The Consummation

Scotland: 1557

Colin slept little. When he woke, he found that Margarete had moved away from him and turned over. He saw by the single candle left burning that her eyes were open, she was watching him. They lay for some time facing one another. Like him, she was thinking that the consummation of their marriage must come soon, but the news of her brother's coming visit had deepened her passivity. She had thought that sexual relations would be the means by which she would secure Colin's good will, and his receptivity to her brothers' requests. Now, she felt an angry indifference to the success of her brother's plans. At the same time, she experienced a powerful desire to seize control of her circumstances by beginning that part of her married life that was as yet un-tasted. The two impulses swirled confusingly inside her, leaving her inert, immobilized, but alert and waiting.

Colin's implacable grey eyes stared intently into her wide brown ones. Not for the first time, he thought that her eyes had something of the woodland animal in them. Gazing deeply and long into them, he read there her turmoil, but more, he saw her passive expectancy, perhaps even impatience.

He felt an idea emerge fully formed in his mind. "I see that you do not sleep," he said softly. "Very soon it will be dawn. I would like to go riding out with you and greet the new day together as husband and wife."

His words and tone carried an intensity that she felt in her belly. She had the vague sense of his intent, and was willing, in her desperate confusion and longing for clarity, to follow him. "Yes," she said simply, and he smiled. He rose on an elbow, leaned forward, and kissed her softly on her lips.

Not lingering, he rose from bed. She followed him, and together, they made their various preparations for an early ride. She felt dazed and bleary from lack of sleep, and paid little attention to what he did as she pulled on riding clothes.

Walking softly so as not to rouse any of the serving folk, they passed lightly through the great hall, Colin pausing to retrieve bread and cheese from one of the tables. He peered about, looking for Fen, his dog. He saw him sleeping off to one side of the hall, and guided Margarete carefully and quietly to keep well away so as not to wake him. He felt a tiny stab of guilt at deceiving a friend, but he did not want Fen's excitement to wake others, human and K9, who slept.

They emerged into the calm softness of predawn. In the stable, all was quiet. Margarete sat on a bale of hay while Colin saddled and bridled two horses. Still without speaking, she took the reins of the grey mare she had ridden on their first ride together, the morning after their wedding, and led her out into the stable yard.

Once they were mounted, Margarete allowed her horse to follow Colin's. He led them out of the courtyard. Unsurprised, Margarete found that they were headed in the same direction they had taken before. The air was deliciously cool and refreshing. She felt greatly revived to be out of doors and riding. There was something exhilarating about being abroad so early. The sky was just beginning to lighten in the east, but no one else was about yet. The stillness and solitude seemed to bring tranquility to her troubled thoughts. There was no resolution, but there was peace.

This time, their horses remained side-by-side as they passed through the fields. As the light grew, they became more able to see one another. Margarete smiled broadly to her husband, saying nothing, but conscious of a growing excitement. She felt sure she knew what was to come, and she welcomed it eagerly but patiently.

Feeling no impulse to tax themselves or their horses, they rode up the last hill at a walk. They had exchanged no words since leaving their chamber, it seemed unnecessary, even somehow inappropriate. They moved through the denser darkness of the pines until they came to the clearing. He dismounted first, and she waited for him to help her down.

When he set her feet on the ground, he did not release her, but held her in his arms and kissed her gently on her cheeks, her forehead, then her lips. He pulled back slightly and stroked her cheek. "I have not yet told you this," he said softly, "But you are very beautiful, and I feel that fortune could not have furnished me a more pleasing bride." She smiled into his eyes. "I thank you my husband. Believe me when I say that my distress is not because I am unhappy here."

He felt that there was more which she chose not to say, but he believed her words. "I wish to ask you a question, and I beg you to tell me the truth with no thought for sparing my feelings." She nodded, and he trusted her integrity not to deceive him.

"Do you fear to lie with me?"

She held his gaze steadily and said, "No, I do not. On our wedding night, then I had great fear, but no longer. You have been gentle with me and kind to me, and I crave to be your wife in truth, not only in words. I do not fear it."

His grey eyes had seemed unreadable to her, as obscure as the grey skies of his country, but now, his emotion was plain for her to see there; he was relieved, glad, and eager as she. A slow smile of great satisfaction and anticipation spread across his face.

She had put her arms loosely around him, and now she began to touch him shyly with her hands, curious to learn the feel of his strong body, till now only seen and imagined. After only a short time of this, he drew gently away. He retrieved a water skin from his saddle. "There is a clear stream yonder. Will you go and fill this for us?" His request was oddly formal and deferential. Feeling no impatience, fully willing to let him lead them into this mystery, she took the skin from his hand, and moved gracefully away toward the stream. He watched her with admiration and desire, then turned to his own task.

When she returned with the skin full of cool water, she sat herself down on a fallen log to watch his preparations. He was arranging four thick, long, heavy fallen branches into a rectangular formation. When he had done this, he began scooping up arm-fulls of needles and grasses, and depositing them inside it.

The sun was beginning to rise. The grove was rich with early bird song. The air was alive with the scents of a wood in early morning. All of her senses felt stimulated, and she sat content, but also full of eager anticipation.

When the makeshift bed was piled high with grasses and needles, Colin retrieved a large blanket he had slung over the back of his saddle. He flung it atop the pile, then turned to her.

"I have made a marriage bed for you," he said, his eyes twinkling. He held out his hands to her, and, taking them in hers, she rose to stand before him. She was infinitely glad that he had intuitively understood how alienating the bed in their chamber felt to her. How fortunate she thought, to be wedded to a man who would do this, who would instinctively know how much calmer and more natural she felt here among the beneficent trees. She wanted to say so but could not speak. She tried to tell him with her eyes.

"And now," he said playfully, "I will tell you some truth. I want to divest you of every thread of clothing you ware, to see you gloriously naked in the sunrise, and to begin our life together properly."

She smiled up at him trustingly as he undid the tie binding her braid, and fanned her hair about her shoulders. "You also," she breathed eagerly, "I have a great desire to see your body clearly in daylight." It felt good to speak this desire aloud, and to see the answering gratification in his face.

Slowly, they undressed one another. He marveled to find that she had no overwhelming modesty to inhibit her from being naked with him in the dawn light of this clear, still morning. He knew well that she was not brazen or careless in her conduct. He was her husband, and they were completely alone, but he knew many women would balk at such a venture. Margarete's ease with such behavior was born of long physical intimacy with Lise, which had taught her confidence and enjoyment of her body. To Colin, however, who knew her to be virgin, this ease was another facet of the growing fascination and delight she roused in him.

Margarete gazed at his emerging nakedness with shy curiosity and pleasure. How different a man's body was. His life was an active one, and his body showed it. Her eyes rested on the unfamiliar planes and angles, the defined musculature, the obvious strength of limb, yet how gently he touched her.

She stood still, content with docility, while he ran his hands and deliberate restraint, over her bare shoulders, her soft breasts, warm belly, rounded hips, graceful legs, soft, fragile arms. She held his eyes, her own dilating with pleasure at his touch. Finally, it was she who moved closer to him, put her arms around him and raised her face for his kiss.

Their lips met, not in a passing caress now, but with deep intensity. She felt the familiar hunger rising inside her, but there was an added element that was new to her. Arousal, enjoyment, fulfillment were known to her, but holding herself against her husband, she experienced something deep and instinctive. It was difficult for her to define it to herself, consumed as she was by it. It was related to his scent, his size, his very masculinity. She was accustomed to the feeling of receptivity, but she felt a new urgency in her belly. She knew that he would enter her, not with a tongue or careful fingertip as Lise had so often done, but with the essence of his maleness, that part of him that was the seat of his own desire, that part of him that could give her a child. She felt a deep yearning almost like pain inside herself. Lise had always exercised great care to protect her so that her husband would find her intact. Now, pushing her body against Colin's, opening her mouth eagerly to his kiss, she longed to be opened between her legs also. She moaned unrestrainedly into his mouth. She reached her arms tightly around him, pulling him fiercely against her. The first sight of his penis had been startling. She felt a vague wonder that all of that expanse of firm flesh could be accommodated inside her, but she had surrendered herself fully to the experience, and knew only the most passing of apprehension. It was as it should be. This was her husband, and she longed to possess him fully.

She opened her eyes, and looked dazedly up into his. To her wonder, she saw that his eyes, normally so impassive and controlled, were glazed over with a kind of delirium. She reveled in knowing that it was she who had brought about this transformation. As his hands grew more firm and commanding on her flesh, she supposed that her eyes must look the same to him.

She wanted to speak, to beg him to end her torment and lay her down, enter her; but she would not. She felt utterly overwhelmed, and wished to be carried, as though by a powerful and beneficent river. She trusted him fully to act in the right way.

He picked her up and carried her to the bed he had made. He knelt over her, breathing out her name huskily. She felt no need to answer in words. She lay utterly consumed by delight, gazing ecstatically up at the tall canopy of trees while he kissed her all over her body with growing hunger. Her wide eyes were filled with trees and sky, beneath her, the grasses and needles cushioned her on the fertile ground that spread out to make the forest floor. Flooded with exhilaration, she sent out her gratitude to the trees, the sky, the ground.

When he took her nipple into his mouth for the first time, she cried out with the shock of pleasure. Briefly unsure, he made to move away wondering if he had hurt her, but she clasped him fiercely, pulling him back, having no words to tell him. He understood.

When he at last laid on top of her, she let out a gusty sigh of relief. She wound her arms about his back, holding him to her, eagerly seeking his lips. Still he did not enter her. With practiced grace, he moved his hips against hers so that his hard cock rubbed back and forth along her moist lips. With each movement, she gasped and sighed deeply. Still she would not urge him with words. Instead, she spread her thighs as wide apart as she could, opening herself fully to him, inviting and eager.

He felt dizzy with the effort of restraint, but more than anything, he wished to minimize the pain for her first time, to make this an experience that would stimulate her hunger for more, not alarm her or break the spell of her pleasure. He allowed the tip of his penis to press gently between her inner lips, moving in small, careful movements, entering her with infinite slowness.

She had gone utterly still, her breath loud and ragged, eager, but watchful. Each time he pushed a little further inside her, he bent and kissed her parted lips. Once, he pushed his tongue into her mouth, but withdrew it hastily, knowing he would lose his careful control. Slowly, slowly, he pushed past the barrier of her virginity. There was a brief sharp pain, but it was not of a character to interfere with the tide upon which she was being carried.

Finally, he was fully inside her. Once she realized this, she smiled with relief and pleasure and surprise. Very carefully, she moved her hips against him experimentally. The sensation of his flesh inside her, shifting most intimately against her flesh as she moved, was unbelievably exciting. The pleasure was so acute that it was like pain, and she wasn't sure which was which. If there was pain, it was a pain she embraced in a way she couldn't have imagined.

He continued to move with great care until he felt that she had grown somewhat accustomed to it, until he was sure that she was past the most potentially painful part of her initiation.

Being past his first youth, he could truly savor the delight of introducing a woman to the pleasure of physical intimacy. It took great self-discipline, but he began now to move more rhythmically. His movements were still slow, but now they were continuous and even. As she felt her inner walls spreading, opening, stretching wonderfully to accommodate him, the rhythm of his slow thrusts utterly consumed her. She felt that, should he stop, she would die. At the same time, she felt that if he continued, the intensity of her ecstasy would be the end of her. At the end of each thrust, when he was at last fully inside her, she let out an almost anguished cry. Beneath his gaze, her face was deeply flushed, her mouth open and slack with a kind of incredulity that added fuel to his lust. The slow movements went on for a long, unmeasured time. Finally, she tried to catch her breath to speak.

"I feel that if this continues, I will parish, or be consumed!" Her voice was horse with passion.

"Fortunately for you," he said grinning, "I know the remedy." Leaning all his weight on one hand, he brought the fingers of his other hand to her swollen clitoris. He expected that the novelty of such a touch would require several minutes, or possibly many attempts, to achieve his intent. To his surprise, her hips rose eagerly to his hand, accepting his touch as naturally as a woman of much experience. Marveling anew at her unexpected depths, he watched delightedly as her body vibrated, and she reached a shuddering peak of pleasure beneath his touch. Her mouth was wide open, her cries of fulfillment loud and uninhibited in the quiet morning. At their very pinnacle, the cries became almost a shout. As her peak was achieved, he let go his self-control slightly, and began to move inside her with increased urgency. When her own spasms had begun to subside, she became more aware of the change, and to understand what it signified. She looked up into his face, suddenly eager to give back to him something of what he had given her. She did not know how to do this, but could think only of moving from passivity into activity, to show him her eagerness. Overwhelmed though she was by her own experience, she shifted herself, raised her knees, tried to embrace him with her legs, to encourage him in his pleasure.

As he began to move more quickly, a subtle shift occurred for her. Thus far, she had been focused on her own sensations. Now, in shifting her attention more to his, she felt an intensifying awareness of the masculine nature of his sexuality. She had a strange sense of herself as damp, fertile ground, and of him as a strong seed driving down into her, giving life to her, receiving life from her. She experienced an intense need for him to spill himself into her. She cried out again and again with each thrust, desperate to feel the completion of his completion.

When it came, she stared fiercely into his face, drinking in its total self-absorption, its utter transformation, the knowledge that her fertile, eager body had brought about this miraculous moment for him. As he spilled himself into her, she grunted as he did, feeling a satisfaction as deep, though different, from that which she had experienced a few minutes before.

When he would have moved off of her, she clasped him tightly with arms and legs, not letting him go. It seemed essential to her that he not withdraw. The weight of his body on hers, all the places where their bodies touched had become the centre of the universe. Surely, she thought in awe, surely this intimacy was at the heart of the world. She marveled that the ecstasy they had shared was the means by which their child would be conceived. Even now, a new life might be beginning inside her.

Though the height of their passion had passed, she continued to let out soft cries of wonder and delight as she held him against her, unwilling to allow his penis to leave her body.

Her eyes were still filled with the watching trees, the broad sky. When finally she allowed him to move a little away from her, she shifted her gaze to his face and found his eyes curious and expectant. He saw that hers were overflowing with wonder and bliss. He smiled.

"Now you are truly my wife," he said with deep satisfaction.

She raised her hand to touch his cheek. "Oh my husband, I could not have imagined this."

"And the best part of being wed," he said playfully, "Is that we may do this over and over again, as many times as we might wish, and with endless variation that you likewise cannot imagine."

She clasped him to her with renewed vigor, and let out a peal of giddy laughter. "Oh, how shall we ever work or eat or sleep or comport ourselves in company when this delight beckons us?"

In a burst of exuberance, he lifted her, turned himself, and pulled her on top of him. She squealed at the sudden burst of movement, then draped her body readily over his. She covered his face with hard, quick, eager kisses. "What fun we shall have! May we do it again immediately?"

"Ah no," he sighed, patting her bottom fondly. "Men are made such that we require rest between times."

"How much rest?" She took his earlobe between her teeth.

"More rest than you seem inclined to allow me," he answered, rolling sideways so that they lay facing one another, "And perhaps some food and drink as well."

She ran her hand up and down his back, delighting in the feel of him, consumed with the memory of his body straining in the paroxysm of his pleasure as he poured his seed into her. "What a marvel," she said with great contentment.

They lay thus for some time, then he said, "Are you not hungry? I must eat if you wish me to offer you such attentions again." She allowed him to slip from under her hand, but kept her eyes fascinned on him as he went to his saddle bags and retrieved the food he had brought. She loved to watch his body, moving with powerful ease against the deep green of the forest. She stretched, feeling like a female wildcat possessively surveying its pray.

He sat down beside her, chewing energetically on a chunk of bread, then drinking deeply from the water skin. "Will you eat?" he asked. When she did not reply, but simply lay gazing at him with happy eyes, he held a piece of bread to her lips. More out of sensual enjoyment in taking food from his fingers than out of hunger, she took the bread into her mouth and chewed slowly. He gazed down at her with intense satisfaction. Dappled sunlight was coming through the pine boughs, and played over her pale skin. He had paused in his meal, and she said, "Does something trouble you?'