Chapter 36
Ash
When Agnes had opened the box and pulled out the thing inside, Ash’s first reaction had been bafflement.
It had not taken long for him to imagine what sorts of things one could do with a false prick strapped to a pair of hips.
Agnes turned her gaze upon him. She was magnificent. His wife, his lord, his Agnes – something else entirely, something he didn’t have a name for but worshipped all the same.
He fell to his knees at her feet, staring up at her, the light of the fire making her glow. Her bright hair, touch-tangled, was lit up like the sun, like a glorious vision. She stared down at him, not with derision, not with the hate Ash had spent so long coming to expect, but with soft, sure love.
Olly stood beside her like a flanking guard, like a knight. Ash edged forwards, still on his knees. He reached for her, the warmth of her skin beneath his hands like the first touch of spring sunlight.
He did not know what to do with it – with the love, with the twin looks of adoration that they were laying upon him. He did not know what to do with the weight in his chest, the fullness of his heart.
But the cock springing between Agnes’s legs? That he was more familiar with. He did not know how to handle love, how to make it settle within him. But a stiff prick was something he had more experience in.
He nuzzled his face against the side of Agnes’s cock, his lips brushing the straps, his hands gripping her hips.
He was overwhelmed with the smell of fresh leather, a perfumed note above the rich scent of Agnes herself.
Agnes inhaled softly, not quite a gasp, her legs twitching. He looked up at her.
‘Agnes?’
Agnes swallowed. She nodded, eyes wide, lips parted.
He began along the edge of the straps; the crease of her thigh, kissing his way across leather and skin.
The fabric was smooth against his lips, body-warmed and pliable, her skin soft and firm.
He kissed her properly, opening his mouth to taste her.
From somewhere high above he heard a breathy gasp, and a contented hum – a sound of approval from Olly.
He turned his face inwards, edging along the garter that kept the prick in place, the ties between Agnes’s legs. The cock nudged against his cheek, as eager as one made of flesh and blood. Unable to resist, he opened his mouth against the shaft.
It was rich and smooth, unlike anything he had experienced before. Agnes’s legs tensed, her breath hitching. She could not feel it, yet somehow her body was responding as if she could.
He laved the length of the prick with his tongue, holding Agnes still with one hand and taking the prick in the other.
It had a sturdy sense of pliability to it, and as he squeezed it, he felt the hard rod within, keeping it rigid.
It was a good size – big enough to fill him up.
He let out a low breath at that thought, at imagining Agnes inside him, driving him to spend.
With a low, needy noise that rumbled directly from his core, he took the prick into his mouth, swallowing down as much as he could. Agnes made a startled, breathy sound as Olly purred from somewhere far away and up above.
‘Ash—’ Agnes’s voice sounded rough and broken. ‘I— God …’
She tangled her hand in his hair, tugging, pulling. He groaned around the prick.
‘God, Ash, you’re so good.’ That was Olly, his voice piercing the fog of lust. ‘Such a pious man, down on his knees.’
His words went straight to Ash’s cock, already throbbing and hard between his legs. He wanted more – he wanted to feel Agnes spend in his mouth, an impossibility, a mere desire-fuelled dream. He released her with reluctance. He needed to see her face. He needed to see Olly’s face, too.
Agnes was watching him, hair tousled, face red. Olly was grinning, his hands around her waist.
‘Please—’
It was all Ash needed to say. Agnes hauled him to his feet before pulling him into a deep kiss.
He trailed his hands around her waist, meeting Olly’s skin on her other side.
Their pricks – his flesh and hers leather – rubbed together deliciously between them.
Olly looped his arms around Agnes fully, reaching for Ash, holding him.
Ash could no longer tell where their bodies divided.
Olly’s skin was his skin, was Agnes’s skin.
Agnes’s lips against his neck were Olly’s lips, their legs tangled together irrevocably.
There was an ache in his chest, a tightness, as if their souls had somehow mingled into a new, brighter whole.
They collapsed onto the bed in a heap. The air was pushed from his lungs as both his wife and his lover crushed him against the sheets.
Olly was the first to disentangle himself, laughing as he did.
The noise was so beautiful that Ash could not help but laugh along with him, the joy infecting Agnes, too.
Agnes sprawled on the bed, Olly beside her. Ash lowered himself down on her other side, his hand trailing up her leg, tangling in her undershirt. The red prick jutted obscenely between her legs, pushing aside the pale fabric. He felt her staring at him, watching him, watching it.
‘Do you wish to try, then?’ Olly asked.
Agnes’s cheeks were red, her skin painted with a light sheen of sweat. She nodded. ‘But—’ She breathed. ‘I am not sure how.’
‘Then I shall teach you. Ash—’
Ash looked up at him. He would agree to anything. ‘Yes?’
‘Back on your knees.’
It was nothing like he could have imagined. The feel of the leather prick alone was different to anything he had experienced before, the sense of fullness distinct in a way he struggled to describe.
But as soon as Agnes breached him – guided from behind by Olly – he knew it was right. She moved against him, moved within him, and he gripped at the woollen blankets and gasped and writhed and took it, her name pouring from his lips.
Face pressed to the pillows, he could hear Olly muttering soft, gentle words of encouragement to them both – yes, like that, so good – and then a soft noise from Agnes, a noise that grew into a gasp, a crescendo of little moans. Ash desperately wished he could see what they were doing.
The thought of it pushed his own peak closer, tension building within him. He reached beneath himself, wrapping his hand tight around his cock. As Agnes thrust into him, he thrust into his hand, mouth open against the soft pillow.
Agnes’s rhythm was becoming erratic, her noises growing louder.
Ash worked himself harder. Behind him, far away, inside him, Agnes made a sound like a dam bursting, like a star burning.
Ash bit at the pillow, jerking at himself with increased urgency, then – finally, wonderfully, spent over the blankets beneath him.
He slumped down, body wrung out and used up. He could hear the frantic panting of Agnes and Olly, and Olly’s voice, calm and quiet.
‘Gentle, now, ease back— that’s right, yes—’
She pulled from him slowly. Ash collapsed onto the bed. He rolled onto his side to look at them: both on their knees, the shiny cock springing still between Agnes’s legs, Olly behind her, his hand tucked beneath the straps of the false phallus.
Olly slowly withdrew his hands, fingers lingering on the belt.
‘Shall I … ?’
‘Please.’
Olly had the straps undone in moments, carefully placing the cock to one side.
As he did, Agnes lowered herself down to lie beside Ash, nestling against him with a content noise.
Olly crawled up to join them, still very obviously aroused.
Ash reached for him, intending to share his pleasure with Olly, too, but Olly pushed his hand away.
‘Later,’ he said, lying on Ash’s other side and looping an arm around his chest. ‘Lie with me.’
Ash let himself settle between them, pressed between their bodies. His skin prickled, sticky with sweat and spend.
Olly began to trail a hand up and down his chest. As he did, he started to sing a soft tune, the words barely audible. Agnes shuffled closer, listening. Ash clung to them both, drifting in the melody.
It was, Ash had to admit, extremely gratifying to watch Agnes shout at her parents. The previous day had been a boiling point, a pot left too long, and now the steam had cleared Agnes’s even-tempered simmer was more frightening than her rage.
Her parents tried in vain to convince her to forgive Muriel. Agnes did a remarkable job of ignoring their pleas. Ash and Olly stood at the side of the room watching, even after Agnes’s mother had demanded they leave to give the family some privacy.
‘I am Agnes’s family,’ Ash had responded.
Olly needed to be present too, just in case the situation should turn violent as, Agnes was quick to remind her parents, it had done the previous day. Under her fierce gaze and unrelenting chastising there was very little they could do about it.
When Muriel finally appeared, red-eyed and weary, Agnes barely even looked at her before escorting them all to the retinue hastily arranged to take them home. She turned to her parents before they left, and despite the surety of her stature, Ash could tell that each word was a struggle.
‘I am not barring you from my life,’ she said, head held high.
‘But I require you to reflect on what has happened here. I do not want my children to live without knowing you. But should such things happen again, or should you allow Francis back into my life … I will be forced to ensure they do not.’
She saw her parents and Ada off with a kiss. Muriel received a last parting look before Agnes turned her back on them all.
‘I think I should like to go for a walk.’
They took themselves down into the valley, the dogs bounding at their heels. Instead of taking the route to the river, Ash found his feet leading him instinctively up towards the road and the great green hill on the edge of the town.
He had avoided this corner of the churchyard when he had last been here, on the day of his wedding.
It had been too much for him to contemplate, too much for one man to hold.
That fear was still there, that horrible yawning loss, even when flanked by Olly and Agnes.
But it did not bite at him like it had before, merely lingered with him.
He stared down at the grave. Fresh green grass emerged from the dark earth in little patches. Clumps of clover sprouted in uneven bursts. Amongst the greenery shot tiny, sturdy stalks; flowers yet to bloom.
Litillwitte settled at his feet, resting his head upon Ash’s boots. Olly took his left hand, Agnes his right, and the past bloomed gently into the future.