Posted by Than on November 30, 2000 at 15:49:54:
Many thanks to my talented friend rathead for this excellent intro artwork.
By Thanatos
High on the edge of Bodmin Moor in southwest England stand the Hurlers; three ancient circles of standing stones set in the wiry grass of the moorlands. If you come here as a tourist, you will approach them from the road from Minions, the highest village in Cornwall, at one thousand feet above sea level.
Local legend has it that the stone circles are a petrified group of locals caught in the act of playing the game of 'Hurlers' on a Sunday. Of course, the early Church worked overtime to lure people from their pagan worship here, as everywhere else, and even this quaint legend is the usual religious fabrication.
You get out of your car, walk round the stones, take your photographs of the standing stones and retire hurriedly out of the biting wind into the little teashop by the car park. You buy your souvenir bookmark by the warmth of a bottled gas heater, and you are soon on your way again, to see another sight on your tour of Cornwall.
Behind you, in the rear view mirror, the Hurlers shrink into the distance, and they are soon gone, lost in the undulations of the high moors.
But this is an illusion.
The years pass, and you grow old, and you watch your family grow up round you, and then they have families of their own, and it is time for you to leave.
And long after the soil falls onto the wood and fake handles of your coffin, and still after your brown and moldering skeleton crumbles into the soil, the Hurlers will still be there, just as they have been for millennia before you came on the scene.
The Hurlers are ancient.
They were put into the hissing grass in times when Jesus was a thousand years from being born, and were witness to many strange and terrible things that took place in and around them. The ancient pagan religions moved to a different beat to the Sheep Lord; to the tune of the seasons and the rhythm of the Sun and Moon, rhythms that are imprinted in us still.
And if you approach the Hurlers from the other side, from the wide wastes of the moor, they acquire an altogether more menacing aspect.
They stand on one of the highest points on the moor, and the wind whips and blows your clothing as you approach. And the stones of biotite granite are cold, incredibly cold, and they reach far down into the earth, so that only their tops are visible, which is why they have stood so long.
The three circles stand there, immutable, in the cold air, and the brooding presence of the place leaks into your soul.
And as you stand there, your body chilling in the cold air that seems to blow permanently over the site, you wonder what people put them there, and what drove them to do it.
And eventually, despite all the warnings, the prickling of the hairs that tell you not to do it, you cannot resist. You put out a tentative hand, and slowly, slowly extend it, and touch the cold stone...
* * *
It had been our fourth row that week, and the tension in the house was palpable.
I had retreated to the study to work, but the anger from the argument was still simmering, and I couldn't concentrate on what I was doing.
I went back downstairs to make myself a coffee.
Work had been bad that week. Whatever joker had thought of the Internet as a really good medium for transporting data from A to B clearly hadn't envisaged that major European banks would one day be relying on it for the operation of their business, and this last week the problems on the network had been appalling. And this had led to me being away for more than three weeks solid, and endless sessions sitting in front of customers when I should have been sitting round the dinner table with my family. When I was home my cellphone was ringing constantly, and the kids regarded me as a stranger.
My wife said that the only person I spoke to with any animation was my boss, and as I filled the kettle and set it to boil I had to admit she had a point.
'Hey,' she said in the doorway to the kitchen, 'are you going to make me one, or do I have to fill out a service order form?' She was still angry from our row too, but I could see the hurt in her eyes.
'Sure I'll make you one. You want coffee or tea?' I asked.
'Don't mind,' she said, so I made tea instead of the coffee that I wanted.
'You know, you should take a break,' she went on, picking up our youngest child, who was playing some complex game on the kitchen floor. 'I don't know what's worse, you being away all the bloody time, or you being home and stressed.'
'I don't have time for a break,' I snapped, instantly proving her point. She set down our daughter and persuaded her out of the kitchen.
I poured the boiling water onto the tealeaves in the pot.
'Well, there's never a good time. And the place won't collapse if you're away for a week, or ten days. Why don't you go off on a riding holiday again? You've always said how that's one thing you wish you had time to do. '
'I can't...' I began, but then I stopped. The prospect was pretty appealing. And I hadn't sat on a horse for over a year...
I thought back to our argument, and the hot words that still hung in the air.
'Look, why are you suggesting this? I mean, I've been away so much, it doesn't make any sense for me to go away on my own for a week.'
The tea was brewed, and I poured it out for us. She picked up the mug that I offered, and she stared into the steaming liquid for a long moment before speaking.
'Martin, listen,' she said, and her voice was tired, 'I don't feel like I know you any more. I'd rather have you away for another week and come back as the person I know than have this white, stressed-out person that doesn't speak to his wife or kids.'
She looked up at me again, and her eyes were brimming and her lip was trembling.
'I want the real Martin back again. I'd wait a month if I knew he was coming back.'
She went out again, and she closed the kitchen door behind her, but she closed it gently.
She'd forgotten her tea.
I took it to her later. She didn't look up from practicing letters with my son, and my daughter ran away from me when I came into the room.
I stood in the doorway for several moments, taking in the scene.
Nobody looked at me.
I booked a holiday later that day.
* * *
Liskeard was a lot further away than it looked on the map. Once the M5 ended, the roads became slow and clogged with traffic, and became progressively narrower, and the signposts vaguer, and the roads more potholed, until at last I was headed down a steep lane where the grass brushed both sides of the car as I passed.
The uneven road surface grated against the underpan of my car again, and I wished I'd had the sense to bring the Landrover instead of the Corrado. But it had been great, blasting down the M5 at over 100mph in the long gaps between the speed cameras, and it wouldn't have been the same.
Finally, over six hours since I'd set off, I pulled into the makeshift car park with the painted sign that said: 'Liskeard School of Horsemanship. Visitor's Car Park'.
I shook my head at the punctuation, but the car park was so tiny that it may have been accurate, and my car sank into a deep rut and scraped to a halt on its belly, and I was there.
I opened my door, and it swung open into a pool of mud.
I had been to many different riding schools in my time, and so I knew not to let first appearances deceive. I wasn't disappointed. The place looked a complete wreck, with some shabby-looking stables constructed out of breezeblock, with sheet metal roofing. I found the entrance to the accommodation block, and after I'd wandered round a bit the owner found me and greeted me warmly, and showed me where I'd be staying.
The room I was staying in slept two, but as I was the only male staying that week, they'd given me the room on my own. I tried the bed, and it sagged spectacularly in the middle. I winced at the thought of what that would do for my back muscles that week, and I set about unpacking my things.
Riding clothes always look so sexually exciting to the uninitiated.
Long boots, tight pants, short and long whips, gloves... it was perverts' heaven. The only thing I never used were spurs, as I wasn't a good enough rider to use them with sufficient sensitivity.
But if you rode horses enough, the excitement of the riding kit soon paled. The clothes had evolved through centuries of experience with man and horse, and they were the best clothes for the job. The boots were that shape for a purpose, and the long, rigid shaft and soft calf panels allowed the leg to remain in the correct position but still give contact to the horse's side. The riding pants had to be that close to the skin, or you soon suffered friction blisters. The whips spent most of their time laid against the horse's side, but if you ever had to control a horse on a busy road, you used it, and quickly. The gloves saved your hands from the reins and the wind. And the riding helmet saved your head if you screwed up and had to abandon ship in a hurry.
But I guess the question you want to know is, did it ever turn me on?
Yes, it did, and I still cannot look at a woman in riding clothes today without feeling an erection start. Perhaps the most erotic part for me is seeing the skin tight riding pants plunge into the tops of a particularly beautiful pair of riding boots by Schnieder, or Cavallo, and my eye travels up the leg, to the hard gluteal muscles that riding induces, and my mind wanders up further, and I am lost in the arms of Kim again.
Kim. I was digressing. But when I tell my story perhaps you will understand.
So I unpacked all my kit, and by that time it was the evening meal, and I met the other guests and the staff round the dinner table. We all ate together round one long table; guests, staff and the owners together.
Besides me, there were three girls on a holiday together, and one recent divorcee, who openly admitted she had come here to forget about things for a while.
I stole a look at her as we introduced ourselves, but then the staff, who came in as we were talking, distracted my attention.
The staff were all British Horse Society (BHS) students training for their teaching qualifications in exchange for working the center. This was a common arrangement. They got a bit of spending money out of the arrangement, but given that they worked from 6.30am to nearly 7pm every day of the week, there wasn't much to spend it on, and in any case Liskeard was hardly the social center of the universe.
Riding instructors have always fascinated me, ever since I learned to ride. It's a hard life, but it does reward with some of the flattest stomachs and firmest bodies of any sport, and even under their layers of sweatshirts and jumpers the girls' bodies were sculpted and smooth.
I found myself staring without realizing it. All five of them were extremely attractive and slightly older than usual, maybe in their early twenties. They sat and chattered at the end of the table, and the proprietor introduced us as we waited for the meal.
Kim was the senior instructor, and she had been there for over two years, training for her BHSII - the intermediate stage. She came from Eindhoven in Holland, and had the most amazing blue Dutch eyes, that met mine frankly.
Her friend Anneriek was also from Holland, and she regarded me with cool disdain during the whole evening.
Kathryn was from a riding school in the North of England, and she was a close friend of Susan, also from the North. Finally Mara, who was from a village nearby. All of them apart from Kim were training for their BHSAI, the first step on the instructor's ladder.
We got talking about riding, and they were all intrigued as to why I'd never finished my BHSAI.
'Why start something like that, and then never finish it?' asked Anneriek.
'I don't know really,' I answered, honestly for a change. 'I got fed up of the exams, I guess. And I'll never be an instructor, so it's pretty pointless. And I don't work with horses on a daily basis, so I'm slow at all the practical stuff, like tacking up and doing the bandages for travel and so on.'
'I never stop something once I've started it,' said Anneriek, and she looked at me strangely. I got the feeling that the remark carried some significance, but I couldn't fathom it, so I gave up. Her disdainful stare was quite disconcerting. I couldn't figure out why she seemed to dislike me.
Then something happened that made me nearly jump out of my skin.
Under the table, I felt a hand touch my leg. It found my knee, and gently, but very deliberately ran up my thigh. I jumped in my seat, and the proprietor looked at me suddenly. I shuffled uncomfortably, but the hand remained there, resting on the inside of my thigh.
Across the table, Kim's ice-blue eyes held mine in their gaze, and my erection stiffened at the touch of this new and different woman.
Anneriek tilted her head on one side, and looked at me, and her eyes flicked between the two of us, coolly appraising.
And Kim smiled.
* * *
That night, in bed, my erection came unbidden, and I masturbated hard and long at the thought of the five girls. I surprised myself; normally it would take so much more than this to make me fixate on someone, and here were five!
Suddenly, I imagined all five of them in bed with me, and my fantasies descended into a mass of writhing limbs, and questing, probing tongues, and tight wet vaginas that were slithered around my hardness in ways that I had never imagine before. To my surprise, I found this fantasy enormously arousing; beyond anything I had ever experienced before, and in a few gasping moments, I lost control, and ejaculated on the bed covers before I could stop myself. I felt down and touched the warm wetness that had splattered over my stomach and the sheets, and shook my head in disbelief.
Then, replacing the surprise and the pleasure of the unexpected orgasm, I felt something stir, and underneath the wet bedclothes, I was already hard again, as if nothing had happened. My penis was hard and throbbing, thirsting for female flesh and my thoughts returned again to the five girls. I tore off the sheets and blankets, but I hadn't imagined it; I was strongly erect again, moments after I had come.
I lay back and stared at the ceiling in shock. What the hell was happening to me? Was it something to do with the five girls? And at the thought, my penis throbbed with a hunger that could not be satisfied, and my hand crept down again, and after a few minutes' delicious writhing I groaned out a fresh orgasm onto the sheets. There was hardly any fluid this time, my glands having just emptied, but the intensity took my breath away.
I came five times that night, one for each of the girls, and as I thought of Kim, my body convulsed in an orgasm that shivered my soul.
I fell into a deep and drugged sleep.
* * *
It was dark, and someone was thumping on the bedroom door.
'Martin!' it's seven o'clock and the horses need skipping out!'
I groaned, and slowly emerged from the bed. The sheets had stuck to me in places, and they tore from my skin reluctantly as I got up. My head was filled with a seething fantasy of five tight white bodies, questing for my attention during the night, and I found it hard to snap back to reality as I hastily dressed and went down to the stables.
I skipped the horses out.
Skipping out is one of the unsung pleasures of a working riding school. You pull on some rather insanitary rubber gloves and go into each horsebox and pick up the still-warm horse droppings and put them into a plastic skip. Some people use a pitchfork, but it's a bit dangerous when the horse is in the box, and picking them up with your hands is much quicker and disturbs the horses less.
Then you wheel the droppings in a barrow to the muck pile, a great steaming heap of ordure which rots down to provide a valuable manure for sale.
Feeding the horses came next. The diet for each horse was carefully controlled, and the owner measured out the doses of dry feed and mixed them, and we carried them to the horses' feed buckets and put more hay in.
Then while the horses had their heads down, munching away, we swept the yard, and after a quick visit to the tack room to sort out the saddles and the tack for day, it was time was breakfast.
Breakfast after you've worked is wonderful.
You have a real appetite, and it's wonderful to eat even simple things like frosted flakes drenched in (unpasteurized, full cream) milk from the cows at the farm across the valley, and munch your way through umpteen rounds of hot buttered toast, and look at the riding plan for the day, and drink steaming hot tea that burns your lips but warms your chilled fingers.
I ate like I had never done before, and then it was time to prepare for the morning lesson.
The first day it was the riding assessment, and back to basics for all of us.
I changed into my riding kit (nice and clean, but it wouldn't stay that way for long) and clumped my way back into the yard to find my mount and tack up.
They showed me my horse, and of course the first part of the assessment was whether you knew how to groom and tack a horse.
I hadn't done this in ages, so I was slow, but at least I managed to groom my horse (Bracken) and pick out his hooves. I offered up the bit and put on his bridle and fastened the throatlash. I was pleased to see that he had a simple snaffle bit instead of the complex arrangements of a double bridle, but he did have the added complication of a running martingale, and I had to give up on this; I had completely forgotten how to put one of these on.
Kim came to my aid. She came into the stall and threaded the running martingale over the girth and sorted out the rings on the reins in a few practiced movements, and helped put the saddle on.
It was very quiet in the stall as she tightened the girth strap and sorted out the reins, and I could hear myself breathing. Kim had on a very tight pair of dark blue riding pants thrust into long black boots, and my mouth went suddenly dry as she moved to stand between the horse and me.
She turned round to look at me, and her face was very close to mine, but she didn't hurry away. She just stood there, her blue eyes boring into mine.
Then a horse clattered past in the yard and the moment passed.
We lined up in the yard to go out to the school.
Kim led the lesson. We followed her out in a line into the school, or manage, and now the real work started.
We checked the girths for tightness and mounted up from the ground, and fiddled around with the stirrup leathers and girths until we were comfortable. Then we went round in a line, first at walk then at a relaxed trot, to loosen the horses up.
Then we did circles and figures-of eight individually across the school, so that Kim could see us close up. I thought I did okay, but she hissed 'Diagonal!' as I passed, and I hurriedly sat an extra beat so that I was posting on the correct leg again.
Harder work now, and we did sitting trot, and short canters.
I loved cantering.
The sensation of the horse striking off on a good canter, with its head and neck in a good outline, and your hands taking a firm but gentle pull on the horse's mouth, and your hips swinging in time to the motion of the horse's muscles, is wonderful. The motion of your hips is like repeated pelvic thrusts, and these thrusts propel the horse forwards, and you take this energy in your hands and hold it... there, there... until you have an outline, and the horse is balanced on your fingertips, a perfect partnership between horse and rider.
An exhausting hour later, we were lined up and dismounted, and Kim passed amongst us, giving us our assessments. She came up to me, and her blue eyes regarded me with a quizzical stare.
'Not bad, Martin; you've been a good rider before, I can see that, but you're stiff and lack fluidity. You're tensing up your right shoulder, and this is causing your back to be slightly crooked. You need to work more on relaxing. But not bad.'
And with a smile that seared into my head, she was gone.
* * *
I guess you know the rest. Married man on holiday alone, meets girl who has the most striking eyes and direct manner. One thing leads to another and before long...
Well, it didn't happen quite like that. I mean, one thing certainly led to another, but that was before The Hurlers.
Oh, The Hurlers. I should explain.
Riding instruction was always in the morning. And after untacking the horses and tidying the yard for the third time, we had some lunch, then it was back to the stable to skip out, tack up again and go out for the afternoon.
Afternoon was riding on Bodmin Moor, and in those summer days, it was heaven on earth.
We took the horses up onto the moor, winding our way up the dry streambed and through the gate, then up onto the high moors, via a long and winding path that took us up and out of the valley where the riding school lay.
We walked and then trotted the horses to a high point along the edge of a steep fall, and there was a slightly rising green mile that had relatively few boulders.
The horses knew what was coming, and spun and skittered about as we adjusted our stirrup leathers and checked our girths for the gallop.
Then we let them go...
Horses don't accelerate like cars. They leap forward like pistons, their powerful hindquarters dropping and pushing their bodies forwards, and you have to lean forward and into the motion as they set off, or risk losing your balance. In two seconds, they are at full speed, and you are speeding along on a living thing, its breath coming in explosive snorts, its muscles and sinews flickering back and forth between your legs.
You get your weight into the heels of your riding boots, and sit as deep as you can, but with your weight slightly out and forward, and you keep the reins short and move your hands to follow the plunging motion of the horse's neck.
The air blasted me in the face, and specks of mud and clumps of grass sprayed over me from the horses in front.
Horses love to run.
You can feel the excitement of the herd, their ancestors moving in their millions on the plains in the golden age of the Pliocene, that still animates these animals today.
We tore up the grassy mile like the wind over the hills, and I have never felt so alive, so...
Kim drew level with me, and in full gallop and under perfect control, she turned her head to look at me. Her eyes pierced the air between us, and in that moment I understood I was being appraised, and it wasn't for my riding ability.
Then Anneriek up front raised her hand, and we reined up, and the moment was lost, and the horses cantered and trotted to a halt, blowing and shaking their heads. We gave them a long rein to let them stretch their necks, and we followed the track across the moor, tracing the route of an abandoned railway line from when men and horses used to pull tubs of tin ore across the landscape.
Down into another valley, through a farm yard, and then we climbed up again, to pass by the Cheesewring, a strange formation of rock that looked like several flat boulders piled one on top of another.
At the top of the valley in which the Cheesewring stood, there was a low wall of broken granite with a gap in the center, and it was ancient. It wasn't marked on any of my maps of the area, but there was something strange and significant about it, and I shivered as we passed.
Then we came to the Hurlers.
We were approaching them from the moor side, the low stones rising out of the grass as we came closer, and as we did so the party fell silent, and I gazed at the ancient granite teeth in their three sinister circles. The horses were quiet too, and the wind blew cold over the ancient stone.
The high field where the Hurlers lie was desolate in the extreme, and I was relieved to be past them and clattering down the road down to Minions.
That night, as we were tidying up the yard and giving the horses their final feed, Kim came up to me and asked if I would like to join some of them that night, as it was Kathryn's birthday, and they were going onto the moor for some drinks.
The only thing was, she said, her head on one side, they weren't supposed to fraternize with the guests, so would I mind keeping it quiet?
Her eyes bored into me, unwavering, and in the quiet of the stall, the only sound was the breathing of my horse, and the heavy crunching of its teeth as it ate the hay.
I could feel my erection rising, and although her eyes never left mine, a half-smile played on her lips.
I kept it quiet.
* * *
Nine thirty, and I had given up waiting for her, so I went back to my room, tired out after the day's riding. As I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, part of me was relieved, but I was disappointed too, and Kim's eyes kept coming back to haunt me. She had been so sure of herself, so... mature... it made me wonder how old she really was.
Suddenly, there was a tapping at the window. I jumped up in surprise, and there on the walkway outside the accommodation block was Kim, and she put a finger up to her mouth and signed for me to open the window.
Her voice was a whisper in the darkness:
'You'll need a coat. And lock your door and come out the window.'
I obeyed, and after a moment I clambered up and out of the window, and dropped down beside her on the path.
She took hold of my hand.
'This way.'
We moved furtively until we were out of the way of the accommodation block, then through the stables, where the horses moved quietly as we passed by. There were no lights, but the remains of the day in the sky were enough for us to see by.
Kim was wearing jeans and a tee shirt, and short boots under her jeans. Her hair had been washed, and it fell down her shoulders in a gorgeous waterfall of silk, over the black leather jacket that she wore.
We met up with the others at the gate, where the track branched off for the high moors.
Strangely, they didn't talk to me, just glanced incuriously at me, gave me a pack to carry, and we set off, climbing the grassy bank behind the riding school that rose up into the evening sky over Cornwall.
And we walked, and the school fell away below us, twinkling with lights, and Kim started to speak to me.
'We always come out here on the warm summer nights,' she said, and there was something in her look that scared and yet excited me. She gripped my hand tightly.
'It's okay,' she smiled, 'I know you're wondering what we're going to do. We're going to have some drinks, and then... well, then, Martin, you're going to fuck me. Would you like that?'
Her gaze was direct, unwavering in the faint glow of the summer evening, and I felt my throat go dry.
'W-what, out here?' the words stammered out, and I felt stupid.
'Of course out here,' she smiled, 'we don't want them to hear us fucking back at the school, do we? And I'm going to scream, Martin, I just know you'll make me scream.'
We had climbed onto the moor now, and the riding school was a long way below us now. The others had stopped, and they dropped their packs and laid out some rugs on the grass, and we sat down and got out the beers, and for several minutes we just sat and watched the sky. Venus was setting in the West, and the brighter stars were pricking the sky, when Kim rolled over to me and took the bottle out of my hand.
'Time to fuck, Martin,' she whispered, and the others moved round us in a circle, watching.
'You must be kidding! In front of everyone else?' But her mouth was on mine, and it was like sweet honey, and then her tongue broke through my lips and plunged deep, deep into my mouth, flickering over my tongue and probing deep inside me. I was taken aback, and a strange sensation crept over me; I wanted her, I needed her, I wanted her so badly I could cry. My erection rose, just like it had done last night, and it became an animal between my legs.
I placed my hand on her right breast, under the leather jacket, and she took hold of my hand and guided it under the soft leather, until it was touching her nipple under the thin cotton of her tee shirt. She murmured something and lay back on the blanket, and I could feel the others drawing closer, they were watching... but it just didn't matter any more.
I pulled up her tee shirt, pulled it up high, and underneath she had no bra on, and her small breasts were hard and firm, and the nipples were erect. I plunged down and opened my mouth wide and devoured her left breast, taking it into my mouth, biting gently, and her body stirred in passion beneath me. Her hands were working at me, they were undoing my belt, and then my zip, and then she was working my jeans off. I crouched over her and wriggled them off, and she did the same with hers.
She threw off her jacket and pulled off her tee shirt, and then lay back in her panties.
'You'll have to fuck me through my panties, Martin,' she taunted, but it was almost a challenge. I was naked now, and something powerful and primitive beat through me as I crouched over her. I wanted to fuck her, to take her, to devour her, and she just looked up at me and slowly wriggled her body under me.
'Take me, Martin...' she whispered, and she raised her arms over her head and clasped them together, as if she was tied up, and at that moment something started to pulse inside my head, a strange beat that I didn't know, and it felt as if something had taken me over, something had... possessed me, like a berserker's rage, and Kim was panting in anticipation.
A scream of rage, or frustration, came from between my teeth, and I scrabbled at her panties, trying to get them off. Kim wriggled in anticipation, watching me with shining eyes and panting breath as I yanked and pulled, until the thin fabric tore open, and her pubic mound and vaginal entrance were exposed. She gasped, and I couldn't stop myself; my head descended, tongue outstretched, and I devoured her clitoris, my tongue rubbing hard up against its edges and down the inside walls of her vagina. My tongue seemed huge that night, and I probed her secret places in a frenzy of passion, seeking out the biggest moans and gasps of delight.
She bucked beneath me as my tongue pressed hard against the edges of her clitoris, and I held it there as she went into a groan of delight.
Then I lifted my head up, and I saw her beneath me, and I was filled with a white heat of desire so strong I could feel myself shaking.
Kim nodded to the other girls, and they came forward, and they knelt down and took hold of her at the wrists and ankles, holding her down, spreading her out for me.
'Don't let go, whatever you do,' she hissed to the other girls, 'I want him to take me.'
I looked down, and maybe it was a trick of the light, or whatever had been in the drinks, but my penis seemed so much... bigger. It was wider, and longer, and it pulsed with a life of its own.
'Take me,' she whispered, and tensed her muscles against the four hands holding her down. 'Take me like you've never taken anyone before, Martin. Destroy me....'
I knelt down and crouched over her, and lunged into her savagely, my penis forcing its way into her tight and slippery vagina, and ramming hard up inside her. A grunt escaped my clenched teeth as I penetrated her the first time, her vaginal walls hot round my penis.
She cried out and struggled in the grip of her captors, but they watched stone-faced as I pressed myself into her, deeper and deeper. Her vagina was cruelly tight, and the sensation of penetrating her was wicked pleasure; it felt like I was raping her, only she was crying out in pleasure and exquisite pain as I pushed into her, deeper and deeper until there was no end.
Then I started to fuck her, long strokes, where my penis came almost all the way out of her vagina and then plunged back in again, and with each plunge she struggled afresh, squealing and struggling as my massive penis penetrated her, again and again and again and AGAIN.
I couldn't believe my stamina; my huge penis rammed in and out of her with an animal frenzy that would have made me come in seconds normally, but I just kept on going. I felt as if my penis was insatiable, a blind-headed monster that just wanted to take, and take, and take...
Kim was writhing beneath me now, and the four hands that held her down strained against her muscles as she tried to get free, but it was no use. Minutes passed, while she writhed and bucked, shouted and begged, but I just kept on going, fucking her, riding her savagely, while her legs and arms were held down by her friends.
Then suddenly she went stiff, and a trembling shook her limbs, and she clenched her teeth, and a hissing came from between them. She squeezed her eyes shut in pain and ecstasy as her orgasm broke over her. I couldn't stop fucking her, and I hammered into her as her orgasm broke, and her eyes flicked wide open and a cry came out as she was fucked through her orgasm, fucked and fucked, and her orgasm tore on and on and on, until she was begging for it to stop, crying out, but I still took her, until her orgasm passed, and she slumped on the ground, exhausted.
Distant lightning flickered over the horizon, and there was a faint rolling of thunder. It seemed to come from deep beneath the ground, and something disappeared inside of me, and I withered inside her, and collapsed on top of her. I felt weak, and my muscles ached. I felt sudden shame at what I had done, and I felt a crashing sadness, a post-coital despair that racked through me stronger than I had ever felt it before.
Kim just lay there, her blue eyes wide open, staring over my shoulder at the stars winking in the deep blue of the sky, and somehow I knew she was away in some strange place.
Many minutes later, after I had recovered my strength, found my clothes and dressed, she sighed and sat up, and pulled on her tee shirt.
I sat down beside her again, and she took my hand in hers.
'Stay here a while Martin,' she said, putting her head against my shoulder, 'I need your touch.'
We sat there, and the others sat with us, until the sky clouded over, and the first spots of rain from the summer storm started pattering round us.
'Best get back,' said Kim, and they shoved everything into the packs and we set off back to the riding school in its deep valley, and behind us the lightning flickered again. The valley was lit up for a moment, and the school was in a deep pool of darkness at its feet.
* * *
The next day, I woke early, despite the late night, and I went to the stables before breakfast to help out.
Kim was nowhere to be found, having gone into town with the horsebox to fetch a new horse, and my lesson that morning was with the visiting instructor, and I had a private lesson.
Private lessons are very hard work. Forty-five minutes is about all you can take, and it is one-on-one tuition. We spent some time on the lunge rein, doing exercises and balancing, and then worked without stirrups to deepen my seat. We even did some cantering in a circle without stirrups, with me holding my arms above my head. Then we moved onto practicing some basic dressage movements, and although my muscles ached by the end of the lesson, the instructor was pleased with my progress.
That afternoon, it threw it down with rain, and we spent a dismal time trekking across the moor under our waterproofs. I was relieved to get back to the school.
That evening, Kim came for me again, and in the woods, while the rain pattered down on the roof of leaves above us, I took Anneriek. I took her against the trunk of the tree while Kim and the others held her against it.
She groaned in pleasure as I rammed into her for the hundredth time, lifting her off her feet and forcing her hard against the bark of the tree, and her nails dug into my back and raked down my sides as her orgasm burst inside her.
* * *
The next day came, and the next, and my riding improved during the days, and the weather turned hot and sunny, and the afternoons were spent cantering around the moors, the blue sky above our heads and the springy grass under our horses' hooves. My thighs grew hard and taught, and my stomach shrank in, and my balance improved, and I was one with the horses and the hills and the barren landscape of the moors.
And in the light summer nights, there came the knock at the window after the place was quiet, and I would steal away to the moors, or the woods, or the fields of growing wheat, and in the light of the waxing moon I would fuck like I had never fucked before.
They would stand around and watch, in silence, as I took them, one by one, a different one each night. Lying down like Kim, standing up, from behind as they knelt down, and always I would hammer into them in a frenzy that I had never known, an unstoppable plunging that went on without a break, until they shivered through their orgasms, and then everything collapsed round me.
I fell into the ancient rhythm of the farm, with the horses, and with the age-old skills of riding, and I woke early every morning and swung out of bed, and I was down at the stables without being asked.
Skip out, tidy up, feed...
Brush down, tack up, exercise...
Long rein, walk on, shorten up, trot...
Strike the canter in the corner, keep it collected...
Outline, rhythm, balance, impulsion, tempo, suppleness... the litany of assessment.
Dressage, and practicing flying changes in the center of the school, and the animal beneath you skips a step and changes leg in mid-air...
Sit deep, think tall, weight down into your heels...
Impulsion comes from the seat, the hips... the legs hang long and controlled, and last, always gentle, the hands...
Jumping, and the horse takes off as you come to the fence, and for moment, you fly through the air, and the horse's marvelous shoulders slide in their sockets as you land, a miracle of evolution to take the shock of landing.
Jumping without stirrups, and then without reins, and you learn to trust the horse, and stay with it, and feel the moment when you have to lean forwards.
And all the time your seat is deepening, and you move with the horse, and the horses get to know you, and to respond to your touch.
And during all this time, the moon waxed brighter, and in the warm summer nights the women's cries were muffled by their friends' hands as my fucking grew more savage, and their orgasms grew long and writhing, and I collapsed, weak as a kitten, every time they came.
I called home every night, but the cellphone coverage was crap, and the single payphone in the school always seemed to have someone using it, so our conversations were brief and unsatisfying, and my wife's voice was distorted by the shimmering cellphone coverage, so that it seemed tiny and distant, a world away from here. And every time I spoke to her, one of the girls would be walking past, and would stop, as if listening, and I couldn't think what to say.
I still hadn't come.
The last day of riding dawned, and it was scorching hot, and Kim took me out for a whole day ride, a whole day on the moor, and we rode in our tee shirts for 25 miles, over to Eastmoor, where the flocks of sheep parted as we thundered past. We cantered up the long slopes of hills, and walked down their long sides, and along ancient track beds, and the Sun rose over us and over the green hills, and we didn't see another person that whole day.
We stopped for lunch on a high hill with a single standing stone at its summit, and while the horses ate grass we opened our sandwiches and talked.
'We were going to do something special tonight,' said Kim, 'seeing as it's your last day, and it's Midsummer Eve as well.'
'Like what?' I said, intrigued. Kim looked at the sky, then back to me.
'We were going to take the horses out tonight, and go to the Hurlers, and watch the sunrise.'
'How can you take the horses out in the dark?' I asked, incredulous.
'It's never really dark on Midsummer Eve. And there's a full Moon tonight.'
Something in the way she looked at me as she said it told me that this was the least of my concerns.
She was watching me, waiting for my answer, and the wind whispered over the high grass of the hills.
She put her hand on mine, and stroked it.
'Come on Martin. Just once more.'
* * *
Just once more.
If only I had known where those three words would lead me. But maybe it wouldn't have been any different. I was in too deep, and there was no going back.
At dinner that night, I could feel my erection straining as Kim sat opposite me and wrapped her booted legs firmly round mine.
Stroking me.
Claiming me.
That night, there was the familiar tap at the window, but this time Kim hissed at me to change into my riding kit.
I hadn't really believed that we were really going to take the horses out in the dark, so I had to go back and change.
Kim stroked my behind as I clambered out of the window.
'Nice riding pants,' she breathed, 'do you like mine?' and I saw that she had on her tightest riding pants and her best leather boots, that she used for riding shows, and a tee-shirt that showed off her firm breasts and hard nipples.
My mouth went dry at the prospect of fucking her in her riding boots.
'They're all saddled up,' she whispered as we crept away from the accommodation block, and in the yard, all six horses stood, and we led them as quietly as we could out of the yard and onto the silence of the sandy track that ran up to the gate to the moor.
As we walked, Kim fell into step alongside me.
'You know, you're full of life, Martin. I've been watching you. Your riding's really improved. And your body too.' She gripped one of my buttocks in her hand, and felt its hardness.
'And I've watched you struggling with your erection, too,' she went on, 'I've seen you trying to adjust your pants when one of us comes into the room.'
'Do you blame me?' I responded, my erection raging from when she had gripped me, 'I feel like I've got a monster inside me.'
'Well, Martin, that's what I wanted to talk to you about.' She looked away as she said this, and we were leading the horses up the path now, away from the farm and up to the high gate, and she stopped, and put her arms on my shoulders, and her eyes glittered in the warm moonlit dark.
'You see Martin, you're all full of life, and so are we, but tonight you're going to see why we're so full of life, and why we gave some of what we are to you.'
She put her head closer, so that our foreheads touched. 'Do you understand?'
I said that I didn't, but I realized she was going to tell me something.
She looked at me for a long moment before speaking.
'Sometimes, we have experiences in life that... change us. Haven't you ever found that?'
'Yes, I suppose I have.'
'Well, tonight you're going to experience something that will change your life forever. You mustn't be afraid. We will guide you. But you must realize that to live life to the full, you have to experience what it feels like to have it taken away from you.'
We walked the horses through the gate, and shut it behind us. The others were mounting up.
'You're going to find out what it means to die tonight Martin, and in the morning you'll understand. Come on, mount up.' She vaulted lightly onto her horse and urged her horse on, leaving me and my unasked questions behind.
We rode up the winding path, out past the hill that protected the farm and the valley from the winds, and we were on the high moor, and it was dark.
No, not completely dark.
The Sun had gone, but there was a deep blue band of luminous sky that stretched nearly half-way round the horizon, and the Moon was rising in the East, and the moor stood out clearly. But in the inky pools of shadow beneath the rocks and boulders that littered the moor, it was night.
We let the horses walk for a while, then trotted them until we came to the long mile of gently rising ground that we had galloped up the first day.
The girls checked their girths and shortened their reins, and I realized with a shock that they were going to gallop the horses in the moonlight.
'Kim, don't you think...' I began, but she grinned at me, and without warning, they sprang off, and tore up the hill like a wind from the Underworld. My own horse sprang sideways to avoid Kim's horse, then leaped after them, eager not to be left behind.
Kim was smiling, and laughing, like I had never seen her before, and holding the reins in one hand she reached up and opened the catch on her riding helmet. She tore it off, and it spun away in the moonlight, and her long hair flew free in the wind of the gallop.
The others were doing the same, and in the moonlight, their beautiful bodies, usually hidden beneath layers of riding jackets, showed up like lithe animals, riding the horses in the dark, urging them on with powerful thrusts from the pelvis.
Sparks flew from horses' hooves as their shoes clipped the edges of boulders, and the thunder of our passage drummed across the emptiness of the moonlit moor. The horses underneath us flowed over the landscape like liquid silver, and their pumping, rippling muscles blended with those of the riders, so that we were one, one with the landscape, one with the ancient rhythms, and I undid my helmet catch, and dropped my helmet like the others.
As it fell down and bounced away, spinning madly in the moonlight, the dark wind of our gallop tore through my hair, and finally I understood.
I saw Kim's horse, plunging along just ahead of me, and in the darkness away from the moonlight its eyes were glowing, a pale milky radiance that showed up the huge equine pupil. The other horses' eyes were glowing faintly too, and then Anneriek looked at me and I saw that the riders' eyes were shining with the same unearthly light.
We slowed down towards the top of the rise, but we didn't stop, and we cantered down a lethal slope, the horses finding their way with an ease that amazed me. This slope would normally be taken at a slow walk, and yet we were cantering down it. One mistake, and horse and rider would fold and tumble, over and over the boulders, in a smashing cartwheel of flesh and bone, but they didn't.
Kim moved up the field, until she was at the front, and now we were moving fast again, and we passed the Cheesewring on our left, looming like a ghostly head in the moonlight. Then in a flash of insight, and in the harsh shadows cast by the moon I saw that it WAS a head; a worn and broken head, and it was looking northeast, to where we were heading.
Towards the broken wall.
Towards the Hurlers.
My heart was pounding in my chest. My breathing was deep and heavy, but I felt so alive; I felt as if a concentrated distillation of everything alive was pumping round my body, and the girls were getting excited now, urging on their horses as we went up the slope towards the broken wall.
We passed through the gap, and a thrill passed through me, a shivering of fear and excitement, and now we were tearing up the slope, riding like hell towards the Hurlers.
There they stood, the three circles of stones, but in the summer darkness they appeared to be glowing, shining with the same strange radiance that I had seen in the horses' eyes.
And then Kim turned back towards us, and she stood up in her stirrups and raised her hand.
'Ride on!' she yelled above the thunder of the horses, and her voice had changed. It was shrill, harsh, and the accent was strange, but I could still hear the words, 'Ride on and into battle! Avenge the King!'
'Avenge the King!' cried the others, and then Kim dropped her hand, and they kicked their horses into a full gallop, faster than I'd ever seen them move before. My own horse tore after them, and I flicked the free end of the reins against his neck, one side then the other, urging him on.
Faster and faster we went, and we were heading directly towards the center stone circle. There was no let up in our gallop, and the stones rushed towards us. Any moment now, we would tear into the granite stones, and the horses would crunch and tumble underneath us, and then...
* * *
It was day, and a freezing wind blasted over the moors, and our horses were like a tide, running over the grass towards the line of spearsmen that stood waiting for us.
I was just behind Kim, but she was dressed in half-armor, and she carried our standard, a ragged pennant fluttering in the wind of our charge.
I lowered my spear, and my motions were practiced, automatic, and my eyes flickered over the line of spearsmen, watching for the place where I would choose to strike, the man I would impale on my spear.
The line of spearsmen crouched down, jamming the hafts of their spears into the soft soil behind them, angling their spears to form a terrifying wall of razor-sharp bronze, ready to rip into our horses' chests and our legs.
I kicked my mare forward, adjusting its direction with my seat and knees, and suddenly the faces of the enemy rushed towards us. They were yelling at us, screaming with fierce voices, holding their spears ready to impale us, but the wind of our charge was hammering in my ears and I could not hear them.
Then in a screaming of terrified horses, a sickening thud of spears penetrating human and animal flesh, and a spray of red blood, we were on them, and the bronze spikes of the spears thudded into the chests and bellies of our horses.
To my right, Kim let out a sudden gasp, and her mount plunged forward; a spear had penetrated between its front legs, right into its heart, and in a shower of arterial blood her horse collapsed and tumbled under her. Kim tried to hang on as the horse's neck dropped, but all her weight was forward, and she was going to go over its head.
Then Kim's face contorted in pain as a spear hummed into her chest, and emerged in a shower of blood from her back. I saw it all: the little droplets of blood spattering behind her, the gritted determination on her face evaporating as her life blew out behind her in the wind.
The impact punched her backwards in the saddle, and she tumbled off the horse as it went into a roll, its neck folding underneath it with a snap.
She rolled untidily to a halt, the spear still impaling her, and the impact had driven it in deeper, so that she was spitted on it.
Then my own mare collapsed under me; I felt her lungs empty in an explosive snort as something drove hard into them, and she fell forward, squealing in pain as her legs broke under her, and I went down with her, and for a moment, everything was tumbling, flying limbs.
It stopped.
I was stunned, and I was dimly aware that I was trapped, lying with my legs under the dead mare. The enemy soldiers that swarmed around didn't see me, or judged me of little threat, and as my vision cleared I had a clear view of Kim's face as she lay there, on the ground a few meters away from me, a spear through her chest.
I had a glimpse of her agonies for maybe a few seconds, and that snapshot in time has stayed with me the rest of my life.
She was struggling on the grass, lying on one side, impaled on the spear. Her gloved hands clutched the spear in her chest, and her eyes were wide apart in shock. She was trying to get up, but she couldn't, and a low moan of terror came from her open mouth as she realized she was going to die.
Then the pain hit her, and her eyes squeezed shut and her back arched as she writhed on the ground, struggling in the sweet grass where she was going to die.
Blood trickled between the leather-clad fingers that clutched at the spear shaft. The studded backs of her leather gauntlets ran with her blood. Her legs thrashed in pain, and her face was turned to mine, and her eyes flicked open again, staring at me, imploring...
No, not imploring. Her jaw hung half-open, and worked slightly, and I saw by the dullness in her eyes and the pulsing, thrusting motions that she made with her hips that she was in the grip of sexual ecstasy, drinking in the sensations as the spear stole her life away.
Her legs slowly spread wide, and I watched her eyes widen and her pupils dilate as death came to claim her, but she was panting in anticipation, and her legs were trembling.
She cried out - a moan of terror, or was it a moan of ecstasy?
Her eyes were turned on me, and there were no eyes behind the eyelids, just a deep blackness, a window into the night into which she was descending.
Her mouth sagged open, and her moaning could be heard, the moaning of fear, and terror, and ecstasy beyond mortal dreams, as her death rose to envelop her in its dark and beating wings, and sucked her down into the nothingness.
Her slow thrusting faded, and she was gone.
I stared into her dead eyes, but the fleeting spirit behind them had gone, and the others were dying round her.
They dragged Kathryn off her horse and hauled her away, kicking and screaming, to where a warrior waited with an axe. Kathryn saw what was going to happen to her and started to scream, but they held her down cruelly in the long grass and I saw her booted feet kick wide as the axe came down to take her life in a spray of blood.
They stripped and raped Mara, raped her three savage times against one of the stones, and when they had finished with her they slit her throat.
They left her kneeling in the grass, kneeling as her blood sprayed out from her ruined throat, and her eyes were wide in fear as her life gushed out onto the grass.
Anneriek yelled out her life in defiance as three of them surrounded her, and she screamed in defiance as the swords took her life, plunging into her body like vipers, again and again and again, until she staggered and fell into the grass, and the swords didn't stop then, but stabbed her with renewed frenzy as she jerked about in the grass.
Susan died on the largest stone, and she was held down as they slit her throat, and they yelled prayers to their dark gods as she thrashed from side to side, her blood splashing over the stone.
All this I saw, and all this I know.
And then they came for me, as I lay there trapped under my dead mare's body.
They rolled the mare's body away, and dragged me out, and killed me.
I cannot describe what it is like to die.
It is the most dreadful experience to be held down while the enemy unbuckles your armor, pulling at the leather thongs at the side, knowing that you are going to be killed.
I twisted and turned, trying to get free, but there were too many of them, and I rained curses on them in a tongue I did not know, but they were grinning as one of them stood over me and drew his sword. It was almost unbearable, waiting for the blow to fall, and I cried out in terror and fear as he lifted it high over me, and then yelled words that jarred on my ears, and brought the sword down in my chest.
The bronze sword pierced me just below the ribcage and passed through my body with a sound like a meat cleaver.
I convulsed. There was pain, yes, a terrible dragging pain that shook through my body, a pain that made me scream with terror at the loss of my life. I could see the bloody edge of the sword where it went into my body, and the red blood of my life welled up around it.
Then he placed his boot on my chest and dragged the blade out, and it was like hot coals being poured over me as it pulled free with a ripping of my flesh.
They heaved my head up by my hair, and yanked it back, and before I could think, a knife slashed across my throat, and my voice strangled to a silence, a bubbling silence in which I drowned in my own blood as it poured into my severed windpipe. I could hear myself gargling, a dreadful bubbling cry as I choked, and I couldn't cry out or release my pain with a scream as I died on the grass.
I died on the grass, and I died slowly.
Oh, you think I died quickly.
No, dying takes forever.
I could not breathe or move, and I lay on my side, and my blood was splashed around me, and the taste of my own blood was hot and metallic in my mouth, where it welled up from my open throat.
I just wanted to speak to someone, to hold someone, as my life ebbed away.
I wanted to speak to my wife, to tell her how much I loved her, and to hold my fine son in my arms, and my daughter. But they were far away, and the thought that the invaders would be coming to our homes and families instead of us filled me with a pain greater than any I had ever known, the pain of the ultimate failure, of defeat.
Then, as my life hovered at the edge, and as my body felt like a great weight, crushing me down, came the familiar feeling of hot blood rushing to my penis.
But this time, it was for the final curtain. Not the sudden orgasm, splattering onto the bedclothes, or the heaving thrusts of lust, but a dark orgasm, in which all the days of my life were pent up into one massive climax, a climax of death.
As my erection grew, it became a rod of iron, a pinnacle of agony, in which the dark and tainted blood of my life welled up inside it, until I felt as if I would explode. And then it burst, and I wanted to writhe, to cry out, to yell my ecstasy to the sky as the orgasm shivered through me and my semen splattered in ropes over my dead body, again and again and again, shivering my soul with each jet, mingling with my blood, life and death intertwined.
And as the orgasms rose to overwhelm me, and the semen splattered over my stomach and chest, I felt death come to claim me, and a numbness spread over me, starting from my fingers and toes, my hands and legs, rising, rising.
No, no, my mind cried, not this, not my life, but there was a rushing noise, and I was falling, falling through leagues of air, plunging into nothingness, and the rushing noise became a roar, and I was spinning down in a black maelstrom of dead suns, spiraling into the night in a terrible noise of wind...
* * *
Kim stood, silhouetted against the rising Sun in the East, and her hair stirred in the cold breeze. Her hands hung at her sides.
I lay there where I had awoken, blinking in the growing light, and my limbs were stiff and sore. I was lying there, frozen in my death agony, and for long moments I did not move.
I gingerly moved my legs, and my arms, and explored my chest, and then my throat, with my fingers. There was no wound, but as I started to stand up, my riding clothes tore softly against my stomach, and I realized that I was covered with strands and patches of dried semen.
I finally managed to stand up, and I moved stiffly to where Kim stood, and I put my arm round her shoulder, and she lay her head against mine.
For long moments, neither of us said anything, and the bright Sun crawled up against the horizon.
'I am Anna de Barbe,' she said at last, and it was her own voice, and filled with sadness. 'I died here, over two thousand years ago, and she lives in me still. I have lived through my death so many, many times.'
'I am Gawdrine, wife of Gawdron the Brave, and I died here in the shadow of the stones.' Anneriek was standing next to us.
And one by one the others came forward to tell their story, until it was my turn.
I faced the Sun, and the words came to my lips, although I knew not how they were made, and in a clear voice, I named myself:
'I am Cordine the wise, elder of thirty-nine summers, and I fell at the ring of stones in the service of the High King.'
'Welcome, Cordine,' said Kim, and smiled at me, and hugged me to her, and the others joined in too, in a chorus of affirmation and friendship that filled my heart with the joy of companionship.
We stood like that, the six of us intertwined, as the morning light raced over the high, boulder-strewn field and touched the Hurlers with light.
I felt a great calm descend on me, and an overwhelming sense of belonging, and I wrapped my arms round Kim from behind, and I kissed her hair, and we both stood, watching the Sun rise over the Hurlers that Midsummer's morning.
* * *
I woke, and something had stirred inside me. The pain of an old wound, and I clutched my hand to my chest, and my legs stiffened in pain.
Something was there. Something was moving outside the window; something that knew I was there, knew that I was alone in the house, alone for ten years now since my wife and family had gone.
'Who's there?' I hissed into the darkness, and my voice caught in my throat.
There was no answer, but outside the wind swirled round the house, and somehow I knew that the wind had passed over the Hurlers.
I sat up, and went to the window, and threw the drapes aside. Outside, the full moon lit up the fields and the steeple of our village church, and thin dark clouds raced across the sky.
Then I felt a cold touch brush briefly over my hand, and I spun round in terror.
But there was nothing there, except the lingering sensation of the touch, and outside, the wind battered about the house, and a loose slate slipped off the roof and smashed on the cobbles of the courtyard below.
And the wind blew away into the night, and was gone.
---
(c) Thanatos 2000
thanatos_r@hotmail.com
Footnote:
The background to rathead's pic is a real photograph of the Hurlers in Cornwall, a county in southwest England. They exist as described in the story, and there is even a riding school in the general area, and I spent a wonderful week there nine years ago, riding over the moors.
The rest however, is pure fiction ;)