3rd March 1103

Garald looked up with a start as his wife clomped into the King’s study. Her dark tresses were tousled, cheeks flushed, her green eyes wild.

“Nyawe,” he stammered with a tentative smile, rising to his feet, “this is a surprise, is there something I can do for you?”

His heart galloped in a sort of crazed excitement, it had been so long since she had paid him any heed whatsoever. Of course that was his own fault, but still, he couldn’t control the way his soul cantered and leaped to find her here.

She stared at him, her dark eyes growing suddenly angry, face rearing up into a scowl.

“You certainly can Garald. You can tell me who the dirty slut you’ve been sleeping with behind my back is so I can claw her roving eyes out!”

“What?!” he cried in shock, all his composure leaving him, “What… what are you talking about?! I haven’t slept with anyone but you… and not even you for many months now.”

“But… I don’t believe it,” she wavered, her face as confused as he imagined his was, “but you were doing penance for so long. I thought… I thought you must have had an affair…”

“Why would you think that,” he gasped in shock, “you… you know what I did. Why I had to do penance.”

She shook her head in confusion, tendrils of dark hair escaping and falling in front of her eyes.

“Will you make me say it? It was because of… you know… what I did to you. The priest said I must abstain for one month. But if you would just forgive me Nyawe I… I won’t treat you so again.”

“What did you do Garald?” she asked looking suspicious again, “I don’t know what it is you have done so how can I know if I should forgive you? Are you sure you haven’t been seeing other women?”

“Nyawe,” he mumbled, his cheeks flaring a bright and painful red with shame, “you know. It’s because… because I raped you.”

“What?! When?! Was I asleep?!” she cried in consternation, blowing an errant curl from her brow with pouting lips.

“I… I don’t think so. You… you cried out. Because I hurt you.”

She stared at him in shock, could it be that she did not even remember what he had done? Had it been so terrible she had blanked it out?

“Garald you goose, I was crying out in pleasure not pain. Do you think if I had really wanted you to stop I wouldn’t have done something about it?”

“But… but you said no, and I… I hurt you… I know I did.”

He didn’t understand, he had been so sure of the wrong he had done to her. Could it be these last months of agony and shame were nothing but a misunderstanding.

“At first a bit, but then it… it was exactly what I needed Garald. Have you really been walking around these last three months thinking you raped me?”

“Well you thought I was sleeping with someone else.”

They stared at each other awkwardly. Garald’s palms were going sweaty in the stuffy room, his tunic sticking uncomfortably to his prickling back. She must have been sweltering in her riding cloak. Her skin was dewy and pink, her startled, green eyes staring into his own. Strands of sable hair were plastered to her hot skin.

All of a sudden she launched herself at him, knocking him back against the table with a resounding thud. His nostrils were filled with the heady smell of animal sweat and beneath the intoxicating scent of her hot skin rising from the woollen material of her cloak. Her mouth was upon his, hungry, insatiable so he found himself panting for breath as his head turned this way and that to meet her ravenous kisses. He was growing unbearably hard, pressing against the warm curve of her thigh for some meagre relief.

The King’s desk dug painfully into the muscles of his buttocks. The King’s desk! He pulled hurriedly away from his wife.

“Hello,” he said with an uncomfortable chuckle.

“What seems to be the problem?” she purred, rubbing against the front of him like a soft, dark cat.

“Uh… we’re… in the King’s study,” he replied, glancing furtively around expecting His Majesty himself to walk in at any moment. Of course, he was out at sword practice…

“Are you going to let that stop you,” she growled, the warm swell of her thigh bumping against him so he could not suppress an errant groan.

His whole life had been about stopping, not taking what he truly wanted because that would have been a sin. If the cake looked delicious he could only sit and stare because gluttony was the cardinal vice of children. When the first sprigs of his downy adolescent beard appeared he shaved in an icy bucket of water, nicking himself for want of a mirror because gazing too long would have left him prey to pernicious vanity. And lust… well wasn’t lust the worst of all.

He grabbed his wife suddenly, so she squealed and swung her around until her round ass was perched on the table edge.

Fumbling frantically he found the hem of her skirt, all the while his lips on her neck, her collarbone, the salty tang of her sweat mingling with horsey scent in his nostrils so that he felt dizzy. He ruched her skirt up, over the deliciously round calf, over the firm swell of her thighs, up around her waist. He felt her hands reaching down to grapple with his belt, yanking up his tunic, scrabbling with his leggings until he was exposed, throbbing in the warm air of the room.

With a shuddering groan he slid inside her slamming her against the desk, the candlestick beside them threatening to topple as the flame shivered and danced.

All his life he had done as he was told, never giving into temptation, doing what his mother said was the right thing. And now here he was fucking his wife on the desk of his King while the books slid one by one to the floor beside her booted feet. He had never felt so alive, bewildered by the taste of her mouth, dazed by the musky smell of her skin, spiralling out of control till all that was left was his body and hers and the rhythmic shaking of the wooden table like a bark bound branch quivering in the wind.

His heart was cantering out of control, capricious as a giddy foal, unsteady on trembling legs. He heard her cry out but it was far, far away. He sped towards her, bolting headlong through the acres that separated them till he was careening on the brink and with a shuddering moan he let himself fall.

They hung together for a long moment, panting and breathless and then Nyawe fell against him with a sigh. She gently nuzzled his neck, her face warm and wet against him.

“I can’t believe we just did that,” he murmured unable to stop himself from grinning.

“Mmmhmmm.”

“On the King’s desk!”

“Mmmhmmm.”

“Nyawe?”

“Mmmm, what is it?” her tousled head peeked up from his shoulder, her green eyes soft and warm.

“Do you think… can we do it again sometime?”