Willym's dream

 

 

On Thursday morning Kathyn had a bath, because he jolly well needed one.

Their Mam, Kathyn reflected dispassionately, had been a slut in both senses and kept a house (though really it'd been Kathyn who kept it) in which cleanliness was a luxury rather than a necessity. Now he had a proper bathroom with modern, if rather noisy, plumbing, and even after five years he was still so grateful to have piped-in hot water that he did not so much mind it being slightly brackish.

He may have yelped like a kicked dog when his sphincter kissed the scalding skin of the water. But once he'd settled into it the sting went away, every ache and pain dissolving into the lapping warmth.

He gingerly rubbed his neck, which smarted where Willym had been gnawing it like a dog with a bone. His brother was still sprawled unconscious on the bed after a long night of loving, hence why Kathyn had taken the opportunity to have a nice relaxing soak, knowing he wouldn't be interrupted by a certain ever-randy sibling.

He was just drifting into the pleasant absence of mind that was not quite sleep, when there was a whistle from outside and then a rattle at the door.

He sat bolt upright, hair whisking water across the floor behind him. The post! Thursdays! Kathyn had completely forgotten.

He clambered out of the bath, patted himself as dry as he could in a hurry, then, not wanting to get his clothes damp, put his nightgown back on and rushed downstairs to the door.

It was a boy of about eleven, wearing an oilskin suit and an expectant grin. When Kathyn opened the door he politely tugged the brim of his yellow sou'wester, then immediately ruined it by whistling, slow and insolent. Kathyn looked down and saw that his nightgown was see-through, clinging to his wet skin and leaving nothing even to the depraved imagination of a perverted postboy.

`Post come, marm', the boy announced in cheerful redundancy.

Kathyn silently held out his hand, too mortified for manners, but the boy seemed in no hurry to fulfil his charge.

`Did I catch ye in the bath, 'm?'

`Yes. You did. Do you have any post for me, Timyth?'

Timyth, instead of answering, gave him another saucy run-over, starting at his crotch and gliding up, raking his eyes minutely over his stomach, nipples, collar and neck. He was a cheeky rapscallion, was Timyth, and his cleverness was matched only by his randiness. He'd seemed so respectful and well-mannered in the beginning, too. Kathyn had made the mistake of being nice to him. He'd presented the boy with a box of homemade chocolates, once, in return for which the boy had promptly presented Kathyn with his erect cock. He'd been surprised when this generous reciprocation was rejected, as if it was the standard trade. Ever since then he seemed to regard Kathyn as something of a prize to be conquered.

He whistled again, this time with a note of awe. `Your man home, then?'

With a start Kathyn became conscious of the red and blue marks stippling the skin from his chest to his ears, like the pelt of a brindled hound. He flushed even redder, clapping his hand to his neck, as if that would cover even a fraction of his brother's mouthwork. `Yes. His ship came in last week.'

`He a navyman?'

`Yes he is, Timyth. Now, the p--'

'Is he a captain?' Timyth broke in, genuine enthusiasm for all things naval momentarily displacing prurient interest.

`No, he's an able seaman. And who the Davvy are you?' said a deep voice from somewhere above Kathyn's head.

Before the boy could answer, or Kathyn could turn around, a strong hand was clamped around his neck, hauling up his chin, and not gently. `This what they pay you to do at the post office, gawking at other men's bints? You worthless gutter-spawn—well, take a good fuckin look!'

The tail of Kathyn's wet nightie was slapped up his back, then a familiar firmness was nudging between his dewy bumcheeks and spearing him. Once the tip was safely lodged in his scum-channel, Willym lifted one of Kathyn's legs and rammed in, firm, fat prick skidding up the spongy walls.

'Aye, yer watchin then, yer pilkie wee sprog? Good. I'll show ye how a real man fucks.'

Timyth had taken a few steps back, as if afraid Willym would leap for him, Kathyn still stuck on his harpoon, and tear him to pieces. The bottom of his yellow jacket had split open a little to reveal a wet pink prick, about a handspan in length, poking up from under his shirt-tails (he must have had it out and been touching it under his jacket even while they were talking, the wee rascal) and Kathyn had a moment of wondering what it would be like if the boy came closer and jammed that slim little organ between his lips. Then Willym entered him fully, and drove the thought of any other manhood from his mind.

Despite his humiliating predicament, Kathyn felt the warm accustomed glow enveloping him as the hot water had minutes before, but from within, as if he were taking a bath from the inside out, heating him despite the chill of the air. He was addicted to this, that was all there was. His body was habituated, and couldn't help but burn with pleasure, even as his mind cried out against the indecency, the shame of what they were doing.

And not just what they were doing.

Timyth was taking more than a look. His eyes were fixed on Kathyn. Every time Willym rutted into him the boy's mouth opened slightly to suck in an excited breath, as if he were the one plugging Kathyn's arse. And the hand which had pulled so politely at his hat was pulling shamelessly at his preteen prick. He jerked it so fast his fist was a blur. Kathyn remembered Willym being the same at that age, spending every spare second of the day frigging himself (and seemingly always in Kathyn's sight or hearing). You'll wear that thing clean off, he would say, half-chiding and half-teasing, and have nowt but a nub left.

Grown-up Willym had put away such childish pleasures. He didn't have to use his hand when he had a willing big brother to masturbate himself with when he got the whim. And he certainly had more than a nub.

Kathyn clawed at the doorframe, feeling himself severed from the root to the heart, feeling broken open until surely something vital must give. Severed and sealed, broken and healed with every remorseless back-and-forth of Willym's world-ending cock. Every time it was like this. Every time.

If anything, Willym's years of self-abuse had increased his endowment, which is what he always maintained.

`See what a whore he is? See how well he takes me? You think you could satisfy him with that nibbet of yours? It's a wonder you can even find it to wank. This cunt ere,'—and he struck Kathyn in the front, where his womb would be, the blow just clipping the inflamed tip of his penis and making him shout—'wouldn't even feel it, the cow-twatted bitch.'

Ordinarily these words coming from Willye, his own and only love, would have wounded him worse than if his brother had a rusty saw in place of a prick. But as it was, they only added to the sickly-sweet concoction of shame and arousal brewing in his belly. He couldn't believe his own body, but he wanted more—wanted Willye to abuse him more, to call him more horrid, hurtful names, to shout them for the whole town to hear.

Willym wasn't even fucking Kathyn anymore; he was standing still and pulling Kathyn's smaller body--so much smaller, smaller even than the boy's—on and off his prong like one of the little harmless jellyfish they sold to sailors as fuck-pockets at the quayside. Good for four uses, the hawkers proclaimed and Kathyn was good for about as many—cooking, cleaning, clothes-mending and taking Willym's cock, and in that moment he wanted nothing more. He wanted to be used, wanted Willym to fuck right through him, destroying him like he had the only one of those little jellies Kathyn had seen him use. He wanted to be torn apart and remade in front of this nobody, this nothing, this pimply lowtown boy. Wanted the world to see what his brother's cock reduced him to.

It was only the new warmth on his belly that told him he was leaking fluid like a half-turned tap. It dripped onto the doorstep and Willym clutched him against his body, making a deep snarling noise that Kathyn had never heard before, certainly not from any human throat.

Timyth made a sound that could have been either fear or bliss. He was standing with his legs spread, back arched, shoulders curled in, face staring white as if in the grip of some divine ecstasy. His post-bag had fallen, forgotten, by his feet and he was wanking, wanking, wanking so hard it had to feel like sandpaper.

Willym lifted Kathyn off his feet and slipped out to souse him from his arsehole to his ears, roaring as he came. `Now you fuckin get before I pluck out yer eyes and eat em like raisins.'

Timyth gasped and came too, a few spurts landing about Kathyn's nose, and in quick succession pulled up his trousers, tugged his sou'wester and got, a small sheaf of letters smacking Kathyn in the face just as he was blinking away the spunk.

As Kathyn bent down to retrieve it, a hand came up to fondle him through the squishing cotton that was now doubly wet.

`Impudent brat. Aboardship he'd have the hide stripped off him,' Willym rumbled. But he didn't sound half as angry as he had a second ago.

He dragged Kathyn inside, pinning him to the wall with the hand on his neck, and slammed the door shut with the other hand. `Now, Kath, that was fun...'

Fun? Fun? The whole place will have heard us! And were probably watching too. I'll never be able to show my face out of doors again...

`...but just what were you doing opening the door to strange lads in yer nightie?' His voice was still prickly with sleep but his eyes were wide awake, glittering darkly.

Kathyn struggled to speak past the hand on his throat. `I was in the bath.'

`Oh, ye was in the bath. Well then, I suppose I'm lucky ye didn't answer the door stark cunt nekkid.' He gave these last words a vicious enunciated, the harsh consonants attacking, accusatory. His fingers were digging painfully into the soft skin under his jaw.

`Willye, I--'

`Best get back in there. And wash that filth off thee. Slut.' He added injury to insult with a sharp up-swinging slap to Kathyn's cock and balls, which were still raw from his climax. Kathyn cried out, but Willym dropped him on the welcome mat and stumped off.

 

Kathyn sat in his now half-cold bath and cried quietly. His high of adoring submission had been turned to dread and despair by Willym's brutishness.

After some time Willym came to the side of the tub. `Now then. Now then, Kath. Don't be upset. I'm not angry.

He raised his head and felt something jab his temple. In the bathroom mirror he saw Willym's erection lying red and inflamed against his speckled-ivory cheek. He turned and fell to sucking as hard as he could, head bobbing back and forth like a stork, desperate to please Willym, to show him he was sorry.

Willym watched him do this in silence for a bit, stroking idly around his ears, letting him gag and splutter and half kill himself on his cock. But when his peg started to twitch on Kathyn's tongue, he pulled him off it by his hair, and held him just out of tongue-reach, letting him cough it out.

Willym's pillock kept twitching. He grunted and it leapt and spat out tall scattershot sprays, of which Kathyn caught all he could. Once they'd stopped, Willym released his hair, taking him instead by the waist and turning him about. `Put yer arse up on the side of the tub. Ah, yer good and wet, no need t'stretch thee.'

Kathyn was trying to adapt to this new position half-sitting on the rim of the bath, when his hole registered a blunt round pressure, then more, then more, then more and still more. Every time, this wonder.

Willym fed in his acres of yardage and Kathyn's body stretched to make room. The soap made it burn worse than usual, but Kathyn accepted that as part of the punishment.

Willym hooked his fingers inside Kathyn's hips and, though he'd said he wasn't angry, he certainly felt it from the furious way he clobbered his cock through Kathyn's bunghole. Kathyn, head and limbs hanging in an ungainly heap into the tub, did his best to keep from swallowing his own dirty bathwater. It hurt so much that he started to cry again, each thrust jarring deeper sobs out of him.

`Ah, stop yer wailing', Willym muttered. But Kathyn couldn't. It wasn't just the pain of body—being used like this made him feel so worthless. He needed Willye's sweet love-making to make it better, but Willym was only interested in using his hole to get off.

`I said, shut up', Willym growled. He did sound angry, now. `Christ, yer worse than a harpooned seal.' And abruptly a hand was moving from Kathyn's hip to his head, shoving his face down into the frothy water.

Kathyn's cry of alarm turned into a gurgle—he couldn't help taking in a mouthful of lukewarm bath-swill as he went in, and even that little burned his lungs like molten lead. He couldn't see, couldn't hear, could hardly think of anything but the overwhelming need to breathe, to clear out the water and suck in air.

Kathyn only dimly registered that the pig-sticker in his arse was still stuffing away—almost all his attention was consumed by the urgent fact that his head was now underwater and, contrary to what Willym seemed to think, he was no merman.

He tried to manage as best he could, tried not to struggle, though panic was rising within him, praying that Willym would let him up—now.

And now.

And now.

But he didn't. And now it was Kathyn's turn to get angry. This isn't a game, Willye, you absolute blinkin brat, let me up this instant!

He couldn't hold his breath any longer. Powerless to stop the ancient, but in this case ruinous, instincts of his body, he inhaled and his airways flooded with water. The pounding in his arse had now faded completely next to the pounding in his head. He tried with all the might he still had to push his head up, out of the water. But the grip on the back of his neck was too strong and Kathyn despaired. He was going to die like this, drowned in a bathtub while his cock-headed baby brother fucked the life out of him.

But then the hand suddenly switched from holding him down to hauling him up, and up he came, hooping and spewing out more bathwater than he could possibly have swallowed in those few seconds. Willym fished him out of the tub and Kathyn clung to his brother while he patted and scrubbed at his back like he was a baby who'd sucked his milk down the wrong pipe.

`You—great--cadgy—fool!' he gasped, in-between violent, hacking coughs that sliced out of his throat like knives. `Are—you—trying—to kill me?'

`Eh, now', Willym said, sounding amused. `Christ, lubbers are theatrical. A bit of water never did a body any harm, now did it? Lord knows you've swallowed enough of me spunk.'

Unable to give this the reply it merited through speech, Kathyn thumped him in the chest, though his feeble blows made no impression. He tried to get down on the floor, but Willym pushed him back into the bath. He swept back his tousled hair, carelessly dropping his pearls of sperm into the half-cold water while Kathyn's sputterings subsided.

`I should make thee bathe in my piss and spend', he said in a cool thoughtful voice. Kathyn shivered, and not just because of the temperature. He hadn't heard that voice in years, but he knew it all the same.

Willym was in his worst mood, or at least the worst Kathyn knew. Worst not because it was the cruellest, but because it was the strangest. It was Willye at his most grown-up and therefore, paradoxically, most ungovernable.

His innate authority as the manly half of their pairing he was usually content to cede to Kathyn as the eldest. But there were times--rare times, but they happened--when he felt that it was Kathyn who was in the wrong, and must be disciplined. And then nothing on earth could assuage him till he had his satisfaction.

Kathyn, when he was angry, was like their mother: he blustered and berated. But in this temper Willym was like the father he'd hardly known: loving but cold and utterly without mercy. Kathyn hated it. As frustrated as he became with his brother after stunts like the one he'd just pulled, he was never afraid of him. Except when he was like this.

And so here Kathyn was, once more on his knees before Willym's cock, which was semi-soft but still potent, menacing and desirable in equal strength. It swung into his face, the tip leaving a little slick dot between his eyes.

The sex mixed everything up. Willym loved him, and was punishing him for his own good. But he also loved punishing him—it made his prick ache and balls groan with teeming, virile seed. And Kathyn, or at least a part of him, loved being punished by his lordly little brother and Willym knew that he loved it. It was all such a muddle.

`Open your mouth', Willym said. `Open it, Kath.'

Kathyn opened his mouth obediently, but then recoiled, tasting something salty and unclean. He pulled back, but the taste pursued, as did the smell, sharp and acrid. The prick in front of his face was leaking a fluid too thin and clear to be come. Willym was weeing on him.

`Drink it, Kath. Drink it or by God you'll get somethin worse.'

A shudder went through him, and not the good kind. This was even worse than being half-drowned. Worse even than being ravished in front of the postboy. But Kathyn was a good wife. An obedient wife. So, blinking away tears, he opened his mouth and drank.

This wasn't something either of them liked, or took pleasure in. Not for itself, anyway. This was about humiliation. This was about Kath being put in his place. Which was wherever Willym wanted him. In this case on his knees in a tepid bath, swallowing Willym's hot piss.

That, at least, was how Kathyn understood it. For all he fancied himself worldly-wise, his knowledge was limited by his inherent innocence, which not even a boyhood in Sailortown had wholly shattered. Willym, for his part, took a perverse, breath-stealing pleasure in using his brother for a urinal.

He knew his brother would be baffled and disgusted if he spoke of it, so he didn't. But he revelled in it. Four years ago he'd never have believed his little Kath--so sweet, but oh so prissy--would let him get away with this, yet here he was, emptying his bladder into his big brother's face.

He pushed his cock deep into Kathyn's mouth, until he was pissing straight down his gullet. Then he pulled back a little, resting the head in Kath's tongue, making sure he could taste it. Squeezing his lips tight around his girth to make sure not a drop was wasted. He continued to ride his cocktip over his brother's tongue, fucking his brother's mouth full of piss. Fuck, this was dirty, and fuck, he loved it.

He hadn't taken a leak since the night before and felt he could piss for days. He could tell from his choking sounds and bulging eyes Kath was struggling to swallow it all down. Which, naturally, only turned him on more.

If someone had forced Willym to analyse it, it had probably started when he was nowt but a babe, when Kathyn was bathing him in the washtub, and wouldn't notice if some of the water splashing on him came from Willym and not the jug. It had started as a (to a three-year-old, hilarious) joke, but the only problem was, doing it started to make his little thing stand up, though at the time he didn't understand why, and then he couldn't pee anymore.

It took some concentration to force piss through a hard cock, but he'd had plenty of practice since then.

Early on his child's cunning had worked out an ingenious little wrinkle. The fact that even before he could walk he was getting little baby stiffies when Kathyn kissed or hugged him (Kathyn didn't believe anyone could remember back that far, but Willym did) and the fact that when it stood up the pee came out in a messy spray instead of a neat jet—together it meant this. One, when he used the dunny he often made a mess. Which, two, meant that Kathyn had to hold his willy to help him aim. Which, three, meant that when he held it, it got hard. Which, finally, meant that when it got hard, there was ample excuse for him to `miss' the potty and douse his brother instead. The only trouble with it was, it happened so often Kath refused to help him anymore.

His cock was stiffer now, but still bendy enough he could drive it right down Kathyn's throat until his nose was rammed into his navel, fancying he was pissing directly into his belly. He relished the feeling of Kathyn's wind-pipe (his piss-pipe, Willym had made it) fluttering and spasming around his length until he feared his love might faint, then pulled out, letting Kath take some air in (though even the very air he inhaled, Willym thought with a tender delight, must be wet and rank with his urine). He didn't stop pissing. He carried right on, letting the two-toned white and yellow stream wash over his brother's nose, forehead, cheeks, lips, eyes: all the lovely features on which he normally bestowed kisses, but was now bestowing his piss.

Without the constricting heat of Kathyn's throat his rudder got a bit droopy, but he made himself hard again by thinking about the very bad thing he'd done.

Willym had been as headstrong a child as he was a man, and despite how much he adored his brother, and how much his brother adored him right back, it had not been uncommon for Kath to have to scold him, even give him a hiding (though they were nothing to Mam's, and anyway, he'd enjoyed them, since he often got Kath to touch his goolies by accident, and he sometimes even got to rub himself against Kath until he came). But this had been the only time Kath had taken Mam's belt to him, and the only time Willym had ever been really, truly angry with his brother.

It was shortly after their Mam had gone to the great dungheap in the sky, or wherever they threw gutter-grade slags who'd whored themselves out of existence. Things had been tight with money, and tense between the two of them, and one day, smarting from a whipping such as he'd had often from his boozy trull of a mother, but never his gentle, patient brother and which, far, far worse than that, was entirely undeserved (for Kath was normally nothing if not just), he'd made his rage a pretext for a most delectably foul flavour of revenge.

That evening, in a show of contrition, he'd brought Kath his sleepy medicine dissolved in warm honey tea—with five times the usual dose.

Once Kath was passed out on the pillows he'd wasted no time in shucking off his britches, cramming his pintle between his brother's soft, slack lips and pissing down his throat till he'd thrown up. He'd been afraid after that and hadn't dared do it again--afraid of choking his brother with his piss. He'd been thirteen--that was the only excuse for it. Thirteen and scarce able to believe he could actually do the things he'd always wanted to do to his big brother, and his big brother would let him. Thirteen and still experimenting, still finding out exactly what his big brother would let him do. Thirteen and about to leave Highmouth for the first time in his life, maybe forever. Scared he'd never see him again, and wouldn't get the chance.

He'd taken the still-sleeping Kathyn in his arms (which even at thirteen he could do with ease) and carried him to the wash-pump to clean off the vomit. And while he was there (and since he still had plenty of piss left) he'd taken the opportunity to relieve himself in his arse. It was the first time he'd done that, and it felt so fucking good the last drops of his piss had been chased by the first shots of his spend.

He hadn't been able to do it since; Kathyn didn't take sleepy medicine anymore and besides, he couldn't go fouling the bed. But sometimes, when he was screwing deep and his bladder was full, it was so hard to hold back.

Right now, however, he didn't have to. He clenched inside his loins, turning up the pressure so that the golden stream really gushed, hitting Kathyn's face with a force that must have stung, from how he flinched.

He made sure to thoroughly soak his hair, which was already wet, but that didn't matter, only the glorious feeling of defilement. Some women washed their hair with lant, but Kath didn't like the smell. Much as a teenage Willym had tried to convince him it would save money if he just let him piss on it instead of buying expensive lotions...

You've no idea what self-control I have, dearling. Sometimes when you're scolding I want to whip it out and blast you in the face, just to see how you'd look. Sometimes I want to piss on everything you own, every scrap of clothing, and make you wear it wet and reeking. Sometimes I want to let you drink nothing else, not a drop of water that hasn't passed through my body. I want to wait till you're having tea with some fine ladies and come into the parlour and say, `Time for your piss, m'dear', and make you get on your knees and swallow it with them watching. I want to make you carry it in your belly wherever you go. I'd cut a hole in your dresses so everyone can see it, round and full like a puff-fish, training for the baby I'm goin t'give you...

At this he stopped cold. The warm flow dried up. Kathyn didn't want his baby. He'd told him so in terms too strong to be doubted.

He clenched his fists and tried to shake off the troubling recollection. He spoke, making his voice sure and steady. `Now wash yerself—and you're not to get fresh water, mind.'

Kathyn's hair was flat against his shoulders and he was making a miserable upside-down face, what Willym privately termed his blobfish face. It only made him want to pee on him again. Luckily for his brother, his bladder was completely drained.

He smiled down on his brother's misery, not missing that his tiny prickle was hard under the water. Nor the strangely clumpy soap-scum that was floating above it. `There's my good wee piss-slut.'

He walked away, tapping out the last droplets onto the densely-patterned rug. From now on, he decided, they would bathe together always. And if Willym just happened to have to take a leak at the same time, well, what were big brothers for? He continued to slowly drag down on his prick, imagining them together in the bath, imagining himself standing behind Kath, `accidentally' poking him with his wang. Crowding in close to him and just letting go, showering him in piss, pungent yellow fluid sluicing down his legs, spraying out of his bellybutton, splashing off his pert wrinkled nose...

Fuck, he was hard again. He'd have to find something of Kath's to come on.

 

There were a few smears of the postboy's spend on the envelopes. Kathyn was about to wipe it off, when instead he raised the packet to his mouth and quickly lapped it up instead. He was standing in the parlour by the door, finally out of the bath, dried and (mostly) dressed, with the cold bitter semen of a little boy on his tongue and a queasy feeling of mingled excitement and self-disgust still churning low in his gut.

He was aghast at himself for being so utterly filthy. He couldn't blame it all on Willye anymore. Sure, his brother may have begun it, but Kathyn had taken to perversion like...like a whore to cock. Or a bitch to piss.

He put a hand down between his legs, crumpling linen between his bare thighs. Willym was right. He was a slut.

There was a noise and he looked up to see Willym looking hard back at him.

He'd seen.

He trembled as Willym stalked toward him, saying nothing, eyes pits of dark fire. He cupped Kathyn's cheek and said, with a terrible tenderness, 'What am I going to do with you?'

Tears slid down Willym's palm and Willym licked them up, then licked all over Kathyn's face—his eyelids, the bridge of his nose, the hollows under his cheekbones, and finally over his mouth. Even when Kathyn parted his lips Willym continued to lick across them like a very serious puppy.

`It's all right, love. I told you I wasn't angry. I understand--you canna help it, no more than I can. It was me own fault for not getting a firm hand on ye sooner. Because you badly need it, don't you, love? Mayhaps I ought to spank thee everyday, just as a routine? What does thou think of that? A good dozen smacks to pink up thy puss every morn and night, just to keep thee chaste? Half that if thou can manage not to come from it.' He held Kathyn by the cocklet, pinching him to hardness, then pinching till it hurt. Kathyn clung to him, feeling his legs turned to treacle, his mind fuzzed as if with fever. His voice was scratchy from the abuse his throat had taken. `If you want, Willye. Anything you want, Willye. I just want to please you—just want...'

You. This. Always.

Willym looked at the letters Kathyn was holding, and his handsome face twisted with a kind of triumphant contempt. `That little shit-snipe. Ee'd've been up in yer, balls and all in alf a second if you'd given im more'n alf a chance. Did ee try?'

Kathyn couldn't lie, so he nodded.

`But you refused im.'

`Of course, Willye.' He said it slowly, reproachfully. `You know I wouldn't--'

`I know, love. I'm sorry. Yer not a slut—leastways not for anywight but me.' Suddenly he laughed. `Did you hear what he said? He thought I was a captain. Hah!' He looked childishly pleased by it.

Kathyn sank into an armchair, then half-rose again, feeling something underneath him. It was the dress Willym had torn in his haste to get it off. Automatically he moved to find the rip, assessing if he could repair it. It was in the bodice, and it wasn't bad. He settled back into the chair, wriggling automatically into a position where the knobby bits of the wood weren't digging through the padding into his back. He put the letters in his pocket and taking out his sewing case. Were things back to normal now? Just with a laugh? `Well, I suppose he wouldn't know, would he? One doesn't meet many captains. At least, not in the streets, like ordinary seaman. I suppose you must have, though.'

Willym's eyes lit up. `Better than that. I met a Rear-Admiral of the Black!' And then he was off.

It seemed Timyth was not the only enthusiast for the organisational minutiae of the Navy, though perhaps in his brother's case Kathyn ought to have expected it. He began to stitch up the rent, only half-listening as Willym babbled on about all the Grand High Tars and pedigree sea-dogs he'd exchanged handshakes or words or glances with or just breathed approximately the same air as.

`Did you meet Davy Jones?' Kathyn asked lightly when there was a break in the barrage of names and ranks.

The room blurred for a minute and when it rocked back into focus his face felt hot. Willym had hit him, and not lightly.

`You fool landlubbing bitch. Shut yer mouth if you've nowt to talk but idle prattle.'

Kathyn sat for a moment stunned into silence, as much by the savagery in his brother's voice as in the blow. Then disbelief turned to outrage. `Why! You'll take the Lord's name in vain, but you daren't men—'

`It's not the same. That—' Willym's face was pale as he struggled to articulate himself. `You don't name something like that unless you truly want to meet it. And you truly don't, Kath. Trust me. No man in his right mind would.'

`The Lord keeps His own, Willye. Those that serve Him need fear no other.'

`On land that may be true. I'd not know. But at sea's different. It's below, not above, you must look. You say Jesus can save us from the fires of hell, but could he save us from the waters of the abyss? You've seen the marks in the harbour, Kath. The same ones go right up the Sky-street. Even took a chunk out of the old Governor's manor. You can hide behind your walls and your shrubbery but you can't get away from it. Not far enough to be safe.'

What do you know of safety, little sailor boy, Kathyn thought. You've been at sea too long if you think she holds all there is to fear. `If they heard you talking like that in town you'd be hanged. No querelling about it. They'd take the house. I'd be transported to...Lord knows where. Or maybe you do.'

He looked down at his hands. His finger was throbbing where the needle had gone into it. Willym noticed and carefully pulled it out, then sucked Kathyn's finger until the bleeding stopped. But he didn't apologise.

His thimble was missing from his thumb, and he felt about for it. It had rolled under an end-table and when he pointed it out Willym dove to retrieve it. He came back to stand over Kathyn, and Kathyn held out his hand. But instead Willym pushed the gold-tipped white porcelain between his lips. It settled queerly on his tongue.

He felt all mixed up inside. He supposed if one was used to getting twelve of the best for the slightest infraction, a slap on the cheek meant less than nothing. But Kathyn wasn't used to it. Or rather, he was, and that was the problem. It was too much like Mam.

It was all turning out too much like that first week after Willym's thirteenth birthday, the week before he'd enlisted as a ship's boy, when the newmade man had taken his newgrown cock in hand and made it clear how things were going to be between them from thereonout. The week they had finally, fully become brother and wife. There had been many tears that week. There was only one way of a man with a maid in Highmouth and it wasn't with flowers or rings or soft wooing.

Willym's line of thought at that time (or any time) was not very elaborate. He had known that he was going away and leaving Kathyn behind, and alarmed by some of the attentions that neighbours and members of the congregation had been wont to pay his sibling--filled with terrifying visions of himself arriving home only to find Kathyn shacked up with some other man, he had resolved on the necessity of impressing on his elder brother and worshipped guardian in the most unambiguous terms that there wasn't going to be none of that nonsense and that if Kath was going to take any man as mate it would damn well be him. And he knew no better way of ensuring Kathyn got the message in a way he was not likely to forget than by keeping his manhood inside him for the better part of a week, until the tears had dried up and Kathyn was quiet and submissive and loving as the wife he was made to be. Almost the only words Willym had said that week were to tell Kathyn how much he loved him, in-between fucking him like an animal and occasionally beating him if he fought too much or talked back. And he had achieved his aim. With his prick in Kathyn's womb and his voice in Kathyn's head Willym had carved out a hollow space inside him, which from then on only he could fill.

As hard as it had been at the time, in hindsight Kathyn saw how it was needful. He could never have made the leap from just brothers to all they were now, from sharing a bed to sharing all that was done in bed, had Willym not made it for him. It was not the wanting that was the problem, but the making it into more, drawing reality out of the deep well of desire. Kathyn lived too much in memory, and in dreams. Willym's memories were hateful to him, and he dreamt only of Kathyn.

But that night, Willym did not dream of his brother.

Instead, he found himself standing in the crow's nest of the tallest mast he'd ever climbed, so high the deck of the ship below was lost amid the billows of the wild sea. There came blowing from the west a wind that seemed to carry a voice calling his name. But when he woke up Kathyn was curled away from him, sound asleep.

Willym took hold of the hem of Kath's nightie and held onto it, the way he had when a wee sprat wanting his brother's attention, or just to make sure he wouldn't leave him alone. But in the end 'twas I who left thee, my sweet, my loveling, my only and own. Oh, and en't I sorry for it every day I'm alive. But t'won't be much longer. I shall not leave thee again.

He shifted around to get comfortable—the blasted soft mattress was like a pudding, and he, being heavier than Kath by near a hundredweight, felt the springs digging into his shoulder-blades and hips. He didn't let go of Kath's nightie. He was stiff as a pikestaff; couldn't help being when Kath was in the same room, but it didn't want anything doing, not just then. Just having Kath beside him was enough.

He turned over on his side, so he could see his love and breathe in his scent, which was of the lavender he used to pack his clothes and bedding, and the rosemary he used to wash his hair, and his own gorgeous smell, mixed in with a little of Willym's come. But just that little was enough to make Willym want to spew it all over him until he reeked of it. He reached down and gently, gently lifted one of Kath's soft, soft thighs, and tucked his manhood between—just tucked, not fucked; it would have been sacrilege to disturb that slumber—and nosed into the spot where Kath's hair tumbled down onto the pillow. He thought that just then that little patch of white freckled skin at the nape of Kath's neck was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, the most beautiful thing there had ever been since God made the world and called it good. He had wondered often, ever since as a boy he had started noticing what the preacher was saying and not just how Kath looked while he was saying it, how that could be—how such a world as this could be good, with its everyday horror and heartache. He no longer wondered. He knew now. It was good because Kath was in it. And he reckoned so long as about once every hundred years a soul like Kath's was dropped to earth down the golden chain on which it hung from the side of heaven, the whole stinking cesspool of creation was just about worth its weight.

Kath squirmed a bit—not waking, but threatening to make Willym break his resolve to leave the sex be for the night.

`Do you know what you do to me?' he whispered, even though he knew it was a silly question. Of course his dearling didn't—how could he? He was asleep. And yet part of him couldn't help feeling that his sweet little chaste slut of a wife was doing it on purpose, even while he was sleeping; that there was a part of him that wanted Willym to rouse him from slumber with eleven inches of bowel-breaking, cunt-destroying cock, to rip him up and pound him through the floor.

And dear God Willym wanted to. The need was never not on him, but just now he was trembling with it. Every second he didn't have his prick buried in the lush heat of Kath's cunt seemed like one wasted. Especially since there was no knowing how long the storm would last.

Kathyn mumbled a little, and his legs shifted apart, chafing over Willym's erection as if trying to spark a fire from it. And spark a fire it did, boiling in Willym's gut and blazing up his throat till he wondered his breath didn't come out steam. Nothing could have held him back from ravaging his sweetheart now. He pulled Kath hard against him and set his teeth to his neck. Kath squirmed more violently, fat, pillowy thighs alternately rubbing back and forth, then squeezing together—altogether giving a sensation so delightful it produced a sort of pre-climax and a veritable flood of pre-come.

Even in sleep his love knew just what to do. And so did Willym.

Slowly, worshipfully, Willym put a hand on Kathyn's side and started to rub his cock between his dearling's thighs, prodding at the soft crease of his taint, rutting ecstatically into the luscious, maddening heat. He knew Kath was self-conscious about how big they were, but to Willym they were perfect, as every last piece of him was perfect, and lovely surpassing the power of poets to sing.

He didn't have to worry about being quiet; with Kath's hearing he could sleep through a catfight. It was so hard to be gentle, though. Not because he didn't feel tenderly toward his Kath, but because fucking always brought out his animal side, no matter what he felt.

The cushiony plushness of Kath's thighs was almost as good as the clamping slipperiness of his arse, once slickened with sweat and pre-fuck. Willym counted out exactly twenty brusque strokes before his balls were drawing up, preparing to disgorge their creamy cargo.

Thrusting right through, he pushed the swelling head up into Kath's nightie and came there, each spurt not shooting out the way it normally did, but sort of bubbling as the ropy fluid seeped through the thin fabric.

He panted and puffed against Kath's neck, straining to hear if his love was awake.

Kath sighed—Willym would swear happily, and mumbled something, half-into the duvet. He craned his neck to peer at his face, but his eyes were still closed, and his features slack. Willym relaxed. He was still asleep—talking in his sleep, just when Willym thought he couldn't get more adorable.

He put his ear by his brother's, straining to catch the words. `What is it, sweet love?' he whispered, each syllable a kiss to the corner of his beloved's mouth.

`Willye...Willye...love you...'

Willym stopped breathing, and held his heart very still to keep it from bursting for happiness.