Wildwood (30 page)

I loved that idea – though my bereft pussy ached in protest. The crotch packeted in those old army trousers smelt like Ash but felt like Michael. I pressed my hands up the inside of his thighs, seeking his balls.

‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘Now, undo my flies. With your teeth,’ he amended as I reached with my hand.

I took the metal tag between my lips and drew it down, feeling every individual tooth of the zip strain and then part. With a grunt of satisfaction Michael helped me by popping the buttons and hefting his cock out into the light. Thick and flushed dark, it stood up and swayed like a drunk – a mean drunk, because when he grabbed the back of my head and shoved my face in, the hard shaft jabbed my eyes and bruised my lips. Michael’s anger at my betrayal had not been forgotten and he used me cruelly. ‘Kiss it,’ he growled, and I kissed the hot shaft fervently. He pulled my lips up to the swollen glans. ‘Again.’ I tried to, but he angled it past my lips and shoved in hard, all the way to the back of my throat, as if wanting to choke me. ‘Take it,’ he hissed, his hand knotted in my scalp.

I did, blocking out the pain. I made my mouth and my throat a shrine for his cock, a place where it was worshipped. My tongue worked frantically about it, slicking the thick meat. I knew exactly how much Michael loved oral and I knew he could not resist the wet squirm of my tongue about the head of his cock, however much he might want to punish me in other ways. In moments I felt his grip relax, his stance shift, his thighs tremble. ‘Ah, God,’ he muttered under his breath. I slid my hand down between my thighs, sinking my fingertips into my own wetness as I sucked and licked him. I wrote eulogies with my tongue on his flesh, declaring how much I loved his heat, his strength, his hardness, the taste and the bulk of him. The slithering friction across my lips seemed to connect directly to my clit; I was hardly aware of
my
own fingers, just him fucking my mouth and sending me higher and higher.

I heard Ash groan.

Dizzily I eased myself from Michael’s shaft – not fully, just enough to be able to turn my head. Ash still knelt at the foot of the tree, his shoulders thrown back and chest straining, his gaze fixed upon us and his expression one of torment. His prick stood erect and glistening. I wouldn’t have thought it possible after the amount of blood he’d lost, but the Wildwood must have had its claws in deep. I knew just how he felt.

Carefully, my tongue still dancing on the helm of his cock, I lifted my eyes to Michael’s and saw no fury any more, only enthralment to the pleasure of my mouth. Only need. Wrapping my hand firmly about his shaft, I pulled away, wriggling my arse, drawing him after me. For a moment he frowned, and then he made the connection between my splayed retreating backside and his helpless captive twisting against the silk bonds and I saw realisation dawn. His eyes widened. I licked him, pleading as much as teasing, promising as much as placating. His eyelids fluttered and with the faintest bemused smile he let me have my way. Step by step he advanced across the leaf mould while I retreated on my knees before him with wide-splayed cheeks, leading him by the cock, until I’d closed the gap between us and Ash.

My poor, naked Ash. Against his better judgement and flying in the face of all his scruples, the one thing he wanted right now was to slip his aching prick into my pussy and fuck me from behind while his mortal enemy shafted my throat. His anguish was clear, but it was entirely overridden by the demands of his erection. A standing prick has no conscience, as they say. In the depths of the Wildwood Ash was as enslaved to the sexual imperative as was Michael or I. He surged towards me, unable to tear his gaze from the wet crack I was presenting him.

Michael licked his dry lips, as if not quite believing what was happening.

Pulling my panties down to my knees, I wriggled into Ash’s lap. He rose to meet me, pushing the head of his member up the slippery folds of my furrow and embedding it deep in me. I gasped to feel the penetration I wanted so much, my breath pulled up around the solid cylinder of meat in my mouth, and Michael pushed deep into my throat as if to remind us who was in charge. I took him gratefully in both hands, delving for the ripe fullness of his scrotum. Ash ground against my backside, gasping with effort, his thighs rock hard.

That was how I paid my toll to the Wildwood, with both men fucking me. I became the bridge between them: between magus and magus, captor and captive, victor and loser. They co-operated to fuck me, finding a rhythm that suited them both and nearly split me in half, rattling my mind clear out of my body, filling me and plundering me and taking everything. Michael had both hands on my head; I held onto his thighs to support myself. Ash had pushed me forwards onto my knees and was leaning hard into me, his hips shuddering as he thrust, his balls slapping my pussy as his shaft worked my wet cunt. I’d never been used from both ends like that. I’d never been so full. I grabbed my clit and held on tight as orgasm took me from arse to head, an electric arc connecting their two cocks. It kept coming, bolt after bolt. I cried out and my scream was muffled by Michael’s tool buried deep in my throat. Then he pulled back just enough, his pelvis jerking, to fill my mouth with his spunk.

Ash froze. I had just enough sense left to swallow hard and fast, gulping it down, salty and burning. Michael held my face as I sucked him clean, his fingers slackening, his thumbs tracing the planes of my cheeks and brushing my swollen lips. His eyes were unbelievably blue, like pieces fallen from a summer
sky
. I think my heart stopped for a moment, looking into them.

Then Ash pulled out of me and somehow managed to stagger to his feet. ‘Avril,’ he said thickly.

I turned to him and took the wet cock proffered into my mouth, scenting the sharp tang of my shameless want. I sucked those juices off, yearning for his own taste that lay beneath. From the corner of my eye I saw Michael take a step back, running his hand up and down the length of his penis, which showed no sign of flagging yet. Ash leant into me, breathing down his nose. He was far more at my mercy than Michael had been and I seized the chance to get my breath back, taking it slow and teasing. I cupped his balls, tickling the soft skin behind until he groaned. As I fell into the rhythm that would bring him off I shut my eyes, revelling in the smooth sweetness of his cock.

Without a word, Michael’s hand cupped my chin and drew me gently off Ash. I opened my eyes and his cock was there in my face, still flushed and shiny and thick with unspent lust. Both of them were there, both men standing so close that with a turn of my head I could take either in my mouth. So I did, in turn. I treated them both with absolute fairness, licking like a girl with a melting ice-cream cone in either hand. I tasted them both and warmed each in turn down my throat. Hey, there are worse combinations than raspberries and cream and bitter chocolate.

Ash seemed to be swimming in and out of consciousness at times; I had to wrap my right arm around his thigh to support him. But his cock wouldn’t stop. I felt him gather towards his crisis and I lavished more attention upon him, but Michael wouldn’t stand for that and this time he didn’t try to distract me from Ash, he simply thrust his own prick between my lips alongside his. Oh, I have a generous mouth, but it’s not
that
big – it felt as if my cheeks were splitting, and the shock nearly
knocked
me over. Ash’s eyes shot wide open, but I think he was at the point where he was incapable of withdrawing, in fact I think he wasn’t capable of anything by then except fucking to climax. Both men looked glazed, almost drunk.

It took some readjustment before I could handle this new situation and I could take neither of them very deep, but take them both I did: both cocks in the burning crucible of my mouth, transmuting darkest rivalry to pure gold. My tongue laved the two smooth bulbs, explored both seeping slits. They stood hip to hip. Michael ran his hand through my hair, supporting my head as the two of them rubbed and slipped over one another and I licked and kissed and sucked them. Ash came noisily, groaning with effort, and I opened with gratitude to the thick wash of his semen. Then straight away, to my utter surprise, so did Michael. Not so copiously, but then it shouldn’t have been able to happen at all. I think it hurt him too; his muscles were clenched so hard I was sure he would go into cramp. Their jism mingled on my tongue and my heart was pounding and I felt like I was about to melt. I held them and held them and would have held them forever, like that, kneeling between them with my lips wrapped about their pricks. What had happened had turned my world inside out. I looked up at Michael with tears in my eyes.

Then Ash slipped away from me and collapsed to the floor.

Slowly Michael withdrew. For once he had nothing to say for himself. We just stared at each other, me kneeling in the damp woodland litter, he hunched and pallid, the rucksack with his precious book lying disregarded against a rotting log.

I think there was a chance then that everything could have changed. If so, then it was my fault it didn’t; I turned away to check that Ash was all right, that he wasn’t bleeding out. By the time I’d done that Michael was properly dressed and had retrieved the rucksack, his expression closed off and sardonic.

‘You enjoyed being spit-roast, didn’t you, Avril?’ His voice was a little hoarse. ‘Who’d have thought it when you handed in your résumé?’

‘Michael …’

‘Is he still with us?’

Ash’s eyes were partly open when I looked down, but unfocused. ‘I’m not sure he can walk.’

‘Then you’ll have to help him, won’t you?’

‘Give him a chance –’

‘No!’ For the first time Michael raised his voice, his black brows knotted, but when he spoke again he sounded calm once more: ‘He had his chance a long time ago, Avril. And you …’ He shoved his sleeves up to his elbows irritatedly. ‘I really thought there was hope for you.’ He snorted. ‘Get him up.’

When I’d dressed I helped Ash to his feet, supporting him against me. His bare feet were bleeding I noticed. For a second I caught another whiff of that sweet bovine aroma, but it was a fugitive scent gone as soon as I sought for it. ‘Which way?’ I asked, unsteady under his weight. Ash nodded forwards. His face looked haggard. We set off and Michael brought up the rear silently once more.

The last part of the journey was through the boggy woodland I remembered with such distaste. This time it was much worse. I slipped and staggered under Ash’s shoulder, my fingers biting into his ribs as I kept a grip on him. He did his best to walk straight but his weakness came in waves and sometimes I had to stop to let him get his feet back beneath him. The water and mud came up to our ankles, sucking with every step, and once I lost my balance too and we both fell to our knees in the ooze. The mist had risen to form a haze that made the sky above invisible. At least the throb of the Green Man’s power was less of a distraction now – not because it had diminished, but because my internal pressure felt now equalised with the
external
. The wood was in trouble though: everywhere blackened leaves were falling to scab over the surface of the sludge, and bark was peeling off the trunks in necrotic sheets. It was like an acid-rain nightmare or a glimpse of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, except that glimpses from beneath my brow told me that instead of wood beneath the fallen bark the timber of these trees was variously bone or glass or gleaming silver.

By the time we pushed through the ring of yews Ash and I were mired and panting. I didn’t look directly at the stump; I didn’t dare. I let Ash slide to the floor and rest, his head against my thigh. Michael came through, bent double under the branches, and got his first look at the goal of all his endeavours here.

‘Oh shit,’ he said softly, recoiling a step.

It was good to know that something could dismay him, but he recovered quickly enough. He pulled out the book, throwing the bag aside, and opened it. Onto the vellum he laid the wire maquette and, after opening it, Ash’s clasp knife. Then, setting his jaw, he approached the ancient remnant of the oak. I couldn’t look at him straight on, my eyes were watering so much, but I saw him stagger and set his legs as if bracing himself against a high wind. His outline looked smeared, but that might have been a fault of my vision. That arcane pulse was making my skin crawl and a red pain dance at the back of my head. I was glad we’d stopped to pay our dues sexually; I think if we hadn’t we might have torn one another apart here.

‘Avril,’ said Michael bleakly, ‘move away from him. Over there.’ A jerk of his head indicated the other side of the clearing.

I put my hand on Ash’s hair. The ground was trembling beneath my feet and the air vibrating. I didn’t like the look of that open knife at all. ‘What are you going to do?’

His lips tightened. ‘There’s the small matter of the binding ritual. It requires a sacrifice.’

‘You can’t take any more of his blood,’ I protested. ‘It’ll kill him.’

Michael tilted his head, still looking at the tree. ‘Not your decision, I’m afraid.’

‘For God’s sake –’

‘Out of the way.’ He swung to face me, lifting the gun. ‘I mean it. Move.’

I moved in front of Ash. ‘No chance.’ Then it dawned on me that I’d just discovered something about the reality of my love, and the shock left me dizzier than the fear. ‘Oh God, Michael, don’t. Please.’

‘This is the man who used magic on you, remember? He made you fall in love with him.’

‘So did you,’ I said, my heart in pieces. ‘It doesn’t take magic to do that.’

I watched him grimace. I still didn’t completely believe he would put a bullet in me, not even when he aimed the gun between my breasts and cocked the hammer. And, God help me, Michael did hesitate. At that moment the yew branches heaved and into the clearing lumbered Bull Peter, snorting and wild-eyed. Michael jerked back. The changeling looked from me to him.

‘Peter!’ I cried, thrusting my hand out at Michael. The bull man charged him, head lowered, roaring.

I think he managed to fire twice before Bull Peter hit him, but it did nothing to slow his attacker down. Michael was thrown back across the clearing, the naked changeling on top of him, and the two rolled over in a tangle of kicking limbs. Bull Peter was still on top when they came to a halt, but Michael was still conscious and in possession of the revolver. He heaved it from under the bull man’s bulk, shoved it to his neck and
fired
three times up under the heavy jaw, the reports ringing round the clearing. Bull Peter shuddered and stopped moving.