his embrace. “Do not
get any ideas,” she said with mock severity. “You shall sleep on the floor. I’ll
make you up a bed out of blankets. And besides, if the neighbors have any sense
they are curled up warm and safe in their cottages, not spying on us in a
snowstorm. Now make yourself useful and put more wood on the fire while I make your
bed and get ready for my own.”

She went into her room and shut the door. The man heard her bustling about. He
removed his boots once more and set them by the door. Then he carefully took off
his rich red cloak and hung it on a peg on the wall. Like his boots, it too was
fur-lined, and it was emblazoned with his coat of arms in gold.

“Ready!” he heard the woman call out. “Come to bed.”

He opened the door to her room. As she had promised a thick pile of blankets lay on
the floor, topped with a few well-stuffed pillows. She was lying on her own wooden
bed. She had undone her braids, and her golden hair spilled across her pillow. She
had pulled a gray wool blanket up to her shoulders, which were bare.
“What do you think?” she asked.

The man stepped over the blankets on the floor and laid down on her bed next to
her. He pulled her lithe body tight against his and kissed her passionately. She
responded with ardor.

“Are you wearing anything underneath this blanket?” he asked.

“A lady never tells,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him.

The man kissed one of her bare shoulders. Then he grabbed the blanket and tried to
pull it down.

“Hey!” she exclaimed. “Stop it!” She clutched the blanket to her chest.

“Oh my love, why must you keep teasing me?” he said in exasperation. “Come, there
are only the two of us here, and the night is cold. Let me warm you up in your bed.
I will be gentle, I swear it.”

“I believe you,” she said with a smile. “But you are a noble-born lord and I am
only a commoner. You must have fetching young ladies throwing themselves at you
constantly. How am I to know you will not use me and cast me aside?”

“I would never do that!” he protested. “You are lovelier to me than any foolish
farm girl. I have never met anyone like you before. I love you. I would never
betray that love, on my honor!”

“Those are fine words,” she said. “But men will say anything to get a pretty girl
out of her clothes.”

“What must I do to convince you?” he asked.

“How about you tell me a story?” she asked. “When I was a girl, I could never fall
asleep until my father had told me a story. Tell me your best bedtime story.” She
winked at him. “Perhaps if it is especially good I shall let you sleep up here
instead of on the floor.”

“You are a saucy wench, my love,” said the man. “You know I cannot refuse you. Very
well, I will tell you a tale, and it will be a tale like you have never heard in
your life. Have you ever heard the story of the Dark Wood?”

“What’s the Dark Wood?” the woman asked excitedly.

“Why it’s right here in my trousers,” he said teasingly. “If you wish I can show
you.”

“Boo!” she said and rolled over to face away from him.

“I was only teasing, my love,” he said. “In truth, the Dark Wood is one of those
strange, enchanted forests that looms on the borders of old wives' tales. The sort
heroic farm boys and beautiful maidens are constantly wandering into and having
strange adventures in.”

The woman rolled onto her back again. “Go on,” she said.

The man smiled and kissed her bare shoulder gently once more. “Once upon a time,”
he began, “long ago, the Dark Wood lay on the borders of the Kingdom of Sukkonia.”

“Mmm,” said the woman, snuggling deeper into the blankets.

“The Dark Wood had a grim reputation throughout the land,” he continued in his
deep, resonant voice. “It was full of ancient, wizened trees with grasping roots
and branches that twisted round each other to block out the sun. Beneath its
branches, full noon appeared as if it were twilight. And it was vast, too. It was
said one might travel for days through the forest and still not reach the sunlit
realms on the other side.”

“It sounds very mysterious!” she exclaimed.

“But folk seldom traveled through it. Not unless they had no choice,” he said.

“Why not?” she asked.

“In the olden times there were places in the world that still did not fully belong
to mortal men,” he said, “places that were the domain of dark, ancient, and magical
beings. Mortals, if they had any sense, kept well clear. The Dark Wood was one such
place. Folk whispered strange tales about what lurked deep within.”

“What sort of tales?” she asked him.

“Oh, there were a great many. The forest was home, it was said, to werewolves, and
unicorns, and wizards, and even dragons. But most of all, the Dark Wood was said to
be full of Faeries. Deep in the heart of the Dark Wood was a secret Fae city.
Titania, Queen of the Fae, dwelled there, along with the Court of the Fae. Because
of this, the forest was crawling with dreadful Fae creatures. Now,” said the man,
“there once was a tiny cottage on the edge of the forest…”

“Why were the Fae so dreadful?” she interrupted. “I thought Faeries were beautiful
and magical beings.”

“Many are beautiful,” said the man. “To the mortal eye they often appear as sweet
and delightful as you, my love. But they are not kind like you. Their beauty hides
great cruelty. They delight in tricking mortals and trapping them in webs of magic.
Many a brave knight traveling through the Dark Wood has glimpsed some beautiful
young maiden crying out for their aid. But woe to knights who ventured from the
safe path. It is said the Dark Wood was full of ancient mounds where such knights
slept an enchanted, eternal slumber, cursed to never again walk the world of men.”

The woman shivered delightfully. “Go on,” she said.

“As I said, once upon a time there was a tiny cottage on the edge of the Dark Wood,
and in it lived a woodcutter and his young bride. The young woodcutter’s name was
Galen, and his wife was named Mabel. They did not live next to the Dark Wood by
choice. They were very poor. All they had to their name was a narrow plot of land,
choked with roots and brambles and lying almost beneath the eaves of the forest
itself.

“At least the close proximity of the Dark Wood allowed Galen to easily ply his
trade as a woodcutter. He would chop the dead branches he collected into bundles of
firewood and trade them to nearby cottages for cheese and barley.

“His wife, Mabel, cleaned their meager cottage and tried to make the thorny ground
around it grow turnips and beans. She helped her husband cut and bundle firewood.
It was not an easy life. Most seasons, they barely scraped by. But there was always
food on the table. And the two of them loved each other dearly. They were happy.

“Until, that is, the accident happened: the accident that would lead to Mabel’s
encounter with the Duke of Rutland, and everything that came after.”
The woman made a wide ‘O’ with her red lips. “What accident?” she asked. The man
leaned forward and kissed her on her open mouth. Their tongues met. The man felt
her round bottom through the blanket and squeezed it tight.

“You are definitely naked under there,” he said.

She swatted his hand away. “Are all lords as naughty as you?” she asked.

“Oh, you have no idea,” he said.

“Quit trying to distract me,” she said. “Tell me about the accident.”

“Before I do, my love, we must jump back a little in time, to a cold, windy
winter’s night much like this one¬. A butcher was hurrying through the snow to his
home in the village of Fanny-on-Poke when he stumbled across the naked body of a
woman lying in a snowdrift. The poor woman was dead. In her frozen arms she
clutched a little bundle to her chest. Within it, the butcher found a baby. By some
miracle, it was still alive…”

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* CHAPTER 1

THE BUTCHER of the village of Fanny-on-Poke was surprised to find the baby yet
lived. Its poor mother had bundled it up with her own robe and cloak, keeping it
alive even as the cruel winter night stole the life from her naked body. The
butcher and his family were good folk. They could not leave a child to die in the
snow. So they took it in. The baby was a girl. They christened it Mabel, and they
raised it as one of their own.

Little Mabel’s adopted family was kind enough to her. But they had many other
mouths to feed, so they treated her with a kind of benign neglect. She was mostly
left to her own devices. She had a vivid imagination and dreamed up whole worlds to
amuse herself. She ran wild with the other children of Fanny-on-Poke. She grew up
quickly. Before she knew it, Mabel had left childhood behind. Her breasts budded,
her hips filled out, and her monthly bleeding began.

Mabel had been blessed with a great deal of curiosity about the world; too much,
her mother often said. She was particularly interested in sex. Growing up in a
small country village meant Mabel had seen most of the village women, and many of
the men, naked. Sometimes the women of the village went together to wash themselves
down in the Poke River. Nothing was hidden from view. Mabel was also constantly
surrounded by barnyard animals. She had watched them mounting and rutting from an
early age. She knew how babies were made. At least she knew how animal babies were
made. Grown up men and women were a great deal more secretive about the process.
But Mabel kept her eyes peeled.

One morning, while playing by herself, Mabel clambered up a tree. While she was
high in the branches, she heard footsteps. Mabel stayed quiet and held herself very
still, wanting to see if whoever was coming would notice her. A man and a woman
stopped at the foot of the tree. The woman was the wife of the village blacksmith.
The man she was with was not the blacksmith. She unbuckled his belt and pulled his
trousers down. Mabel could see his limp penis. The blacksmith’s wife unbuttoned her
blouse and opened it. She had plump breasts with rosy nipples. The man seemed to
enjoy this view of her tits. His cock swelled mightily. The blacksmith’s wife
pulled up her skirts and bent over, presenting her bare rump to the man. The man
inserted his cock into her pussy. Then he began to pump away at her. While this was
happening both of them made a variety of unusual noises. Mabel also heard them say
things that would have been quite rude ordinarily. At last the man’s cock spewed
forth some whitish fluid into the woman’s pussy. Mabel knew this because she spied
it dribbling out after the man had finished mounting her. Both the man and the
woman seemed to enjoy this whole strange affair a great deal. As for Mabel, she
felt a strange, tingly feeling between her legs.

Six weeks later at a village gathering the blacksmith’s wife announced she was
pregnant. Everybody cheered. But Mabel noticed the blacksmith did not look
particularly happy.

Mabel felt smug. She now knew something the other village girls her age did not.
She was eager to share her newfound knowledge with them. Some of the girls thought
letting a boy touch their bottom or their pussy would get them pregnant. Some girls
claimed merely kissing a boy might get them with child. But Mabel was happy to
disabuse them of these notions.

“Girls get pregnant by fucking,” she told her friends. “As long as the boy’s cock
does not go in your pussy, it’s not fucking and you cannot get pregnant.”

“But how does fucking work?” asked one. Mabel then enthusiastically explained in
great detail the scene which she had witnessed.
Before long, their elders got wind of this conversation. The village priest
gathered together all the girls. He sat them down in a row on a creaky old pew in
the village chapel. Standing by the altar, he lectured them sternly. He told them
good young girls should not “lay about” with village boys.

“If you lay about with a young man, he will get you with child,” the priest
admonished them gravely “And if the young man is not your husband, then you shall
have no man to help you bear it.”

Most of the girls took in this pronouncement with wide-eyed solemnity. But Mabel
frowned. “Father,” she piped up, “when you say ‘lay about with’, do you mean
‘fucking’?”

The priest flushed crimson. The other girls tittered. “That is a very vulgar word
to say, young lady,” he said severely. “Only the lowest class of harlots and
ruffians speak in such a manner. Good girls do not use such words. And they do not
do…. such things. Not until they marry a strong, upstanding lad from a good family
who can take care of them. You must strive to be good girls.”

All the girls nodded solemnly.

. . .

The years went swiftly by. Mabel blossomed quickly from a gawky tomboy into a young
woman. Her mother deemed that she still possessed more ‘vigor’ than was proper in a
young lady. Mabel had to be reminded constantly to lace up her bodice tightly to
keep her breasts from spilling out as she dashed about the village and played with
her friends. “Follow the example of your sister, Hildred,” her mother admonished
her. “She knows how a proper lady should behave.”

Hildred was the butcher’s natural daughter. She was older than Mabel, although by
less than a year. The sisters were close, although they differed greatly from each
other. Where Hildred was curly and blonde, Mabel was a brunette. Hildred was a
chubby lass with wide hips. Mabel had a thin, waifish look about her. Hildred
obediently followed the rules. Mabel had a wild streak within her, that, despite
her best efforts, she could never entirely suppress. She had bright, mischievous
green eyes. Her insolent mouth seemed too wide for her narrow face, which was
framed by her wild, dark hair.

Despite her wild ways, Mabel soon attracted the attention of a young man. Mabel met
Galen when he had traveled to Fanny-on-Poke with a group of men and a cart and
donkey to sell things. Galen brought some furniture he had carved. Galen’s home was
well south of Fanny-on-Poke, across the Deep Gash and then a two days ride along
the eaves of the Dark Wood.

The handsome, muscle-bound lad was a man of few words, but Mabel was immediately
struck by him. She sat by him for a long time, trying gamely to extract a
conversation from the shy woodcutter. Later, they went for a walk. After they had
gotten away from the cottages, Galen had pressed Mabel up against the side of a
barn and kissed her. Mabel, who very much liked kissing, kissed back. She bit his
lower lip and pushed her tart strawberry tongue into his mouth. Galen also found
this greatly to his liking. She could tell as much by the firm, sausage-like shape
she felt through his woolen hose. It felt very warm, and when she touched it, it
swelled. The sack at the base of his smooth shaft felt to Mabel like a silk purse
with two coins in it.

Mabel allowed Galen to unlace her bodice with fumbling fingers. When this
troublesome garment was out of the way he reached down the front of her kirtle and
pulled out her breasts. Mabel was a little anxious about what he would think of
them. Her bosoms were not nearly as big as Hildred’s. Hildred had a round figure
and plump, pink tits that jiggled about when she laughed or giggled, which was
often. Mabel’s breasts were much smaller by comparison, with wide, puffy nipples
that were rosy in coloration. Will my meager bosoms with their large nipples
disgust Galen? she wondered.

It turned out Galen did not seem to mind them at all. He squeezed them hard, so
hard that Mabel found it uncomfortable, although she did not tell him this. Then he
asked her if he might kiss one. She said he might. Before she knew it, he had taken
her whole tit into his mouth and was sucking enthusiastically on it. He was quite
slobbery while he did this. Mabel had to suppress giggles.

Mabel was extremely curious about fucking. What would it feel like to have Galen’s
cock inside of me? she wondered. Still, despite her curiosity, Mabel wanted to be a
good girl, like the priest said. So she did not let Galen fuck her against the side
of the barn that afternoon. She was, however, happy to experiment with her new man
in other ways. On that first afternoon, she pulled Galen’s hose down. She took his
penis into her soft hands and touched and fondled it while he stroked her dark,
wild hair and told her breathlessly how pretty she was. After a while he grunted
and his engorged cock spurted jets of warm, sticky fluid all over her hands. Mabel
was fascinated by this. She wondered what his seed tasted like. So she put a finger
up to her mouth and sucked on it. She licked her lips, savoring the taste. It was
rather salty, but she did not dislike it. She swallowed it. She looked up to see
Galen gazing down at her with wide eyes.

After that, Galen visited Fanny-on-Poke whenever he could, even though it was two
days' travel from his home. Mabel rewarded him with lots of kissing and with other
little surprises. She would hike up her skirt to climb an apple tree,
‘accidentally’ giving him cheeky glimpses of her bare bottom. The two also went
skinny dipping in the Poke River. But when he touched Mabel’s cunny under the water
she slapped his hand away, giggling.

“Now Galen, good girls don’t let boys do such things,” she admonished him.

One day, Mabel contrived to invite Galen to meet her at a secluded grove near the
village. When he approached, he discovered Mabel lying naked atop her discarded
clothing. Her slender legs were spread apart. He could see her little pink labia
peeking out from her dark, curly pubic hair.

Galen, thinking she was unaware of his presence, ducked behind a tree to watch.
Mabel wet two fingers and touched her mound with them. Then she rubbed it
vigorously. The knowledge that she had an audience for her lewd display aroused
her. Her little pussy flooded with warmth and wetness. Her dark bush was flecked
with droplets of her cream. As Galen watched breathlessly, she was seized with an
uncontrollable shudder that rippled across her slender body. She hooked her fingers
into her snatch. She bucked her hips as she thrust them in and out. “Oh, Galen!”
she cried out. “Oh, fuck!”

Mabel had hoped Galen would enjoy the show she put on for him, but its effect on
him proved much greater than she had anticipated. While she was still catching her
breath, Galen came charging out of the bushes. He had ripped off his hose. Before
she knew it, he was on top of her. His smooth penis was hard and erect. He kissed
her ravenously on her lips, her ears, and her neck. He mauled her breasts with his
hands and took her nipples between his teeth. His bold hands strayed lower. He
fondled and squeezed her ass. One naughty finger brushed across the tight knot of
her anus, sending a delightful thrill up her spine. Mabel loved it. When she felt
the engorged head of Galen’s swollen cock tentatively butting up against her virgin
entrance, she could not but help grinding herself against it. Suddenly, Mabel
decided she did not care about being a good girl anymore.

“Galen,” she gasped, “Let’s try fucking. I want you to put your thing inside of
me.” Galen’s response was a guttural sound which was beyond words. She felt his
fingers clumsily poking through around her bush. Before long, they found her warm
pink opening. Galen poised his rigid erection against it. Mabel had been told by
friends that the first time sometimes hurt, so she took a deep breath and steeled
herself.

“Oi!” came a gruff voice from across the clearing. “None of that, you naughty
children!”

. . .

It was unfortunate, Mabel felt, that one of the village elders had interrupted
their fun. She did not particularly enjoy being marched back to the village, or the
stern lecture by the village priest which followed. His stormy words about ‘lying
about’ before marriage continued, she felt, long after his point had been made.

But ultimately the outcome proved to be a happy one. Galen took the priest’s words
to heart: If he could not enjoy Mabel’s feminine anatomy without marrying her, then
that was just what he would do. The next evening the young man, his face beet red,
made a stammering offer to Mabel’s father for her hand in marriage. Her father was
silent for a moment. Then he grinned at the awkward lad and gave their union his
blessing. Mabel felt her heart leap. By the end of the evening, word of their
betrothal had spread through the village like wildfire.

There was no lengthy, formal engagement. Galen went home to tell his family, and
then he returned the very next week for the wedding. Because Galen’s family was
poor and Mabel was an adopted child, the ceremony was a homey affair. A crown of
flowers was set upon Mabel’s head, and her father wound a red silk thread around
Mabel and Galen’s wrists, symbolizing their union. The village priest said a few
words which nobody paid attention to. Then wine and barley beer were served to all
the villagers. Galen had brought a pig from his family, which Mabel’s father
slaughtered. The rest of the day was a blur of dancing and feasting and drinking
and bawdy jokes, many of them at the young couple’s expense. At long last, after
night had fallen, Galen scooped his bride up in his arms and carried her to the
cottage. It was in fact Mabel’s family’s own cottage; her parents were sleeping in
a friend’s cottage to give the newlyweds a place to stay the night. The next day
Galen would take Mabel back to his home—their home, now—and they would begin their
life together. But this night was for the consummation of their love.

Mabel barred the door and drew the curtains against the group of bawdy hecklers who
had followed them to the cottage. Turning away from Galen, she undressed slowly
while he watched. She was young and her thighs and buttocks were smooth and round
and firm. There were little dimples above her apple-shaped bottom. The candlelight
emphasized the delightful curves of her unblemished body.

Mabel turned around to see that Galen had pulled off his shirt. He had strong arms.
Even though he was young, his skin was already well-browned from laboring in the
sun. Mabel went to him and took his penis in her hand.

“Is that for me, my husband?” she asked, giving him a peck on the cheek.

“Let’s lie down,” he said gruffly. They lay down on the bed. Mabel was still
holding his manhood in her hand.

“Would you like me to suck on it?” asked Mabel. Galen nodded. She kissed the tip.
Then she put the head between her lips. Mabel loved the taste of her man’s dick.
She sucked it enthusiastically while she gently massaged his silk purse. This cock
is mine now, she thought to herself, all mine to play with. She intended to enjoy
it freely.

. . .

“Now hold on just a moment,” said the young woman.

“You have such a cute way of wrinkling your nose when you’re cross,” said the man.
“Keep doing that.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “This story sure has a lot of sex in it,” she said.

“It’s not my fault,” he said defensively. “This is a traditional fairy tale. I am

merely telling you how it goes.”

“Are you sure you’re not making this all up to seduce me?” she asked.

“That depends,” he asked, “is it working?”

“That depends,” she said, smiling mischievously.

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked. “If you do not like the story, I can stop.”

“Oh, no!” she said. “I want to hear… more.”

“Even if there are more sex bits?”

“I suppose I would not mind them too much,” she said.

At that moment, a blast of icy wind howled around the cottage. Its eerie, high-
pitched wail made their skin crawl. All the windows rattled.

“What a dreadful storm!” exclaimed the woman with a shiver.

“Come here, my love, and let me put my arms around you. We must keep each other
warm,” he said.
The woman did not object, but nestled up in his arms.

“Now, let’s see,” said the man. “Where was I? Oh yes. Mabel was eager for Galen to
take her virginity. However…”

. . .

Mabel heard a snore. She looked up. Her husband’s head had lolled to the side and
his eyes were closed. Evidently the festivities had exhausted him. She sighed.
Blowing out the candle, she crawled into bed next to him and pulled the covers over
them both. She too was soon fast asleep.

She awakened in the deep black of the night. Rough hands were groping her naked
body. One hand squeezed her left breast tightly. The other was between her legs,
forcing them apart. Mabel had a moment of panic. Some stranger had gotten into her
bed and was trying to have his way with her! But, no, she remembered she was
married now. It was not a stranger but her husband pawing at her crotch. She
relaxed and opened herself to him. Galen sucked on her left tit, and Mabel felt her
nipple lengthen and harden. She put a hand on his to guide him to the sensitive nub
of her clit. But he pushed her hand away and continued fumbling with her delicate
folds.

It pleased Mabel that her body so excited him. “Oh husband,” she whispered. “You’re
making my little pussy so wet. Do you feel it?” She put his hand on his to guide it
to her moist flower. But Galen grabbed her right wrist and pinned it above her
head. He did the same to her left arm. He pinned her against the bed. She felt the
weight of his body on her hips and then the throbbing, swollen head of his erection
against her virginal entrance.

“Be careful, love,” she whispered. “I have never –“

With a grunt, Galen thrust into her. Since Mabel was young and a virgin, she was
extremely tight. His rigid prick stretched her open painfully. She cried out. Galen
heedlessly shoved the thick head of his dick deeper in. Something gave way. Mabel
felt a quick stab of pain.

“Please go slow!” she exclaimed. Galen moved his arm so his elbow pinned her right
arm and covered her mouth with his free hand, muffling her protests. He pumped his
cock deep in and out. His thrusts were vigorous and eager.

Despite the pain, Mabel also felt pleasure. She was excited to have her man inside
of her at last, claiming her for his own. Galen kept her arms pinned above her
head. She was utterly helpless as he pounded her tight, virgin cherry. Mabel tried
to simply relax and let it happen. Galen’s thrusts were becoming less painful. She
was even beginning to enjoy it. She opened her mouth and sucked on the fingers with
which he had covered it. Her husband gasped. He finally spoke.

“You are… such a… filthy little slut,” he said as he fucked her. Mabel couldn’t
reply, so she arched her spine and moaned.

Suddenly, he pulled his full length out of her. He released her and sat up. His
cock was rock hard, and it was glistening with her juices. Galen grabbed it in a
tight grip and groaned loudly. Then he baptized her soft, naked body with thick
spurts of his semen. Gobs of it landed on her breasts. Cum pooled in her belly-
button. An errant drop dribbled down her chin. With a sigh, Galen released her arms
and collapsed next to her. He threw one sweaty arm over her sticky body.
Tentatively, she put her lips against his and kissed him. He returned her kiss. She
nestled in his arms. He yawned and lay his head down on the pillow.
Mabel felt pleased with her first time. It had only hurt for a minute or two. After
that it had felt fine. If there was anything missing from their coupling, Mabel was
not experienced enough to realize it.

“Thank you for not cumming inside me,” she said.

“No babies yet,” Galen said. “I need more coin first.”

“But soon,” she said. “Soon you shall fill me with your seed and make me pregnant.”

“Soon,” he promised.

They fell asleep, naked and tangled in each other’s arms.

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* CHAPTER 2

THE NEXT DAY AS DAWN BROKE, Mabel mounted her new husband’s scrawny old mule. She
had wrapped the few possessions she owned in a small bundle and tied it on behind
her. Galen took the reins and led her away from the only home she had ever known.
They left the little village of Fanny-on-Poke behind, and crossed the rickety
bridge over the Deep Gash. From there they traveled south along well-worn paths for
two days. They slept wrapped together in an old blanket underneath the stars. At
last they arrived at the little cottage snuggled under the eaves of the Dark Wood.

Fanny-on-Poke had not been far from the fabled forest. An old, winding path led
from behind the tanner’s sheds through some low hills and from there to the very
doorstep of the Dark Wood itself. Once, as a child, Mabel and her playmates had
followed the path until they came to the edge of it. They had teased each other,
daring each other to enter. At last Mabel had boasted she would go in, and then
Hildred said she would too.

Hand-in-hand, the two girls walked hesitantly into the forest. Behind them they
could hear their friends calling, “Further, further, we can still see you!” Hildred
had been squeezing Mabel’s hand so tightly that it hurt. But in fact, Mabel saw
nothing particularly alarming: only tall trees illuminated by the occasional shaft
of sunlight breaking through the leafy canopy. Birds chittered and called to each
other above them.

Suddenly, they had heard the loud crack of a twig snapping behind them. Hildred
shrieked and both girls whirled around to see what was behind them. But it was only
one of the village boys. He had crept in after them to give them a scare. Hildred
charged at the boy, crying out that she was going to beat him black and blue, and
he fled in terror. Mabel laughed as her sister chased the boy out of the woods.

After a moment, she was suddenly aware she was now alone under the eaves of the
Dark Wood. The birds had gone quiet. Feeling uneasy, Mabel made up her mind to go
back. But first she took one last look around. That was when she spotted something:
a woman—dressed in white and wearing a white flower in her hair—standing among the
trees. She was looking right at Mabel. Mabel’s heart stopped. She was sure the
woman had not been there a moment before. Mabel turned and ran as fast as she
could. Right before she reached the edge of the Dark Wood, she glanced behind her.
There was no sign of the woman.

Mabel did not tell the other children what she had seen. Nor did she go back to the
forest.

But here in her new home, Mabel had only to look out the rear window of the cottage
to see the mighty gray trunks of the Dark Wood looming up. The branches shaded her
turnip patch. Her first night in the cottage she woke in the dark with a start. She
sat bolt upright in the little cot she shared with Galen. For a moment, she did not
know where she was. Then she remembered she was far from her childhood home. She
was all alone in a strange bed under a strange roof with her new husband. Why have
I awakened? she wondered. Then she heard it: lonely howls coming from the dark
depths of the Dark Wood. A chill like ice water ran down her spine.

“What’s the matter, sweet?” murmured her husband sleepily.

“Galen,” she whispered, “There are wolves out there!”

“Mm,” said Galen. “Safe here. Sleep.” He patted her bare hip absently.

“Safe?” asked Mabel. Her bare breasts pimpled with goosebumps, and her nipples were
stiff with cold and fear. Every shape silhouetted by the dim moonlight seemed
ominous. “I’m frightened by the Dark Wood, Galen.” She plucked urgently at his
shoulder. “Aren’t you?”

Her husband sat up and yawned hugely. “Do not be foolish, my sweet,” he said, “I’ve
lived my entire life within a stone’s throw of the forest. I go into it every day
to gather dead wood. We have nothing to fear.”

“So it is all stories?” asked Mabel.

“No,” admitted Galen. “Not just stories. Sometimes people see things. And I’ve
known people who… disappeared… into the forest. But they did not follow the rules.
I always follow the rules.”

“What rules?” she asked.

Galen yawned again. “First rule,” he said, “Do not go into the forest after dusk.
Second rule: when you’re in the forest, stay on the path. Third rule: if you see
shapes or movement in the wood, look away.”

“That is it?” asked Mabel, doubtfully. “We simply do those things and we are safe?”

“Yes,” grumbled Galen. “Now go to sleep.”

“But I’m still frightened,” pouted Mabel. She bit her lower lip and looked at her
husband. “Won’t you stay awake for a bit and comfort me?” Mabel cupped one of her
ripe breasts with her hand and gave it a little bounce. She spread her legs. With
her other hand she hooked a finger into the fleshy folds of her of cunny.

Galen looked at his wife. The pale moonlight outlined the sensual curves of her
nubile body. He was quite sleepy, but he couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward
and took the proffered tit into his mouth. He ran his tongue around the wide,
peach-blossom areola and then sucked on her long nipple.

“Ooh,” said Mabel. She took Galen’s limp dick in her hand. “My sweet,” she said,
giving it a squeeze, “I wish for you to fuck me.”

Galen spat her tit out of his mouth. “Do not say that,” he snapped. “You sound like
a common whore.”

“Mmm, yes, I am a whore, honey,” she cooed. “I’m a whore for your cock.”

Suddenly Galen was fully upright next to her. He grabbed her by the hips and shoved
her off the bed and onto her knees. He pressed her head down so her face was
against the rough floor of the cottage. “If you’re a whore,” he said, “then I shall
fuck you like a whore gets fucked.” He pulled her arms back behind her and held
them tightly by the wrist.

Galen shoved his cock deep into her sensitive pussy. It surprised Mabel to find her
husband was now fully erect. A white hot bolt of pain shot through her loins. She
was dry and tight, not yet prepared to receive her fully engorged husband. She
cried out, “Galen, slow down! That hurts!”

“Shut up, you fucking whore,” shouted Galen. “Don’t you like this? Don’t you like
having your furrow ploughed like a dirty cunt whore?” Galen pulled his cock out of
her. He spat in his hand and rubbed the saliva into her hole. Then he mounted her
once more. Mabel gasped as he fucked her relentlessly.

Mabel decided she had better make the best of the situation. There was something
deliciously sexy about her husband having complete control over her. Being reduced
to a sex object, a warm body for him to spend his seed in, turned her on. Mabel’s
pussy flooded with moisture and heat. She began to respond to her husband’s
invading prick, bucking her hips against him and moaning. She moaned as his
testicles slapped against her as he rammed home his cock over and over. She cried
out, “Yes!” every time he called her a whore. She felt a wave of pleasure building
inside her. It was about to sweep her away.

Suddenly, Galen pulled out of her and spurted his hot semen all over her arched
back and round buttocks. Spent, he collapsed gasping onto the bed. Mabel sat up
(slowly, for she was now quite tender) and climbed onto the bed with him. Her
husband wrapped his arms around her and he kissed her tenderly for a few moments.
After that he immediately fell asleep. Mabel stayed awake for a while afterward,
staring up at the ceiling.

Over the days and weeks that followed, Mabel found their sex falling into a similar
pattern. Galen did not like it when Mabel tried to initiate sex. He did not like to
talk about sex. He might go for days with no apparent interest in her body, even
though she frequently tried to tease him. She would flash him a tit or let her
skirts ‘accidentally’ ride up over her hips when she bent over. She wanted to make
it clear to him that she was young, nubile, and his for the taking. But he seemed
disinterested in her and irritated by her advances.

Galen also did not like it when Mabel used words like ‘fucking’ or said she was his
slut or his whore; although that did not stop him from screaming such words at her
as he ravished her in the middle of the night. This was when they would usually
have sex. Galen would wake her in the darkness with a raging hard on. He would fuck
her relentlessly, pounding her cunt as though it was a filthy thing that deserved
to be punished. Often he would pin her limbs down or pull her hair while he did
this. After he came, there would always be a short window of tenderness that Galen
never showed Mabel otherwise. He would kiss her tenderly and caress her face until
he fell asleep.

Mabel did not mind being fucked so roughly, not really, even though she was always
sore the following day. As for the cruel things Galen said to her when he took her
like that, They are merely his fantasies, she thought. He does not really think I’m
a whore. That is only sex talk. People say crazy things when they fuck.

But Mabel also believed there were other ways of fucking. They didn’t always have
to have rough, dominating sex in the middle of the night. She had glimpsed many
different ways that the people in Fanny-on-Poke ‘made love’ (this was the term
Galen preferred she use; when he was not brutally pounding her in the dark, at any
rate). She had heard reports of still other methods, even more exotic, from her
friends. But Galen, it seemed, had no interest in spicing up their sex life. As the
months went by, she gave up trying to persuade him.

Mabel’s new life was hard in other ways, too. Galen had hardly any money before she
married him, but now he had less. The harvest that year had been poor, and there
was precious little coin to go around. Folks were saving what little they had. They
were gathering their own firewood when they could. Demand for the woodcutter’s
services was slow.

But Galen was unconcerned. “Do not fret,” he said. “Winter is coming on, and folk
will need firewood and lots of it. It is the busiest season for a woodcutter. We
shall be all right.”

And as the chilly hand of winter began to grip the land, it seemed to Mabel that
her husband spoke true. From dawn until dusk he was now chopping dry branches to
supply hungry hearths (though he always left the forest before it was full dark).
Mabel helped Galen bind up bundles of firewood, and carry the bundles to their
destinations. She enjoyed working side-by-side with her husband.

But the days were shortening quickly. Once snow blanketed the forest, it would be
difficult to find any dry wood that would burn, Galen told her. He chopped and
bundled wood like a madman, working through every last minute of daylight.

One cold morning the sky was heavy with the promise of snow. Folk all around
reckoned it would snow the next day, if not that night. All day long Galen was in
the Dark Wood, swinging his axe till his calloused hands were raw and bleeding. As
twilight came on, he was still at it, hacking away in the night-shadows beneath the
twisted branches.

Mabel felt anxious. Her husband had never stayed in the forest so late. He was not
far away. She could hear the steady thwack of his axe falling. “Galen,” she called.
“It is almost dark! Come home!”

“Only a few more minutes!” he called back. Mabel waited behind the cottage, rubbing
her arms with cold and anxiety.

It was at that moment that disaster struck. The axe sounded with a thump instead of
a thwack and Mabel heard her husband scream. She ran into the forest toward the
sound, but was met by her husband running the opposite way.

“What is it?” she cried. “Something in the woods?”

“No,” wheezed Galen. She gasped when she saw he was bleeding freely from a deep
gash in his right arm. “My axe head flew off the handle, bounced off the tree and
struck me in the arm. Go for the old medicine woman. Now. Run!”

Mabel ran, following the old dirt road to the cottage of the crone who saw to the
aches and pains of the local peasants. The woman showed surprising spunk when she
heard what had happened, and the two of them ran back to the cottage as quickly as
they could. They found Galen had already tied up his arm with a piece of cloth. The
medicine woman unknotted the tourniquet and probed the wound with her sharp fingers
while he winced with pain.

“Tis a deep one, right enough,” she said. “You’re lucky you did not lose the arm,
boy. I shall pack it with herbs and stitch it up with my needle and thread.” Galen
whimpered. The medicine woman ignored him. “Dearie, you must change his bandage
every candle until the bleeding stops. Then we wait.”

“Wait for what?” asked Mabel.

“Why, to see if the rot sets in, girl,” the old woman said. “Better pray to the
saints you do not need me back here in a day or two to saw this arm off.”

Time passed, and winter arrived in earnest. Howling winds piled snowdrifts against
their little cottage. Galen’s arm, it seemed, would not need to come off. It did
not turn black or begin to stink, as the old woman had warned them it might. But it
did not seem to be in any hurry to heal either. Even after the wound had closed,
the arm was painful and exceedingly stiff. Galen could barely lift a ladleful of
soup with the arm, let alone swing an axe with it. For Mabel, a new worry set in.

On clear winter days it had been Galen’s custom to work on clearing the field for
next spring, or to go into the forest to search for dry wood. Now this kind of
manual labor was impossible for him. Mabel did what she could in the field and the
cottage, but she could not chop wood. She found after only one brief experiment
with the axe that she was more likely to damage herself than the tree.

Galen vacillated between moodiness, impatience, despondence, and rage. He

constantly reproached himself. “I was a damned fool to remain in the forest after
dark,” he said. “Bad luck has come upon me.”

Mabel shook her head. “You told me not to stay in the forest after dark because of
what lives in there, not because of bad luck,” she said.
“It’s all the same, isn’t it?” snapped Galen.

“I should say it is bad luck to chop wood in the dark, haunted forest or no,” she
snapped back.

In normal times such a heated exchange might have resulted in Mabel finding herself
on her knees in the middle of the night while Galen impaled her with his relentless
cock, but this time it did not. Galen’s arm hurt him too much for such activity.
They did not fuck, nor did they ‘make love’.

Mabel became desperately horny. One afternoon, after Galen had been laying on the
bed in a surly mood all day, she grabbed her cloak and escaped the confines of
their cottage. She set off into the woods with no particular direction in mind. She
simply needed to get away. After she had walked for a few minutes, she found
herself in a small clearing. There was no one around, no one on the nearby path,
not a sound but wind and the cry of distant birds.

Mabel leaned back against a tree and hiked up her skirts. With her right hand she
rubbed her plump vulva. There was a thrill of danger about exposing herself out
here. What if someone came upon her? What if they were watching her now, leaning
against a tree with her skirt above her waist, legs apart and hips thrust forward,
shamelessly touching herself?

She found this idea was surprisingly sexy. She began to fantasize about it:

A dark figure walks out of the woods. It is a man, dark-haired and strong. He looks
at me. I’m horny and I want to see what he will do. I do not cover myself. I do not
stop. I am lewdly rubbing my cunt, right in front of him. The strange man smiles.
He walks up to me. The next thing I know he is kissing me roughly. I cannot help
myself. I kiss back. He pushes my hand out of the way and reaches down between my
legs himself. I let him, even though I know it’s wrong. I let this strange man
stick three large, rough fingers into me like a common whore.

Mabel spread herself wide and delved into her snatch with her own fingers. Back in
Fanny-on-Poke, one of her girlfriends had once told her she liked to use one finger
for this. But Mabel found three was best. Perhaps that did make her a whore. She
didn’t care at that moment. She was wet. In fact, she was practically gushing.
Wetness was running down the inside of her thighs.

She returned to her fantasy of the stranger in the wood:

I pull the man’s thick furs open. Underneath he is naked. His body is very hairy.
His manhood stiffens and swells when I touch it. He grabs me roughly by my bottom
and lifts me. I wrap my arms and legs around his powerful torso. We kiss again,
deeper this time, open mouth to open mouth, tongue against tongue. I feel his
swollen tip against my little twat. He lowers me onto his erect shaft. His iron
grip pulls my ass cheeks apart. Then he impales me on his fat cock. He holds me
tight with strong arms, bouncing me up and down on his pole. I bury my face in his
hairy chest. I lick his nipples. I surrender my body to him completely.

Mabel was now frigging herself furiously with both hands. Waves of sensation were
wracking her body. She bit back a cry.

At last it was over. Mabel leaned against the tree, panting. It occurred to her
that she had just fantasized about being fucked by a man who was definitely not her
husband. She had pleasured herself openly in the forest. Shame burned in her
cheeks. How wantonly she was behaving! If Galen knew… She did not know what her
husband would have thought.

Something caught her eye through the trees. Quickly she covered herself and
rearranged her skirts. Was someone out here? After a moment she realized it was
sunlight reflecting off something. She stood up and walked through the snow toward
it. There, not far away, she came upon a frozen pond. It was an almost perfect
oval. A small waterfall fed into it, although it was now totally iced over.

“Oh, how lovely!” she exclaimed. She imagined in the spring it would be
breathtaking, a nice, secret place for a refreshing bath. She made a note of the
spot and vowed to return.

. . .

The winter was nearing its end. Hardy crocuses pushed their way up through the
snow, which was gray and slushy underfoot. Meltwater dripped from the trees. Mabel
felt her spirits rise in anticipation of the new season.

Galen’s spirits, however, were still low. His stiff arm hung uselessly by his side,
and most days his mood was foul. A visit from a man from the abbey did not improve
it. The Abbey of St. Gord owned all the land thereabout. It was the duty of the
tenants who worked the land, such as Galen and Mabel, to pay the abbey rent out of
whatever they made.

“How is the arm, boy?” asked the churchman. He was wearing a heavy, embroidered
robe of good cloth. It was richly woven with threads of red and green and gold. On
his shoulders was a thick fur-lined cloak. His stole had a rich brocade. “That
looks rather stiff. You swinging an axe yet?”

“Soon,” said Galen, glowering at the fellow.

“You sure about that?” asked the churchman. “Looks to me like your chopping days
may be over, woodcutter.”

“The arm is healing, your grace,” said Galen. “I swear it.” He endeavored to swing
his wounded arm as evidence. A stab of pain lanced through it. He clutched his arm.

The churchman sneered at him. “Not quite as well as you thought, eh? Well, that arm
had better heal fast, for your sake. We have not seen two coppers from you all
winter. If you cannot chop wood, we will evict you and give this land to someone
who can.” The churchman turned and started to walk away. Galen spat on the ground.

“What was that, boy?” asked the churchman, turning.

“Nothing, your grace,” said Galen, and he bowed as low as he could manage.

“Good,” said the churchman, coldly. “Saints be with you,” he said.

“And also with you,” said Galen stiffly. The churchman strode away without a
backward glance.

Mabel had watched the whole exchange from the window. She said nothing when Galen
came inside. He braced himself against the wall with his good arm and stared
absently out the rear window at the forest. She tried to think how she might
comfort him. Inspiration struck her. She approached her husband and stood behind
him.

“Surveying your domain, my lord?” she asked.

“My… domain?” asked Galen, looking back at her, baffled.

“Pay me no mind, my lord,” said Mabel, curtseying. “I am but your humble servant.
All the lands about these parts are yours. You are such a great and powerful lord
that no one can take them from you.” She turned his head back to the window. “See,
my lord? Look upon your great wood for a while and think lordly thoughts.”

“Very well…” said Galen uncertainly. Mabel wrapped her arms around him and caressed
his chest. Then his belly. Her hands went lower. She tugged his woolen hose down.

Galen tried to object, but she laid a finger on his lips.

“Pay me no attention, lord. I am here only to serve you. Look out upon your great
domain,” Mabel said. She took the curl of his cock and wrapped her hand about it.
It stiffened at her touch, unfurling gently. Mabel reached between Galen’s legs
with her other hand and cupped his silken sack. She gently stroked his smooth
penis. It now stood at attention, fully erect.

“This is how great lords are treated, my lord,” murmured Mabel. “They have someone
to attend to their every need.” Galen was breathing heavily now. “I am a humble
servant girl. It is my duty to please my master,” she said. She knelt behind him.
Mabel pushed her face between Galen’s buttocks. With her delicate tongue, she
licked the rim of his anus. He moaned loudly. She had never heard Galen make such a
sound before. She continued to apply her tongue to his rump enthusiastically. He
moaned louder. All the while, she was fondling his turgid cock. Fluid oozed from
the tip. She spread it all over the swollen head to lubricate it so that her hand
would glide smoothly up and down the glistening member.

Suddenly, Galen’s butt cheeks clenched powerfully, forcing Mabel to pull back from
between them. “Saints above!” he cried out. He ejaculated, semen erupting from his
cock all over her gentle fingers. Gobs of semen stained the wall.

Mabel stood up. Her husband looked at her dazedly. She put her hand to her lips and
licked sticky strands of cum from her fingers. Galen watched intently as she
cleaned her hand with her tongue.

When she had finished, he took her by the hand over to their bed. There he
undressed her and pushed her down. She wondered what he intended to do, since his
cock was now limp, its seed spent. It surprised her when he spread her tender
thighs apart and knelt between them. He stuck out his tongue. Holding her gaze, he
gave her slit a long lick from the bottom to the top. Mabel moaned.

“Do you like this, sweet?” he mumbled, his face buried in her muff.

“Ooh, very much my lord,” said Mabel. “If you wish to pleasure your humble servant,
she must graciously accept it.”

“Do you want me to put a finger inside you?” he asked.

“Three fingers, if it please my lord,” she said. Gently she put her hand on the
back of her husband’s head and guided his lips to her clitoris. “Suck upon this
little nub lightly, my lord,” she breathed. He did so. It felt wonderful. She
pressed his face harder against her. It took only a little stimulation before he
brought her pleasure-starved body to the brink. A sudden tidal wave came over her
like water breaking through a dam. Her whole body trembled with heedless pleasure.
“Oh, Galen!” She didn’t say it, she screamed it. “Husband!”

Galen lifted his head from between her legs. He looked at her with concern. “Are
you well?” he asked.

“Oh yes, yes!” Mabel panted. “I have never felt better. That felt so good, my
love.” She smiled at him and ran her fingers through his hair. His chin was flecked
with the creamy fluid that was oozing out of her. “Your mouth made my pussy weep
tears of joy,” she said.

"I did not know you could do that,” Galen said.

“Do what, my love?” she asked.

“Cum.”

“Why, of course, my husband,” she said, puzzled. “All women can.”

Galen stood up. She saw he was erect once more. “Let me see if I can make you do it
again,” he said. Then he mounted her.

Her breasts bounced with each thrust inside her. Her milky juices were flowing
freely. They coated her husband’s cock as he slid in and out of her. She squeezed
him tightly. Before long she began to cum again, even harder than before. Galen
cried out, “Mabel!” He plunged his cock to the hilt inside of her and held it
there. She felt jets of his hot seed filling up her womb.

Spent and panting, Galen finally pulled out of her. Mabel grabbed his face and
kissed him long and deeply. When she let go, he collapsed on the bed next to her,
panting.

“That was amazing,” she said.

Galen smiled at her. “Yes love,” he said. A worried frown creased his brow. “I
should not have cum inside you, though.” Mabel looked down. A little stream of
semen trickled from her pussy.

Mabel patted his broad chest. “Worry not on it, my sweet,” she purred. “It was only
this one time.”

Several weeks later, Mabel was sick one morning in the turnip patch. Galen began
putting on his shoes to run for the medicine woman, but Mable waved him off. She
knew why she was sick.

She was pregnant.

. . .

Spring that year was early. The ice melted away, and the snow vanished, leaving
behind a world that was joyful, green, and verdant. But Mabel could not enjoy it.
Her body ached, and she was often sick to her stomach.

Galen was desperate for his arm to heal. His axe wound was now nothing but a long
scar, but the arm was extremely stiff. It pained him when he moved it. He forced
himself to use it. He made himself pick up objects with it, gritting his teeth
against the pain as he did so. Still, it was clear to Mabel he would not be
chopping wood again soon. She told him he should go to the nearest village and
offer his services as a day laborer. At first, Galen resisted. Until one morning
when the churchman came around again.

“St. Gord’s abbey has not seen half a copper from you in five months,” he said to
Galen as they stood in front of the cottage. “Where is the coin which you owe your
lawful landlord?”

“I… I shall have it soon, your grace,” Galen stammered. “My arm is healing fast.”

The churchman curled his lip. “So say you every month. I think you are a worthless
cripple and it is high time your masters gave this land to someone who can work it.
Still, Gord is merciful. Offer twenty coppers by the end of the month and he will
see you are still fit to work this land.”

“Where am I going to get twenty coppers?” asked Galen.

“I do not know,” scoffed the churchman, “That is your concern. If that useless arm
of yours cannot swing an axe, you’d best come up with another plan. Your wife is a
fine young wench. Surely that insolent little mouth of hers is worth a few coppers
to someone.” He leered at Mabel, who was standing by her husband.

“I’ll get the money,” said Galen dully.

“See that you do,” said the churchman, “or you and your sweet little bride will be
out in the cold.” With a swish of his robes, the churchman mounted his tall mare.
Mabel and Galen watched in silence as he rode away.

After that, Galen started rising before dawn. He would walk two hours to the
nearest village and stand in the square with a throng of burly men, hoping some
wealthy shareholder would need an additional hand to tend his fields. Sometimes
they did, although Galen, with one useless arm, was always picked last. On such
days he would bring home a shiny copper piece or two. On other days he made the
long hike back to the cottage with nothing in his pockets.

Mabel was always hungry in those days. As they desperately tried to scrape together
money to pay the abbey, there was precious little left over for food. Galen, tired
as he often was, urged her to eat what little they had to feed the life growing
inside of her. Even so, it was never entirely enough to sate Mabel.

Regardless, Mabel’s belly was swelling with the life quickening inside her. Her
breasts filled out, and her areolas darkened. Her body was changing, sometimes in
ways that seemed strange to her.

Galen was often away those days. He was walking further and further afield to
villages where he might find work—any work. He sometimes did not return until late
the following day, looking worn and exhausted. Mabel knew he had to earn the rent
money they owed the abbey. But she missed her husband terribly when he was away.
Left alone with her own thoughts, she could not help but imagine fearful things.
What if he had been hurt or killed? What if the churchman threw her out of the
cottage? What if she had to give birth alone in some field under an open sky? She
felt a knot of fear inside her stomach that would not go away until Galen finally
returned home.

During this time, Mabel’s one comfort was the little pool she had discovered. On
days when Galen was off and she was all alone, she would walk into the edge of the
Dark Wood to the place where it lay. It was always quiet. No one else ever came
there.

Mabel would take off her bodice, her kirtle, and the thin chemise she wore under
them, and lay them carefully on the bank. Then she would step into the pool and
sink down into its cool waters with a sigh. For a moment, the water would wash away
all her fear. She would stare blankly up at the blue sky, with no thoughts at all
disturbing her mind.

Often, while she did this, she would touch herself. Despite her hunger and
uncertainty, pregnancy had only increased her lustful urges. Mabel would imagine
all sorts of wanton fantasies as she urgently rubbed her mound. She would imagine
her husband taking her in a variety of inventive ways: stuffing her mouth or her
ass or whipping her. Sometimes she imagined he had brought some men from the
village with him, and they all took turns using her in wicked ways. She even
imagined things filthier than that.

One morning, Mabel was floating naked in the pool. This time, Galen had been away
for two whole days already. She burned with need and desire. A particularly lewd
thought seized her. There was a little axe buried in a stump next to the pool.
Galen must have chopped it before he was injured, and forgotten to retrieve it. The
handle of the axe now beckoned to Mabel. It reminded her of him. She got up out of
the water and squatted down over the haft of the axe. She gripped it. It was very
smooth. She lowered herself down until she felt its cool surface against the lips
of her pussy. She started grinding herself against its smooth shaft. She imagined
Galen was beneath her, and this was his smooth, strong, hard cock. “Galen!” she
moaned. She gave herself into pleasure, moaning as she humped the shaft obscenely.
Before long, it was dripping with the juices of her lewd twat.

. . .

The next morning Mabel awoke to find Galen had still not come home. The end of the
month was only three days away. After she had finished the chores, Mabel paced
worriedly within the cottage. What if some terrible accident had befallen her
husband? What if he was lost? Should she go to the neighbors and ask them to look
for him?

Mabel was on the verge of going to speak to the neighbors when she heard footsteps
on the road outside. She rushed to the window. It was Galen! Her heart rose in her
chest. Then she saw the weary way he was tramping down the road. His injured arm
hung stiffly by his side, and he looked downcast and defeated. Her heart sank. She
ran to him and embraced him. He hugged her back, but said nothing.

Only when Galen had sunk into his chair next to the fire, did he relate his tale of
woe.

“I struck up a conversation with a man in the village of Beardly. He seemed like a

good fellow, and we got on well. We knew some of the same lads. He told me a man in
a village a day’s walk away was hiring. I set out for it and arrived before
nightfall. The next morning when I went to the square to look for work, I saw it
was the fellow I had spoken to! When he saw me he picked me first. He needed a
large field cleared. He offered me three day's wages if I would supervise the other
workers and get it done in one. Of course I took the job. I almost broke my back
all day, getting the men to clear the field, but it got done. The man was as good
as his word too: he paid out in silver pieces. I set out this morning to return
with them jingling in my pocket.”

“Galen,” gasped Mabel, “that is wonderful!”

Her husband shook his head and looked at the floor as he continued. “About noon I
had stopped to eat a piece of bread when a shadow fell over me. I barely had time
to notice it when something hit me in the back of the head like a thunderbolt. When
I came to I was lying on the ground surrounded by three fellows with big cudgels.
They gave me a couple of kicks in the ribs to remember them by, and then they
wandered off, laughing like it was a joke. When I got up and searched my pockets
for the silver…” his voice cracked, “…it was all gone.”

Galen put his face in his hands. Mabel came and put her arms around him. She cried
into her husband’s shoulder as he sat staring vacantly out the window.

. . .

Galen sat in front of the cottage, morosely watching the last light of the day.
Mabel was in the field behind the cottage, tending to her turnips. For the moment,
he was alone to brood.

Galen owed the Abbey of St. Gord twenty coppers in two days. If he could not pay,
the Abbey would send men to drive him and his pregnant wife out of their home. He
could think of no way to scrape together such coin in so short a time.

There was a sound of hoof-beats on the road. Galen looked up. Two people on horses
were drawing near. Both animals were well shod, richly bridled, and wore saddles of
the finest caliber. The gear of their riders was equally fine. Leading the way was
a woman on a thoroughbred mare. Her hair was cropped short. She wore a fine green
cloak over a polished breastplate artfully sculpted to her bust, and she wore a
sword on her hip. Behind her, riding the most magnificent stallion Galen had ever
seen, was a man. His cloak was lined with glossy fur, and there were bands of
silver on his arm. He had the haughty, commanding air of a noble.

Galen stood up in astonishment. What was a nobleman doing out here? And accompanied
by a knight? He was even more astonished when both riders reined in their horses to
a stop in front of the cottage.

“You,” called out the nobleman. “Are you the woodcutter? The one with the pregnant
wife?”

The nobleman had a proud bearing. A thick mane of dark hair shot through with gray
was swept back from his face. He had an elegantly trimmed goatee. The knight
accompanying him was a striking woman with a sharp jaw and an air of deadly
competence. Her hand rested casually on the haft of her sword.

“Speak when you are spoken to, peasant!” she snapped. “You are Galen the
woodcutter, yes? Your wife is Mabel, right? She is a few months pregnant?” Galen
realized he was so thunderstruck he had failed to answer the man.

“Y-y-yes,” stammered Galen. “Your Graces,” he added quickly. Galen had little
experience addressing knights and nobles, but his mother had drilled proper
deference to his betters into him from an early age. Commoners quickly discovered
it did not pay to be rude to nobility.

“I have been looking for you, young man,” said the nobleman, “Well, in truth, I
have been looking for your wife, Mabel.” He clicked to his horse, and it moved to
stand right before Galen.

“This is the Duke of Rutland,” announced the woman. “You may kiss his ring. I am
his knight and bodyguard, Vasqua de Royce.”
The Duke of Rutland held out his fist. On one finger there was a large gold ring
with a heraldic insignia embossed upon it. Galen leaned forward and brushed the
ring with his lips as was proper. The Duke inclined his head in formal
acknowledgement of the gesture. Proper decorum having been observed, he slid down
from his great black horse and stood before Galen on his own two feet. He was a
tall, if not broad-shouldered, man. Despite the gray in his hair, his movements
were graceful and confident. Galen stared at the Duke uncertainly. What could this
man possibly want with Mabel and me? he wondered.

The Duke put his hands on Galen’s shoulders and looked straight into his eyes. His
own eyes were green and filled with a burning intensity. “Woodcutter,” he said, “I
know your little wife is a lovely and desirable young maiden. I am here to make you
an offer.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

=================================================

** THE DARK WOOD - BOOK 1

Now available @

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=================================================

** THE DARK WOOD - BOOK 2

Now available @

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* https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0894VX62S

Amazon Canada
* https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B0894VX62S
Amazon UK
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