Of Castles & Curses & Unfaithful Wives

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

May, the season was spectacular with wide-open cornflower skies set against the green of the English countryside. Erin and Curtis turned in their train tickets and rented a car. Close to the ground, the top down, the small MG careened easily down the narrow pathways as they drove north from London through a dozen villages. Erin stopped three times to look at flowers, bought dozens of seeds and a couple of small plantings that Curtis assured her would not last until they got to her castle. She was determined otherwise, making a space for them behind the seat where they were protected from the wind.

They drove until the afternoon shadows were making the world around them glow mellow. Then they stopped at a small inn in a typically quaint English village to spend the night.

“You’re looking more relaxed than I’ve ever seen you,” Curtis remarked seeing her step fresh from the shower, still dripping.

“I am. I can already feel this isle getting into all those cloudy places in me. Like a feather duster whisking away the cobwebs. I’m actually thinking of a story I’d like to write, and there’s so much countryside to paint. I don’t think I’ll ever want for things to do.

He smiled to see her happy. Her voluptuous full breasts swung against her torso. Full hips, firm thighs and then that delicious moist pouch were enough for him to suggest that they eat in.

“You’d think we’ve never had s*x,” she declared. Curtis was behind her then, his hands over her breasts, squeezing the n*****s until they hurt. “Oooch! You’re a beast.”

“And you’re a brazen hussy.”

He gave her ass a good swack with the palm of his hand. “Ow, bastard.”

“I like you fiery,” he exclaimed. “Oh my, I like seeing my fingers on your ass.”

“You can’t see them, can you?” She bolted for the mirror in the bath, and confirmed the worst. There on her naked behind she could see the imprint of his hand, fingers, palm and all. But the worst had not yet occurred. Curtis, getting some inspiration from her testy retorts, took her over his arm and began spanking her butt with an enthusiasm that quickly raised a bright blush of red on her bottom cheeks.

“Stop it, Curtis!” she wailed.

“No. I like this too much.”

Just a few smacks more and she wriggled away, flew to the bed and plopped down bottom first on the comforter.

“Don’t you do that again,” she exclaimed.

“Get you too excited?” he asked.

“It did not,” she decided emphatically.

“Humph,” was his answer and he sauntered toward the bath.

“Don’t you walk away from me,” she declared.

“And why not?” he asked turning back.

“Because you got me so hot I want to fuck.”

“No dinner?”

“Dinner later.” He leaned over her and she drew him into her arms, opening wide her thighs. She relished the feel of his rising erection, as his hands mauled her breasts. He slapped them too, but she wasn’t minding that, or anything rough. Rough was a good way to have s*x if she sort of slipped into the excitement of it without really thinking about what he was doing.

They came fast, recouped fast and decided then to eat out, in the pub below their room.

­***

In a land where castles dot the countryside and send the mind easily reeling back in time, Erin was caught up in the romance, diving almost desperately into the past. Perhaps a good cure for grief. Curtis hardly minded. Even the sudden bouts of tears and gloom seemed to put her in a mood for s*x, the one thing that healed the hurt better than anything. Better than talking. Better than walks in the countryside. Better than a robust meal and glass of ale. Those helped too, but this grief had a distinctly physical aspect.

What Curtis didn’t expect was the dream the night before they arrived at Longmore Castle.

“Oh, god no!” he heard Erin cry. She bolted upright in bed clutching her throat, a tiny gasp all that came after her first sob.

“What’s wrong?” he said, pulling himself from a sound sleep. He held her around her shoulders, let her lean her head into his chest, and felt her slowly relax.

“I don’t know. A nightmare, I guess. I was trying to pull away but I was caught by something … my clothes maybe … something binding me and I couldn’t break free.”

She was terrified, and all he could do was stroke her head and kiss her lightly and murmur, “it’s all right darling, you’re safe.”

It wasn’t her safety she was unsure of, it was his, but she couldn’t tell him. Then too, it was just a dream, and to her dreams were strange lands where nothing is what it’s suppose to be.

They fell back against the sheets and slept in each other’s arms until dawn.

For Curtis the night was unsettling, but he was cheery and all smiles the next day. So was Erin. They were going to see her castle, and it was easy to push the midnight rattlings of her muddled brain aside for more pleasant thoughts.

­***

They saw it first from a distance. A winding road would take them to the summit of a hill where the castle stood. But from their vantage point some half mile away, that initial glimpse of her inheritance made the hair on the back of Erin’s neck stand on end. It all seemed so familiar—the landscape and the imposing castle structure. She could hear the past in the back of her mind, as if she’d been transported back in time. But then that eerie feeling vanished, swept away by a stiff breeze that cleared her mind of that ancient melancholy.

A wall of battlements broken over with age surrounded the castle. It seemed massive by comparison to houses, but it was small in comparison to other castles. Built of gray stones, it was clear to see that there had been many renovations over the long years of its existence. Most recently, time and money had been spent on keeping up the house portion of the structure. There were various stonewalls around it that were left to deteriorate into pleasant looking ruins. Inside the wall closest to the main castle there were gardens planted. Thorny vines and trellises, roses and dozens of perennial flowers bloomed in the spring warmth. An untamed land that immediately pleasured the eye, a second glance at the lusty growth revealed its sad state of disarray. No full-time gardener had tended this lush piece of earth. But someone interested in fresh vegetables had plowed one corner for tomato plants and beans.

Despite its wild disorder, Erin thought it charming.

From the garden, there was a stone path to the hulking edifice with double doors of ancient oak at its entrance. Was it appropriate to knock, or should she let herself in? All she knew about her inheritance was that Robert had acquired it just a year before she’d met him. He’d never been there, too busy elsewhere to make the trek. He’d told her dozens of times that they’d have to make a the trip when the weather was warm. But every time they thought of vacationing it seemed that some much warmer climate suited their mood.

The castle proper seemed miles wide, three stories tall with a tower at one end.

“I suppose that’s the place where blushing maidens are kept away from the dashing brutes that would have their way with their virgin flesh,” Curtis remarked.

“Well, I’m hardly a virgin,” she declared. “But it might be a wonderful place to write. Think of the view?”

“Maybe there’s a dungeon,” Curtis was speculating further.

“What do you have in mind?” Erin asked. She looked at his sly expression and shook her head. “No, I don’t want to know.” Remembering the spanking the day before, she could extrapolate far in her mind, but decided that was dangerous thinking.

By then, Erin’s concern over whether to knock at the door was answered as a woman came around the side of the building, carrying a bouquet of flowers.”

“Ah! You must be Mrs. Longmore?” the woman stopped in her tracks seeing the two new visitors.

Erin approached her with a smile. “Actually, I go by my maiden name, Erin Emory,” she said holding out her hand.

“Ms. Emory then?”

“No, Erin, please.”

The woman nodded. She had a pleasing face for a woman of sixty, with soft skin and rich hazel eyes. Her graying hair was tied back in a bun, and she wore a summery floral dress that looked a bit like the garden behind her. “I’m Paulina Durrell. Though most call me Lina. I am so sorry about your husband’s death,” she was shaking her head sadly. Her eyes easily changed with her emotions becoming almost tragic now, even though there was a twinkle just a hairsbreadth away.

“Yes, thank you,” Erin replied to her expression of sympathy. “It was really quite a blessing by the time of his death.”

“I’m so sorry. Was he a much older man?”

“Actually no. In his early forties. He died of Cancer.”

“Ah … and here I’d hoped so to meet another Robert Longmore. You know it’s a very distinguished name around here.”

“Is it?”

“This castle has been a Longmore stronghold for many years. Quite a history. Marvelous tales.”

“Then you’ll have to tell me it all,” Erin said, turning the conversation less morose. She turned toward Curtis. “Oh, excuse me, Paulina, I’m forgetting my manners. This is my friend, Curtis Holbrook.”

The woman’s expression remained pleasant, though she gazed at Erin’s escort with a critical eye before she reached out to shake his hand.

“I’m sure you’d like to look inside?” she queried them.

“Of course,” Erin replied.

She and Curtis followed the woman to the castle door, Paulina’s hearty arm swinging the massive oak wide so that Erin could get a first real glimpse of her inheritance.

The interior of the castle was as dour as she suspected it would be. The floors, all stone, were covered by the barest of rugs. The one in the main entry was passable, something Oriental that had worn well. But she could see even from a distance that the ones on the stairs beyond, and down corridors were nearly threadbare. The furniture inside was a grim eclectic statement. Everything was of course massive, but well used. Paulina took them into a drawing room, where there was a fire burning in the massive fireplace. Though it was warm outside, the castle was characteristically chilly inside. The trunk of a small tree made the mantle above the smoldering embers; a delightfully intricate carving had been done into the wood. It gleamed from polish, the odor of that polish becoming stronger the longer Erin stood inside the room.

A second chill of recognition raced up Erin’s spine, which she quickly forgot.

“It does need some work, as you can see,” the housekeeper told them.

“But there are some lovely statues,” Erin answered her, as she swept from one place to another. “And tapestries.” She stared at one massive wall hanging, noting the rich textures of the fabric and the scene of some old battle detailed by the intricate needlework.

“I was hoping that Mr. Longmore might have taken the time to restore some of this.”

“Yes. I know he would have been delighted to do that,” Erin replied, knowing full well that Robert would have found the place drafty, cold and dreary. So much so, he would have laughed it off and checked with his accountant to see if it might be a good idea to sell. Erin would have embraced a project like this, as she was embracing it now. But if her husband had lived, she might have been able to convince him to spend a summer or two there at best. Even then, he wouldn’t have stayed long; but used it as a stopping off point from one news assignment to the next. “I’m going to see to it that the renovations are done,” she declared for Paulina’s benefit. “I think it has the makings of a first class inn, don’t you think?”

“Certainly.” Paulina smiled broadly as if Erin Emory was the answer to her prayers.

­***

“She’s going to be a trip,” Curtis remarked as he and Erin were settling into one of the bigger bedrooms on the second floor.

“You know I was actually feeling a little guilty appearing here so soon after Robert’s death with a lover in tow,” Erin said.

“Oh, no you don’t. You wouldn’t dare suggest that you and I aren’t sharing a room.”

“No, I can’t go that far. That sounds like my college days. Sneaking my boyfriend in to my bedroom when I brought him home with me on semester break”

“Exactly.”

“She didn’t really frown much when I told her we’d only need one room.”

“And she’d better not. This is your castle, not hers.”

“Oh, I’m not so sure of that.”

Curtis was stripping off his driving clothes, looking for sweats in his luggage. Naked, Erin saw his muscular build with all the lust she’d been reveling in since Robert’s death. It still surprised her that she could feel so sexually potent in the wake of her tragedy. Then of course Curtis was a potent man. His short sandy-colored locks were in a delightful disarray. Combing them back with his hand, they still had a roughed up manly look. It was one that often lured her when she saw one of his news commentaries on CNN. With khaki shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, she could see his muscular forearms. Wind whipping against his cheeks. The rugged individuality of the man was even more breathtaking than that same quality in Robert. Robert was always a little less vigorous than his colleague and a little more polished. It was not an aspect that really showed much except as she remembered how the cancer claimed him. Curtis was not the type of man to be beaten by anything internal. His demons were from without.

“You’re sure you want this?” he asked as he moved toward her. She was still as dressed as she was when they entered the room.

“Yes, I’m sure. You’re going to be off in a few weeks and this will be a tonic for me.”

“Okay then,” he answered her. His hands were on her waist. “You’d better strip down and put on some nasty fourteenth century frock. I think I’m going to find that dungeon and we’re going to have some very dangerous sex.” He sounded so serious, though it wasn’t the dungeon that ignited her fascination, but the tower. Fortunately, Curtis interrupted her musings, tickling her until she was practically crying. It was a terrific high. Everything was so uncommonly new in her life it seemed almost impossible to take it all in.

­***

“You know one of the hazards of living in a castle is losing your lover. Too many places to hide.” Curtis approached her from behind speaking softly so she wouldn’t suddenly jerk out of her musings.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said turning around. “Feeling sad, again. But mostly because you’ll be gone tomorrow.”

It hadn’t take long for Erin to discover this small niche in the garden, a place between walls that was so secluded she lost it the second time she tried to find it. She was aware now of some architect’s crude attempt to guide a rambling seeker, laying a pattern of stones that pointed the way. There was the imprint of a frog on each, though that imprint had worn down to almost nothing as they weathered the passing seasons. She wondered in what century they had been laid.

Curtis found her in the secluded spot, stumbling upon her one of their first days at the castle. He’d never lost his way going there a second time.

“Are you sure you want to stay here by yourself?” he asked.

“I’m not by myself. There’s Paulina and the caretaker, Fritz.”

“Such company.”

“But I’m going to dive into my work, get this place ship shape. You won’t even recognize it when you get back.”

“But if you decide otherwise, if you want to go back to New York, you know it’s not a problem for me.”

“But it’s easier for you to visit with me in England,” she reminded him.

“You’re right there.”

Six weeks straight with Curtis, she’d never had her lover so close so long. They were surprisingly compatible. Just one little explosion over his next assignment to a Middle-Eastern hotbed marred their loving interactions. He put down her rebellion quickly, reminding Erin that his work was his work and she would not dictate his life. She pouted a while, but gave in. Their relationship was not ready for ultimatums no matter how much their love had grown.

The best part of her six weeks was that her grief over Robert seemed very manageable. And now, even Curtis’s leaving seemed right, at least for a time. She wanted some days alone just to think. England in an English castle was a good place to do that. At that moment she almost wished he was already gone, so her heart and tears could move forward one more step.

But with him standing behind her now, she was aware of his physical presence and the immediate response in her own body. He was stoking her shoulders, his fingers tracing tiny lines from her neck down her back. Each prickly sensation made her shiver, a feeling that ran down her spine to her bottom. Up under the straps of her sundress with his thumbs and both sides fell off her shoulders. Her skin was bare beneath. Slightly chilled by the cool of her shaded hideaway, she made up for that in body heat that was radiating from her groin outward. Fueled by Curtis’s hot crotch, she began to sway her ass as her p***y pressed down on the stone bench.

He pulled her to her feet and she turned around. When the sundress dropped to the ground, she was naked. There was something in her mindset, the desire to be taken that lured her. However, what was in her imaginings was far more savage than the actual act that followed. Once he had her on her feet and well kissed about the mouth, he turned her back around and had her bend over, ass available, her hands on the stone bench to steady her balance. He liked mauling her bottom in this position, loved the luscious look of her broad derriere and how that heart-shaped ass curved into her legs beneath. Her thighs were generous and firm, but narrowed gracefully to her calves and the small feet that were now tucked in white sandals. Since the night he’d spanked her ass, he’d repeated the treatment often only to have Erin practically begging him to smack her harder.

(When they weren’t having s*x, she complained that spanking shouldn’t be an acceptable practice. Though there was no arguing with the results.)

This last day with her, Curtis gave her her first outdoor spanking–even if it meant that someone might hear beyond their private hideaway. But they didn’t care. Erin tried keeping her voice low and breathy as he struck a dozen times on each fleshy orb, but it was hard to hold back her joyous response. When his erection slipped inside the molten slit between her thighs she gasped with a very audible, “awwwwww,” then gentled back against his groin as he screwed her hard, still slapping her ass.

“Good, gawd Curt, please,” she whimpered. She wanted his fingers manipulating her bud below, but he held off for some minutes. When he finally began to play with her, he did so with such vigor that she felt a dozen stabs of pain shoot from that fragile fiery knob. “No, no, no, no,” she was crying.

Curtis ignored that.

He shot inside her a moment later, then manipulated her to a painful finish with his fingers pinching her clit hard.

“Ah, you look so great naked in the out-of-doors,” he said. She’d slumped to the ground, which was warmer than the stone bench, though she had dirt clinging to her spanked ass.

“Oh, but I still feel such fire,” she said.

“You going to take a lover while I’m gone?” he asked.

“How could you even think that?”

“I’ve never known a woman to be so horny,” he said simply. He sat on the bench above her and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket so she could wipe her groin of the sticky residue.

“It’s just you that makes me horny,” she said.

“I’m not so sure.”

“What else could it be?” she asked.

He looked around their niche as if that question had an answer written on the stone walls. “Maybe this place. As earthy as it is.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t love it.”

“Okay, I won’t say that, but I’ll never tell you it’s not dangerous for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s all the wars that were fought on this soil, all the history. Reminds me of places in the Middle East and Africa where you can almost hear the uprising of the oppressed vibrate through the earth.”

“Woah, you’re almost sounding mystical, my practical man.” She laughed, though inside she wondered herself at Curtis’s remark and some impending danger coming from out of the past. Pulling to her feet, she found her sundress and dropped it over her shoulders leaving her looking almost as fresh as when she started—except for the smudge of dirt on her cheek. “I’d better get in and wash. We have just one day left and I want to see how many times I can f**k you before you leave.”

As they were leaving their stone-walled garden, they found the caretaker, Fritz raking the garden just outside. Erin blushed while Curtis flashed him an unabashed grin.

“Ah, Erin,” Fritz spoke. “I had a question about the upstairs windows?”

Curtis smirked amused and nodded. “I’ll see you back inside. I need to get packing.” He left Erin to deal with the caretaker by herself and the fact that the man had obviously overheard their s*x.

Fritz was a gentleman, however, not saying a word to embarrass her. When she answered his question she left him to his work. Other than the fact that Fritz was stoic by nature and reticent, speaking only when he had something useful to say, he was a handsome man: stocky, muscled, with black, often wind-blown, hair. Erin always had the feeling the way his dark eyes danced, that he knew things he’d never say. That made him appear wise and curiously mystical. She could easily imagine s*x with him, though she determined right off that she’d be better off not giving in to those fantasies.