1st January 1103

“Aww Kelgar… yer that much better than that husband of mine yew are,” Taebeth brayed, her ugly mouth stretched wide, her porridge-coloured skin flushed with pleasure.

“Fer God’s sake Tae, will yew shut your mouth or I’ll find something more useful for it to be doing,” Kelgar growled playfully.

His tone may have been cheerful but he meant it. He really wanted the nattering bint to just shut up and get the job done. All that yammering, he couldn’t concentrate and the fun had gone out of this encounter before it had barely begun.

“But Kelgar…mmphf,” he kissed her soundly desperate to stop the constant stream of praises and observations coming from between her buck teeth. Now she could only moan.

With a groan he finished, shuddering for a moment, then rolling off her. She sighed softly, briefly silent, her lanky body spreadeagled in the hay. The she sat up, the bale rustling and shifting beneath her bare skin as she began to look for the hastily removed articles of clothing.

Kelgar sank back against the bale, shreds of hay scratching and itching at his sticky skin. Though his body’s desperate need was sated he did not feel the usual relief. He was not satisfied.

“Well Kelgar, I certainly wasn’t expectin’ yew again after all this time. Though yew’d grown sick of me I did. But I hoped yew’d come back to yer good ole reliable Taebeth. I did.”

She was fumbling around on the clay floor as she spoke and he watched her pale back, her sheaf of limp, greasy hair straggling down, her scrawny boyish waist twisting this way and that as she bent towards the floor. She was possibly the most unappealing creature on the island but she was always available for a good root. Kelgar conceded she did have certain talents in that department. Plus, her husband was a brute who treated her terribly so giving poor Taebeth a good roll in the hay so to speak always felt like a civic duty of sorts.

He had to admit that in the past he had thoroughly enjoyed the times he’d spent with her but something was wrong now. Nothing was making him happy. He shifted his weight, retrieving a piece of hay that had found its way to a very uncivilzed place. He didn’t know what he wanted. He thought it was Lyiss but that hadn’t worked and he found himself disinclined to lend any more effort for the cause. He thought it was a good screw but now he was more unsatisfied than ever.

“Well ain’t yew goin’ to get up off that hairy, white butt of yers an’ help me with my bodice lazy.”

She was staring down at him, her body half-lit by the watery, winter light dribbling through the window panes. In the gloom he could make out the deep bruise circling her right eye. Her husband had knocked her a good one. Though if his wife was such an open-legged slut he might have done the same. Still, Taebeth probably wouldn’t have such an insatiable need for men not her husband if he hadn’t been such a obese, stinking lout with a foul temper to boot.

“Arright then,” he mumbled, heaving himself from the rustling bale, brushing off stray pieces of hay that were tangled in his the curly chairs on his chest and between his legs.

Gently he drew the two sides of the bodice together careful not to brush against the dark bruises that were blooming there like dark flowers, hidden by the drooping curtain of her vine-like hair. He looped the ribbon in and out, tying neat rows of bows. He did not want her husband to see that anything was amiss. Poor girl. He tenderly stroked her shoulders when he had finished, feeling her tremble at this kind touch.

She wriggled ungracefully into her tattered, food-stained dress then spun to face him.

“Well, ain’t yew goin’ to give me a kiss,” she was smiling, her mouth stretched wide, her dull eyes gleaming in the darkness.

What else did she have? He drew her close and kissed her. He kissed softly as he imagined her husband never did. He held her tight in his arms but his heart wasn’t in it. There was no way he would let her know that though. For one moment she would be kissing a man who wanted her, who desired who. He wouldn’t let her know the difference.