Colsterworde, The Cony, May 29th. Our journey yesterday took us through the centre of the great town of Newark, where King John had died of the bloody flux just seven score years afore. His death, though still spoken of in lore as a warning, was little lamented as he was a cruel tyrant and his hand on his subjects was heavy and unfair.

We did not tarry long in Newark. We were afeard to announce our presence because we had heard tales of bands of robbers falling upon the few defenceless travellers on the road. So after buying a few items from the paltry stalls in the market place we continued on south. In older and happier times, even as far north as a York the great market in Newark had been famed for the wonders on sale there.

As we crested a small hill a thousand paces or so from the town centre we could see the great cathedral of Lincoln shining like a beacon in the distance, though it offered little hope in these hellish times.

Another mile brought us to the village of Benningtun where we hoped to rest our bones for the night. But when we came to the inn — the White Cock from the board swinging in the breeze above its door — there was no welcoming sign of smoke rising from its chimneys. The door was open and on entering we were greeted by the stench of death. On the floor were the rotting and partially devoured bodies of half a dozen people, lying in dried up pools of piss and gore. After crossing ourselves out of custom rather than belief, we hurried on into the falling dusk.

We were glad of the company of our man of arms, for passing through a place where the trees pressed close on the road we were set upon by brigands. With two strokes of his sword our new friend dispatched two of them to meet their maker, leaving their bodies bleeding in the dust of the road as a warning. The rest fled for their lives into the forest and I was sure that we wouldn't be troubled again that night. In God's truth I felt sorry for them, driven as they were by desperation rather than malice. Such is the state into which we are descended.

It was long dark when we arrived here, and we were in no mind for stories. So after a meal of broth and bread washed down by a flagon of weak ale, we made our way to our beds exhausted and footsore.

Today, after a long sleep, we tarried here, and after a fine supper of mutton, we cast around for who would regale us with a saucy tale to wile away the hours to bed. In truth Dame Elizabeth's story had rather depressed our spirits because of the sadness we all felt at the loss of her child. The soldier then spoke up and offered a tale of his own from out the store of memories of his long life.

~~~~~

The Soldier's Story

I am now a very old man, and most of my old comrades in arms have either died in battle or those few who were lucky in the arms of some whore. As I have survived both war and pestilence, I surmise that God, or more likely the Devil, is not yet ready to accept my soul. As a youth, I was well built for my age and eager to see the world so when I was just sixteen I became a mercenary in the army of Henry II of Cyprus. I journeyed to the Levant to join the garrison in Acre and only just escaped the massacre of the remaining Christians there in the year 1291. During the few months I was there, I was curious to learn the secrets of the East and spent my free hours in the inns along the waterfront.

One day, I met an elderly Frenchman who had taken up with a Hindu woman, and had eventually converted to that religion so as to marry her. He told me a mysterious fairytale from the fabled East that he had heard when he visited her family in India.

~~~~~

Once upon a time, in a country far away from these cold northern climes, two handsome young men were walking down a hot and dusty road, hand in hand, as was the custom in that land. They had been very close friends from childhood, and had decided that before they embarked on the adult life of work and marriage, they would like to explore something of the world outside the narrow confines of their home village.

It was boiling hot, and both friends were feeling rather thirsty, so when they turned a bend in the road, and saw a wizened old man sitting at the roadside under a large banyan tree, they stopped to ask him if he could spare a drop or two of water from the calabash at his feet.

“Young friends,” he replied, "I will gladly let you drink from my calabash, but in return, I would ask of you a favour.

Intrigued, and thinking that the old man's request could not be too onerous, the older of the two youths said that they would be happy to assist him once they had drunk their fill and were refreshed.

“Thank you, kind sirs,” the old man said. “My request is quite simple. I am an old man, as you see, and I can no longer give my wife the pleasure that she still craves,” and he gestured to an ancient woman, whom the two youths had failed to see, sitting in the shade at the base of the tree.

"As I said," the old man continued, "I can no longer rise to the full and glorious height of manhood of my younger days, and I have been unable to make love to my wife for many years now, which causes us both great sorrow. If you satisfy her with your young and perfect cocks, and give her a last few moments of ecstasy before she passes on to the next world, I will give you three wishes, which I will fulfil to the best of my ability."

The younger of the two youths looked at the old woman and was repelled at the thought of sinking his penis into the dried-up pussy of the ancient crone. Besides, women did not attract him, and he had many times rebuffed the advances of the more forward of the young virgins of their village. So, in a firm but kindly manner, he indicated that he would not be able to do as the old man desired.

The older youth was kinder in his assessment of the old man's wife, and decided that he would be happy to comply, if it would make the aged pair happy.

"Ancient seer," he said in a gentle voice, "I would be happy to give you both the pleasure you ask; for her, a final journey to the blissful land of sexual congress; and for you, the satisfaction of knowing that she has known that great pleasure for the last time before she passes to the higher bliss of heaven."

"Thank you for your kindness, young man," the ancient said, "I do not think you will be disappointed, for my wife was a great lover in her younger days, and knows many tricks of how to bring a man to the summit of sexual joy. You may use our simple hut, and when I hear my wife cry out in the extremity of her passion, I will know that you have indeed done as I so earnestly desire."

Acting at once on his words, the youth walked up to the old man's wife, and gently helping her to her feet, he led her across the road to the simple hut, which was the aged couple's home.

Once they were inside the hut, the old woman closed the curtain, which was all that served as a door, plunging the interior into semi darkness, there being no window. In the dim light, the young man thought to himself, it would be easy to imagine that he was taking his pleasure with a beautiful young virgin, rather than an old and withered hag, and as he pictured the delights of young female flesh opening up for him, he felt stirring desire in his loins.

With a gesture of her hand the old woman indicated that he should stand in front of the only bed — in reality, only a pile of blankets on the floor — and untied the draw string of his dhoti, and pulled off his loin cloth, leaving him naked from the waist down. Almost reverently, she cupped his heavy balls in her hands, and kneeling, sucked his still flaccid member into her mouth until she had swallowed his entire length.

The youth soon realized that the old man had not been exaggerating when he boasted about his wife's sexual talents. The way her toothless gums massaged his shaft as she slid her mouth along the length of his penis, in and out in a gently accelerating rhythm, and the expert caresses of her fingers on his balls, caused the most exquisite of sensations to radiate throughout his body and legs from his loins. His cock grew to its full stature, impressive in both length and girth, hard and pulsating with youthful vigour.

Eyes closed, the young hero abandoned himself to ecstasy, and when the crone thrust two fingers into his anus to massage his prostate, it was as if a fire had been ignited deep in his balls, a sweet and urgent sensation, almost painful in its piercing intensity as it forced its way up inside his cock from base to throbbing and swollen crown. His moans of pleasure now turned to cries of rapture, and he thrust his hips forwards to force his cock deeper into the old woman's throat, the muscles of his back and thighs taut with agonizing tension.

And then it came, an orgasm of exquisite intensity, as the fire in his belly erupted in incandescent streams of hot cum shooting from his cock like liquid fire. The old woman swallowed every drop of his offering to the gods of sexual passion, and as he returned to full consciousness from the heavenly bliss of his climax, she held him firmly in her embrace; otherwise he would have fallen exhausted to the ground as the strength ebbed from his muscles.

The old woman gently lowered the youth onto the bed, where he lay, eyes closed, lost in a reverie of remembrance of blissful pleasure. Dimly, as from a great distance, he heard the rustling of clothes being removed, and then felt lips tracing their way up his body in a cascade of tiny kisses. Opening his eyes, he saw the face of a beautiful young woman regarding him tenderly, and looking down, he saw she was naked, her perfect breasts hanging low above his chest. 

To his utter bewilderment, he was no longer lying on a pile of rags in a rude hut, but on silken sheets in a beautiful room, bathed in light filtering through gauzy white curtains. Outside, he could hear the liquid music of water from many fountains, and the sound of birds singing. He thought at first that he must be dreaming, but the clarity of the vision convinced him he must be the victim of some dark enchantment. Alarmed, he opened his mouth and was about to exclaim in surprise when she laid a delicate finger on his lips, and lowering her face to his, kissed him passionately. Still barely understanding what was happening to him, he abandoned himself to the delicious sensation of her lips on his, and the luxury of her soft breasts pressing against his body.

The nymph stood up and, straddling his body, lowered herself over his face, until the swollen lips of her open pussy were pressed against his lips. The scent of the juices oozing from her cunt was intoxicating, and he put out his tongue to sample more of the delicious nectar from its source. He licked along the length of her valley of desire, from her little pink rosebud to her clitoris, which was erect and protruding from its hood. She started to grind against his mouth, undulating her hips in a slow and sensuous dance, as she sought release in the heaven of her own first climax.

The youth responded to her passion, sucking first her lips, savouring them like succulent pieces of ripe fruit, and then her clitoris, before plunging his tongue as far as he could into the dark tunnel of her jewel box, As her desire mounted, the maiden moaned in a soft and musical voice, the undulation her hips becoming faster and more urgent. After a few minutes of ascending ecstasy, her body stiffened, and she cried out in rapture, as the exquisite waves of her orgasm swept through her body from her pussy, and clear, sweet fluid gushed from her cunt over the youth's face, which he drank as if it were the most delicious sherbet.

Descending from the apogee of her pleasure, the young woman slid back down the youth's body, until his penis was enveloped between the soft folds of her womanhood. She resumed the undulations of her hips, sliding her pussy up and down along the length of his shaft, and rubbing her taut breasts against his chest. When he was erect again, she put her hand down, and placed the engorged head of his cock at the entrance of her golden palace, before taking him deep into her hot, velvety wetness with one swift thrust of her hips.

The two lovers rode together in unison, the movement of her hips matched by his thrusting cock. As he thrust in and out of her slick heat in an increasingly fast tempo of divine sweetness, the rippling muscles of her vaginal walls massaged his shaft from base to tip, sending waves of indescribable sensation down into his loins. The melody of tinkling water was soon joined in a new harmony by moans and cries of passion, as male and female together ascended to the summit of their rapture.

The incandescent heat in the young man's loins consumed him. Body and mind were transported to a new plane of existence, in a state of euphoria far more profound than anything he had ever known. The climax of their mating came in a river of ineffable pleasure, a boiling torrent that swept them away into a world of indescribable richness, a world of light and colour of unearthly vividness. In the grip of their mutual orgasms, the two lovers became a new creation, their flesh melting and flowing into the other. The curtain between their conscious minds was torn asunder in an instant, so that each could hear and feel the ecstasy of the other, as if they had become one soul in an infinite moment of divine pleasure.

For time beyond reckoning, the young couple floated on clouds of pure bliss, before a delicious languor overtook their bodies and minds, and enfolded in each other's arms, they fell exhausted into a deep sleep of utter contentment, their mutual passion consummated.

When he woke, the youth found himself back in the rude hut, lying once more on a pile of rags, an old woman snoring by his side. As the strength seeped back into his muscles, he roused himself, and leaving his ancient companion sleeping, he walked out into the light of day to join his friend and the aged man, sitting and waiting by the roadside in the shade of the banyan tree.

"I must thank you for your kindness in giving such pleasure to my wife this last time," the old man said. “Now I will fulfil my side of the bargain, and grant you your three wishes."

The youth thought for a while, and after looking around him, he replied, "This is a poor and arid country, and as I passed through the villages, I could not fail to notice the dried-up wells, and the dead and dying cattle in the streets. So my first wish is for streams of life-giving water to spring up to refresh the land."

"That is a simple wish to grant," the old man said, and as he spoke, clear flowing filled the dried-up channels between the barren and dusty fields on either side of the road.

"I was also moved to pity," the young man continued, "by the despair and hopelessness in the faces of the people, as they squatted in front of their simple dwellings. My second wish, therefore, is for the rice paddies to be green with abundant growth."

"That too is easy to fulfil," the ancient seer replied, and as he spoke, the fields blossomed lush as far as the eye could see, with men and women working purposefully in the fields, tending their crops.

"You are a kind and generous young man," the old man said, "but what of yourself? Have you no personal wish that I might grant?”

The youth was silent for a long time, lost in thought, but finally, he spoke. "The task you asked of me was not onerous or unpleasant, even though I first thought that it would be so. In fact, in fulfilment of your request, I have experienced the greatest pleasure that a man might desire, and that is a sufficient reward for me. But I would ask this of you, that you fulfil my companion's greatest desire, and fill his heart with gladness."

Hearing this, the old man said nothing, but simply waved his hand over the body of the other youth, who was instantly transformed into a beautiful young woman. Turning back to the young man who had done his bidding, he then spoke in a quiet voice, "You have asked for nothing for yourself, neither for riches, nor for power or great fame, so I give you one final gift. I will bless you with a long and happy life, with many children and grandchildren to delight your old age. But long in the future, as the end of your life approaches, I command you to simply do as I have done, and pass on your good fortune to another young man setting out on his life's journey."

As he spoke these words, the old man and his simple hut disappeared, and the two young friends were left alone, standing beside the road under the shade of a banyan tree. But instead of the two young men, who had come this way just a few hours previously, the observer would have seen a handsome youth, and an equally beautiful young woman, embracing in rapturous delight, at last able to consummate their love for each other.

~~~~~~

Many long years later, in a faraway country, two handsome young men could be seen walking down a hot and dusty road, hand in hand, as was the custom in that land.