Kathyn was cleaning out the fire-grate, and at the same time saying over a psalm he was memorising, except for when he had to sneeze because of the soot. Next week was Andersmas. Already preliminary festivities were underway, and the skirl of cheerful street music made cunning entry into the silent house and insinuated itself into his meditations. He sighed, and wondered if the paper had come free from under the door.

Then the drone of the gurdy-grinders was succeeded by a sound not even closed windows and a stopped-up door could keep out.

Bells.

At first, faint and far-away, the sea-bells ringing from the harbour. There was a pause, as if the world was drawing breath while Kathyn held his. Then, one by one every church and chapel in Highmouth took up the glad tidings, ringing and ringing until the very rock into which the town was delved must have been ringing with them. And finally, the Cathedral of the Cave, last and loudest, her great bell so deep and so strong that Kathyn felt the house trembling with each peal.

The High Fleet had returned.

The dustpan fell into the fireplace with a crash he hardly heard. A hundred thoughts raced through his head. Should he go down to the docks? What if he went down and Willym wasn't there? What if Willym came straight to the house and Kathyn wasn't there? What if he was angry with Kathyn for going to the docks? But what if Willym expected him to be at the quayside, and he wasn't? If he went, would he know the ship? What if Willym had transferred to another crew? What if Willym had transferred out of the Fleet altogether, and was not among the returning sailors at all? What if Willym was not on board any ship, but drowned or killed?

 

 

 

Should he clean the house? Should he go to the grocer's? Should he change his clothes?

A hundred thoughts raced through his head and left no impression behind. Slowly he straightened up and, not knowing what else to do, sat down in an armchair. He waited. He had been waiting three years. He could wait a little longer.

If it was half an hour or half a day before the door opened, he could not have said. But it opened.

Kathyn stared, and found that either to stand or to speak was beyond him.

Standing in the doorway was a young man in a black uniform with a sack slung over one shoulder. When he saw Kathyn he made a sound that was half a curse and half a sob.

For a moment neither of them moved, holding each other's gaze as if they could not quite believe the other to be real. Kathyn started to get up, but could not have been more than half out of his chair before a warm body was colliding with his own, grappling his smaller frame in an embrace so tight it was painful.

They could neither of them speak at first. It seemed like æons that they clung together, as many as they had been parted. Kathyn opened his mouth to say something, and started to cry instead.

He wept like a child, each sob heaving inside him like a wave, swelling up through his throat to break soundlessly onto the rock of Willym's body. Willym rubbed his back with one arm and with the other held his head on his chest, murmuring the most soothing words that came to him, though more than a few tears fell from his eyes also, and glistened like dewdrops on Kathyn's white kerchief and the fringe of his umber hair. That was how they stayed for a long while, pouring out all the love and longing and loneliness that had pent up the three years since their last sight of each other.

`You'll be wanting your tea', Kathyn managed to say at last.

`Don't want nowt o't', Willym said thickly into Kathyn's kerchief. `Want you.'

He did, Kathyn realised, with a thrill he hadn't felt in so long he hardly knew how to name it, let alone what to do with it. Willym was right there, hard and hot as a fire-iron against his side, urgent, insistent, unmistakeable through the single thin layer of Willym's uniform and the many thicker ones of Kathyn's apron, smock and skirts. Thorn in my flesh...

Scarcely aware of what he was doing, and entirely unable to stop himself, Kathyn's fingers crept tentatively over Willym's thickness. Willym groaned and thrust against him—not hard; there wasn't enough space between them for that—but so rough and instinctive and unthinkingly wanting, unthinkingly wanton, that Kathyn, equally on instinct, grabbed it, half trying to pull it out and half just trying to pull it, grinding against Willym himself at the same time.

He hadn't felt like this—felt Willym like this—for such an age, but all his dormant pleasure-points were rapidly re-awakening. Warmth bloomed inside him, unfurling from the deep hidden place where he had buried all the wants he hadn't wanted while he couldn't sate them.

Willym shuddered when Kathyn touched him, and hissed like a tomcat. His prick—Kathyn would swear it—was shuddering too, throbbing like a thing alive, a thing that wanted at Kathyn as much as Kathyn wanted at it. For Kathyn was no less eager than his brother, now the rusted gears had started turning again. He tugged at Willym's crotch-flap, which remained infuriatingly closed. He could feel the texture and warmth of Willym's cock under his fingers. The fabric of his broadfall was so thin it was hardly there—why was it there? It shouldn't be there. And suddenly it was so ridiculous and unfair that there were all these layers of cloth between him and Willym, between Willym's stiff, gorgeous cock and Kathyn's slick, clenching hole, that he wanted to cry again.

The problem was, Willym wasn't helping. Instead he was doing the best he could to get Kathyn out of his clothes, a much more challenging endeavour, as Kathyn had many more of them on.

`Leave it for the minute, Willye. Just—let me—'

He wanted it in him so bad it made him giddy. But the blimmin thing wouldn't open, so he yanked again, as hard as he could.

At first there was just the same resistance from a piece of clothing that was designed to be unbuttoned one at a time, not ripped open all at once. Then something gave, and there was a tinkle of buttons scattering in all directions.

`Oh.'

He looked up at Willym, feeling like a child who'd just broken something he wasn't supposed to be touching in the first place. As soon as their eyes met they both melted into laughter.

But their mirth soon dried up—Kathyn's whole mouth dried up—when there was a little bump at his belly, and he was reminded that, though some of the insupportable tension was gone, Willym's arousal very much wasn't.

It was silly to think of a penis as beautiful, but Willym's was anyhow. So, so long, and thick enough to be neither stubby nor thin—perfectly-proportioned like the rest of him, and straight, only curving slightly up toward the flawless pink head. The skin was white like alabaster with a rose-red blush and he knew—his fingers trembled with the memory—that the feel was like nothing else there was—velvet soft on the surface, but adamantine hard underneath, and hot and alive and all Willym, all his love.

Willym watched him watching with flaming eyes. As if unable to stand even the few inches of air that had opened between them, he yanked Kathyn into him again, humping harder, as if he planned to fuck right through Kathyn's clothes like a giant horny woodpecker. But all Kathyn cared about was catching it, finally sticking skin to skin. Willym fucked—Kathyn fumbled—sweaty fingers sliding over a cock oozy with pre-come.

`Stop moving, y'randy he-goat—trying t'get—'

Willym held still for just long enough, and Kathyn made a sound of triumph when he finally got it. And he—all he did was hold it, just curled his fingers around it, as far around as they'd go—didn't even get to move, and Willym's prick was jumping in his hand and firing rope on rope on warm, sticky rope, until the whole front and side of his smock was sodden with slime. Kathyn had never heard of anybody who came as much as his brother.

Willym groaned and buried his face in Kathyn's shoulder, biting down with such force he'd probably left marks even through his clothes, rutting into the slick mess as he just kept coming.

`Willym...'

`Saved it all up for you, Kath. Never touched meself or ae other the whole way home.'

Saved it—as if it had been money or a treat. A rum cove he was, as the sailors said. But Kathyn was just as bent.

Now that the air wasn't so fogged with lust (though he noticed Willym hadn't really gone down, just softened a bit, and, of course, Kathyn was still achingly erect inside his petticoats) he reached up to put his hands on Willym's shoulders and stood back. `Now. Well. Let me look at you.'

Willym's hair curled even as a babe, but when he took off his cap Kathyn saw the sun had streaked gold into his brother's russet locks and burnished his skin like brass, and the sun and the sea and the years had chiselled his features into new definition; given his eyes depth, his shoulders breadth, his expression firmness and his manner confidence. And he was taller. He'd overtopped Kathryn before he left, but now he positively towered. In all he looked so handsome that half of Kathyn could not believe he wasn't a mirage of his own making.

`Can it be my own Willye?' he wondered aloud, twisting a bimetallic strand around his finger.

The tall, handsome sailor caught the hand (not the one that had held his prick), and kissed it, mumbling, 'Your very own. Your always own, and only your own.'

He did not let the hand fall but kept it there, licking into the hollow of his palm in a way that sent tingles shimmering like tiny electric eels all over Kathyn's body.

`Willye...'

Willym ignored him, and continued to lave all over Kathyn's palm, like a cat washing her kit. The strong moist muscle of his tongue ran round in circles, along the creases, between the fingers, back and forth until Kathyn was twitching under his skirts, twitching all over like a hysteric.

`Willye...', Kathyn pleaded, feeling like a crank being wound tighter and tighter, to the point where it must release or snap.

Willym's iron-blue eyes were slitted and intent on his task, like he wanted to make Kathyn come just from that, without touching him with anything but his mouth. You know I can, his eyes were saying.

And those eyes did not lie. Kathyn still blushed to remember the time when their mother had been only just dead, to nobody's great grief, and they two at kirk, and Willym hadn't been paying attention, and Kathyn pinched him, and in retaliation the little imp burrowed right under his skirts, which he'd been small enough to do then, and clung to Kathyn's legs with his face between Kathyn's thighs, and the more Kathyn tried to get him out the more he'd licked and licked, until...

Kathyn feared that from his loud breathing and flushed cheeks the minister had taken him for an enthusiast.

Now the only eyes on him were Willym's and between the heat of his gaze, focussed like the sun through a magnifying lens, and the wetness of his tongue, Kathyn had gone from being bathed like a kitten to being unspooled like a ball of thread. The insides of his thighs were slippery as they scrubbed against each other and his skirts were a chafing weight on the slim span of his erection, but all the friction—any friction—helped. He was coming apart, he was coming to pieces, he was—

His panting breaths concatenated and crescendoed in a whimpering cry, and Willym smirked so triumphantly that Kathyn was sure he would have hated him if he hadn't just come in his petticoats.

But auricular evidence wasn't enough for the seaman. He hooked an arm behind Kathyn's waist and tipped him back (just like that, just as easy as you please), and, giving up on trying to get Kathyn out of his clothes, simply ignored them, hiking up Kathyn's heavy twill overskirt to feel the proof of what he'd done. The movement had all the brusque assurance of a seigneur's droit; no by-your-leave or knocking before entry, just a master inspecting his handiwork. Long fingers groped their way up his thigh, caressed his bollocks, squeezed his member, which, to his embarrassment, he felt rapidly rising again, even though it was Willym who was nineteen. Though his touch was gentle as a sailor used to hauling rope and climbing rigging could manage, Kathyn could feel his brother's strength, how little effort it would take to mash and mangle him and make him a eunuch, make him incapable of receiving pleasure from any cock but Willym's...

Kathyn shut his eyes and took a deep breath, then another and another, trying to calm himself. Apparently finding all to his satisfaction, Willym moved on to Kathyn's arse, pausing on the way to stroke the spot between his balls and bottom. Then those fingers, deft but calloused, were rubbing at his entrance, pressing at the quivering ring of muscle like an advance force feeling out a castle's defences. It was unutterably strange, after so long. To have something alien and alive squirming around down there. It was also unbearably arousing.

Willym's middle finger slipped in with scarcely any pressure at all, Kathyn was so wet, and Kathyn was sure his cock would do the same, if only he would just hurry up and do what they were both waiting for. But it was too embarrassing to say so, so he tried to show Willym how ready he was by bearing down on his finger and clenching tight, by rubbing his face into his chest and making huffy little moans.

At some point his kerchief fell to the floor, and Willym shoved his face in Kathyn's hair, taking deep, shuddering breaths as if he wanted to inhale it, his fingers all the while not ceasing their exploration of Kathyn's nethercave.

`Oh, let off me, you limpet', Kathyn admonished after what must have been several minutes of this—of touching but not enough touching. He didn't mean it, no more than when he was a youth with Willym clinging to his apron while he was about the work that should have been their mother's. He'd felt the absence every bit as keenly as Willym had.

`Did ye miss me, Kath', Willym asked, as he always did, fixing Kathyn earnestly through glistening lashes.

`Did I miss you? I cried myself to sleep every night for a month. I did not change the sheets or the pillowcases so long as they still smelt of you.'

Willym closed his eyes, and his chest heaved. `Come', he said, voice rough with emotion. `Let's go to bed.'

Outside it was not even dark, but that was no matter, since for the first time in a long time there was no shadow of darkness over Kathyn's heart. He took Willym by the cock, still red-hard and basted with its own juice, and led him into the bedroom. There was only one bedroom and only one bed. Why would they want more than one? Willym was gone most of the time, and when he wasn't neither of them was prepared to be parted even for the space of a night. They'd always shared as children, ever since Mam had thrown Willym out of her bed to make way for a series of men who turned their home into a hell for the eight unhappy years before she died.

When they got to the bed Kathyn said `Oh!', realising the half-finished doily he'd been working at was hanging on his apron. It still had the needle in it, too. Good thing Willym hadn't hit that when he was humping Kathyn like a mutt in heat. He searched about dazedly for a place to put it.

`Ach, blow that', said Willym, and picked up the doily and flung it across the room. Then he picked Kathyn up and flung him down on the bed.

Kathyn bounced on the springy mattress, and Willym let him, taking it all in, clearly enjoying Kathyn's smallness and lightness as much as Kathyn enjoyed his largeness and heaviness. The sheer physical disparity between them was, Kathyn had to acknowledge, one of the most delectable things about their relationship. It hadn't been nearly so pronounced before Willym left, but Willym, as he observed before, had grown.

And more, he'd grown up. Now that he was in a position for a proper viewing, Kathyn was struck all over again by how much the man his brother looked. Every inch the man, he thought, as Willym advanced upon the bed, manhood swaying proudly out of the square patch of crotchskin around it. His throat and hole tightened with desire, but he forced himself to tear his eyes away and look at the rest of his brother, which was hardly less pleasing.

His neat, manly build—muscular without being beefy—was accentuated by the navy jacket and trousers, which fit close to the body (especially across the crotch). The trousers (bell-bottoms they were called, for how they were tight about the thighs but flared out at the bottom) laced at the back and had a buttoned flap at the front, for ease of getting in (and especially out) of them. They had been ubiquitous in the sprawling dockside district known as sailortown where they spent the bulk of Willym's childhood. Willym's state of exposure was also typical. Kathyn vividly recalled the nights when the streets had been raucous with seamen on the spree, stumbling from spirit-vault to pissery when their bladder was full, from opium-den to fleshery when their balls were blue, from dance-hall to coffee-room when their feet were sore, gambling-hell to pawnbroker when their pockets were empty, and turning, when they had finally had their fill of whores and whiskey, or else had pawned all they had save their hides, to stumble, or be carried, to their bed in a boarding-house, or in the jailhouse if they strayed into the respectable part of town. And all the while not more than one in ten of them bothered to button up his broadfall again (or could have, if he'd tried), but let it hang open, and all his tackle hang out, to the outrage or admiration of onlookers, as they pleased. And the sailors awaiting their turn in a wench, or carrying on a chin-wag or a fist-fight with a shipmate, or just standing on a street-corner with nothing better to do, could be seen hauling away at their middle-masts without a shred of shame, as if it were no more to them than scratching their nose. How Kathyn had both desired and despised them, both longed for and pitied them--for so many of them were no older than he was--indeed, hardly older than Willym--and fine-looking lads, clear of brow and bright of eye. And some of them had no doubt been cleanly brought up in God-fearing households, but once they left the landlubber's life were soon brought down into the same bottomless depravity that manacled all mariners, and there held fast till all vestige of honour or decency was bled out of them. How he had both thrilled and feared to go among them, for, being the slight, feminine young thing he was, he had attracted all manner of wolf-whistles and cat-calls and indecent propositions of remarkable detail and inventiveness, which he could only thank God he could only half-hear. He still blushed, though, and this had seemed to inflame them further. It had come a near thing at times, and many a night, coming home with the provisions their mother was too boozed-up or fucked-out to see to, he was sure would be the one his chastity was ripped from him. Until Willym had got big enough to go out with him—to insist on going with him everywhere—and started flying at any man who so much as tipped a wink in Kathyn's direction, making up for what he lacked in size in sheer ferocity.

The bed sighed when Willym knelt on the end of it, and continued to grunt, as if in annoyance, as he moved forward, walking on his knees up over Kathyn, thighs spread on either side, until the tip of his cock met the tip of Kathyn's nose.

Kathyn giggled, then kissed it—briefly, and chastely, as one would kiss someone's cheek (not that Willym let him kiss anyone but himself). He glanced up at Willym through lowered lashes, and bit his bottom lip, perhaps a wee bit sluttishly. He was prepared for the blush that rose to his brother's cheeks, but not for the wallop that left the whole left side of his face buzzing.

He gasped open-mouthed, for a moment not sure what had happened.

Willye hit me.

He blinked away the tears that had leapt into his eyes, and found his shock and pain translated into excruciating arousal when he realised it wasn't Willym's hand that hit him.

Willym was doing that face where he wasn't quite grinning, all cheeky innocence, like a boy—and he'd just smacked Kathyn in the face with his cock. `Teach yer for teasin', he said.

Kathyn wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to that, but he didn't get the chance, as Willym's cock was shoved right back into his face, slapping him all over—not as hard, little drubs like banging dirt out of a shoe. Willym didn't even need to hold it, just rocked his hip, and the momentum of the thing carried it up and down with enough force to leave Kathyn's face tingling all over. His furry bollocks were nestled under Kathyn's chin, and Kathyn could feel the little ridges of the veins, and his nostrils were choked with a ripe, weighty scent and—forget about talking, Kathyn could barely think with how turned on he was. Lord above, but he'd forgotten what it was like to be with Willym in bed.

`Shut up and do me', he spat, slurring a little from the numbness in his lips.

`Dinna have to tell me twice, dearling.'

Next minute Kathyn's skirt and apron were flipped up over his head, and for a moment Kathyn was breathing in lye and his brother's come, until he pushed them down under his chin. Willym was already lying down on top of him, all the way across him, so Kathyn's toes were poking his ankles and his hair brushing his chin. His little brother was so big. But the biggest part of him was in exactly the right place.

Things always felt bigger than they looked, bigger than they were, but Willym felt so enormous, lodged between his legs, that Kathyn wondered if his cunthole was even any bigger than his brother's cockhole, and if Willym would drown himself after he fucked Kathyn to death his first night home.

Willym shunted forward, forcing Kathyn's thighs apart. The head was right at his entrance now, and it wasn't beautiful anymore, only terrifying, like God on Sinai.

Kathyn took a deep breath, and held it a long time before letting it out again. He could do this. He'd done it countless times before. He was just out of practice, that was all.

Willye seemed to be thinking the same way, for he spat on two fingers and jammed them up alongside his prick, too frantic for finesse. In they wormed: scissoring, stretching, teasing open the tight ring of muscle until Willym could just work his plum-sized glans inside. He rested it there, though Kathyn could feel his whole body vibrating, feel his need to move, to fuck, to give him the pounding he was desperate for. The two fingers that had been stretching Kathyn now stroked around the outside of his ring—snapped taut like a tourniquet around the bow of Willym's cockboat—until the pain subsided somewhat. Just having that little portion inside him was unbearable; having just that portion inside him was unbearable. Willym either needed to pull out or start screwing, and since Kathyn knew the former wasn't happening, the sooner he got on with the latter the better.

But he didn't. He pressed his body onto Kathyn's like he wanted to push him through the mattress, and moved maybe a fraction of an inch deeper. The fine soft hair on his belly was tickling Kathyn's cock, and it was as much the worry that he was going to come before Willym had even started corking him that made him say, as cool as he could pretend to be, `Now who's teasing?'

`Dinna want to break you, my love. Forgot how tiny you were.'

`Won't break. Not—hnn--made of glass. Come on, Willye. Heaven's sake, haven't I been waiting three years?'

This argument seemed to strike a chord, because Willym gave a grunt of assent, and the next instant both hands were on Kathyn's hips and he was ploughing into his prepared (but, as it turned out, not nearly prepared enough) hole—not inch by inch, but the whole cunting mile, the whole nine bloody yards, no incremental advance but anchors away, full speed ahead. It felt like a steam train hurtling up inside him, and he already regretted his bravado of seconds before, because Holy Saviour in Heaven if it didn't hurt like everything that hurts all rolled into one giant pillar of pain and rammed up his backside. Willym was just so big—big every way, lengthwise, around, across—and for a moment it was just too much and Kathyn thought he was about to do something awful like scream or black out or wet himself or split in half from the crotch to the neck.

He did scream, but not out loud—he slammed his head sideways into the pillow and emptied his lungs until they were raw—as raw and inflamed as his insides felt with Willym's meat-mallet mashing them up.

If Willym had noticed he would have stopped, but he hadn't. His head was somewhere over Kathyn's, hurling guttural groans and half-intelligible oaths at the wall, while his lower half was moving like a thing with its own mind, or a machine with no mind at all, and no warming up either: full throttle, a firmness as unyielding and invasive as an iron piston working into Kathyn, then back, then up and up again. He barely pulled out at all, as if reluctant to leave the warmth of Kathyn's body now he'd got in at last—just shallow jabs, but hard and quick and utterly remorseless, remoulding his insides to the shape of his prick.

Kathyn hardly knew what he felt, he felt so much: pain and pleasure and relief and terror all jumbled together till he could no longer tell them apart. He was weeping, and Willym was kissing the tears away, but still pistoning at the same remorseless pace, and the bed-frame was thumping on the wall like it would knock it down in a minute. Kathyn's body was as mixed-up as his head— his fingers were clawing the sheets, as white as the starched cotton, but his toes were curling and his pintle was fattening after it had wilted from the initial impact.

It couldn't have been more than a minute before Willym stuttered in his rhythm, and his rigid thickness got, if it were possible, thicker and rigider. Kathyn went rigid, too. He hadn't been thinking—it was impossible to think with that great mobile mass inside of him, wrenching at his guts like a wild creature; with Willym's heat and scent and noises all about him, but he remembered Willym had to—Kathyn had to tell him to—

Willym hauled himself out with a half-snarl, as if annoyed to be interrupted by his own orgasm. No sooner had he thwacked his cock down on Kathyn's belly, then he was coming copiously, thick, scalding jets slapping into Kathyn's chin, cheeks and forehead, and a few even flying over his head to decorate the wall.

Willym propped himself up on his elbows until the emissions had stopped, then moved to re-insert himself. Kathyn fluttered a hand over his hip to remind him to wipe himself off first, which he did hastily, sponging the head of his cock with a comparatively dry corner of Kathyn's apron, which he ripped half off him in his eagerness to get back inside.

Then his inner passage, which had been only just beginning to register the cavernous absence of Willym's cock, was abruptly full again, as Willym slammed into him, if possible even harder than before, as if to make up for the lost tupping, jostling him into the headboard with each bruising thrust. At this rate he'd be sitting upright by the time Willym got his second come-off.

His brother was building up a sweat, though it was far from a warm night, and some of it rolled off his neck and into Kathyn's hair. He didn't mind. No doubt it was just his stupid love-struck fancy, but he was sure Willym's sweat smelled sweeter than other people's.

By now Kathyn had relaxed somewhat, and was less holding on for dear life than settled in for the duration. With the brutal but efficient stretching his cunny had received, it was smoother sailing, though Willym was still huffing and blowing up a storm.

Like the Big Bad Wolf, Kathyn thought, barely suppressing a hysterical titter. And I'm his little piggy-wig. He put a hand on his stomach, and there it was, Willym burrowing under the whitemeat of his middle, felt but not seen, a burning shadow under the flesh, a leviathan waking beneath the waves. And it was this—this sensation that had him coming again, squirting into the chafing tightness between their two bodies.

Willym's second peak was longer coming, but not that much longer, and it was almost certain there'd be a third, and Lord knew how many more after that. Willym was insatiable tonight. Kathyn supposed three years build-up of dirty water took some offloading. There'd be time for tender lovemaking later. For now, he was doing what a wife was for, and he was glad to, even if he'd be more blue than pink in the morning.

This time Willym shuffled up on his haunches and made Kathyn swallow it, acrid and unpleasant, the liquid distillation of a sailor's diet. And so salty—saltier than seawater, Kathyn was sure. He wondered if he'd go blind—or was it mad you went? After that Willym didn't go back to his arse, but fucked his dribbling member into his mouth, pushing deep down his throat till the rusty wire of his pubes was tickling Kathyn's nostrils. Kathyn focussed on breathing through his nose, and not throwing up or passing out.

If being buggered was overwhelming, this was like nothing else on earth. Willym was all around him—all he could see, hear, smell, touch, taste. He was gripping Kathyn's head like a rugby ball, his trunk-like thighs covering his ears, blocking out all sound but the pounding in his head. Willym's navel was right in front of him, but he couldn't see it, couldn't see anything but the fluorescent fire dancing before his eyes. If he thought the touch of Willym's prick on his face had been intimate, this—in his face—sliding over his tongue, back and forth, every inch of his throat stuffed to bursting—the little bumps and ridges, veins, Willym's taste mingled with his own— the burn at the corners of his mouth... Wondering was wasted: he was both blind and mad, and yet wanted no cure that did not also come from his brother's cock.

Willym fucked hard and fast and long, using his face like it was just another hole, just another repository for his sperm, and when he did come it was like poison, like molten lead, like soup that hadn't been blown on, singeing stripes down Kathyn's throat with each spurt. It was so hot. Kathyn was no seasoned scumsucker, but he didn't have to be to know that wasn't normal. It was a queerness of Willym, and the island men who were like him, like how he could go round on round without scarcely a respite between. He ran hot, in seed and blood and temper. Kathyn's only relief was that he couldn't taste it this time. He didn't know if he could taste anything again. Felt like he'd been blowing a boot-brush.

When Willym pulled out—slowly, for once—he swirled his cockhead around Kathyn's lips for a while, until Kathyn felt an almighty coughing fit building up now that air was re-entering his lungs in respectable quantities. But Willym held his jaw shut—probably so none of his come could come up again, the silly twit--and Kathyn was forced to snort and splutter his way through what felt terrifyingly like death. At last, he knocked Willym's hand away, and managed to lean over far enough to retch. Nothing came up but spit and stinging air that wracked his whole body as it escaped.

He collapsed back into the pillow, his head reeling. Slowly the rainbow lights flickered and went out, the roaring in his ears receded. He could breathe again—that was important. God only knew if he'd be able to do anything else with his throat for a while.

Kathy couldn't imagine what he must look like as he lay semi-sensate on the bed, eyes staring, mouth gaping like Willym's cock was still in it, but his brother's expression as he bent over him told him all he needed to know.

`Say somethin, sweetheart.'

`I think you killed me', Kathyn croaked.

He shakily reached up, the effort using all the dregs of his strength, and stroked Willym's cheek and watched his pupils shrink as he came back into himself: his own sweet Willye again, not a horny rutbeast whose only head hung between his balls.

Willym kissed the bruises that he'd painted on Kathyn's body, but made no apology for them, and nor did Kathyn expect one. Everyone knew men weren't to blame for what they did when they were cunt-starved: it wasn't healthy for men to retain their seed, especially working-men in the prime of youth. It went to their heads like liquor and made them brutish. Really, he should be grateful—he knew only too well he'd been kinder-used than most of the wives welcoming husbands home that night.

And Willym, now Kathyn had siphoned off some of his bollock-bilge, was all kindness. Handling him gently as a babe, he helped his big brother out of his filthied clothes, then dashed about with unaccountable energy, bringing a wet cloth to sponge him down and a mug of yoghurt-milk from the cold-room to soothe his throat while Kathyn just lay on his back, entirely exhausted. His belly was sticky. At some point Willym had fucked another orgasm out of him, but he couldn't think when.

When Willym's head finally hit the pillow, the one Kathyn didn't use, there was a sort of crackling sound. His brow creased; he fished around inside the pillowcase and pulled out a sheaf of papers.

They were his own letters, the yellowing paper speckled with darker blotches that someone who hadn't known would have taken for tearstains. They were more worn than letters usually are. Kathyn, after he read them, and read them over and over again till the words, homely, but heartfelt, were committed to his memory, pressed them to his face, kissed them, smelt them, licked at the little dark streaks till he was worried the ink would run and he wouldn't be able to read the writing, which was not good to begin with, he supposed to his own discredit as a teacher. Though he would have liked to see any schoolmaster cope with Willym, who seemed to feel the fairies sticking pins in his backside if he sat still for more than half a minute. In the end Kathyn'd had to bribe him with blowjobs just to get him to stay in his chair.

Willym's brow remained furrowed as he looked at them, till he realised what they were. Then he gave Kathyn a look of shimmering delight and love. `Dinna need these na more', he said. `I'm here now. Home and dry.' He made as if to toss them in the grate.

`Well, you're home, at any rate', Kathyn said, with a meaning look at Willym's cock, which was still seeping sperm onto the sheets. He plucked the letters out of Willym's hand. `And I want to keep these. For posterity's sake.'

`Hah. Reckon posterity's eyes'd fall out their heads if they read what was in em.' Willym made no move to recover the letters. He lounged on his side and idly stroked himself stiff again. Kathyn's mouth tingled watching him, but he affected nonchalance.

`Well, it's a good thing we don't have any, tisn't it?'

Willym gave a puzzled grin. `What, eyes?'

`Posterity.'

Willym's grin faltered. `Oh. Right', he said, after a pause. Then he gave a happier sigh. `Home at last, my love. Home at last and home fast.'

Until you sail again.

When Willym -- after a couple more fucks Kathyn hardly felt, he was so tired -- nuzzled against his ear and fell asleep as solidly as only sailors used to sleeping in all kinds of weather can, Kathyn turned his own face into the pillow and silently wept again, releasing every tear that had been held back those three lonely years. Dear God, it had been too long. If he had known it would be so long he could not have endured it. But it was over. And now that it was over, that it was over was all that mattered. God was in His heaven, Willym was in his bed, and tonight all was right with the world.

 

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