Chapter 9

We returned to the inn and since it was dusk we retired to Arquis’s room to finish our land transaction.

We of course got ready for bed by using a cloth and the water provided to freshen ourselves before retiring. She was a little sore, so we postponed having seconds until morning.

The next morning after a grand second romp in bed, we had breakfast and I left for home to face the music.

On my way home I was thinking about the home situation. Having a couple of get-togethers with Arquis did not cool my anger at all. If anything, it reinforced what I had lost. Stringing me out for a week by Garnet’s withholding sex was the final nail in the coffin. I continued to think about what I was going to say when I got there.

Siggy was outside in the garden when I arrived.

“Siggy, I want you to take a walkover by the stream and wait there until I call for you. I am angry as can be with Garnet. She is going to get the ass reaming of her lifetime and you don’t need to be here to hear it. This is all about her, about her bitchiness and how she’s been acting lately.

Garnet came outside, probably at the sound of voices.

“Siggy, you know what I asked?”

Garnet asked, “Did you stay in town last night to fuck some whore?”

I pointed at the cabin and said, “INSIDE.”

Once there I started in, “Are you my wife? No! You’re not my wife. You’re a kept woman here. One who exchanges sex for a place to sleep and the food I provide. That sounds like a whore to me!”

“In the first place, I did not send for you or approve of your being here. You showed up as a complete surprise. A surprise I didn’t want or ask for. Let that sink in, I didn’t want or approve of your coming. You have been walking on soft ground since you arrived, and it only got worse.”

“You want to have babies, that’s your problem, but you’ve become my problem. A big fucking problem that I’m not happy about. More to the point, I’m not happy about you. I am not happy about or with you.”

“How do you repay me for taking care of you and your every need and desire? You completely take over my home and my life, but no, that wasn’t enough. You had to make me completely miserable all the time with your incessant scheming. You are overfull of bullshit, and meanness.”

“So, to answer your question, YES BITCH, I stayed in town and got some pussy. I needed that pussy since it was all dried up out here thanks to YOU. Plus, anything is better than dealing with you. Now you sit down, shut up and listen to what I have to say. REALLY listen to me!”

“I am sick and tired of your shit. One more ill-tempered word and you can walk your pregnant ass right back to the mountains you came from. You’ll have plenty of time to get there long before the baby comes.”

“You have fucked up my home life. We were happy until you came. You were not happy and you evidently forgot who’s place this is. MY home, MY rules, bitch. Siggy and I were doing very well, thank you. I didn’t ask you to come here.”

“I thought it rude to send me a letter and then show up without asking my permission. That’s so presumptuous and uncaring. Then after all, now you’re taking up my home, eating my food, ordering me about, and being a grouch all the time. You’re mean and bad-tempered to the two of us.”

“Giantesses like you are the reason we men LEAVE the mountains. Didn’t your mother warn you about that issue? We prefer to live all alone, rather than put up with the daily unreasonable behavior of a giantess.”

“You’re pregnant. Get over it. It gets worse, not better. Picking at every little thread just unravels our happy home life unraveled me. I was very happy when it was only Siggy and I.”

“With you added to the mix, I’m not happy at all. You go behind my back and get Siggy to go along with you on shit. You’re always plotting to change things. Did it ever occur that I liked things exactly as they were? Don’t answer that, I’m not finished.”

“My job is to be the ranger here. I need to patrol this area. I need to fell trees and trim them. Then I take the wood to town to sell and support the people there. THAT’S what I do. That’s how I payback for the gift of this land from the crown and how I take care of my friends in town.”

“What I didn’t do before, was dig root cellars. I didn’t build squabbler sheds. I didn’t build goat barns or fences. I didn’t spend time constantly plowing and planting new crops. Do you see a trend here? Again, don’t answer.”

“Understand, this is what I’m talking about. You took over my life. There’s no room for the old Crag in there. I’m no longer Crag the ranger, I’m at most a drudge and Garnet’s secret husband.

THAT SHIT STOPS NOW! Got it?

“Yes, Does this mean...”

I cut her off, “I am going to fetch Siggy. When we get back, she and I will talk and I want you to go to the stream and sit or walk around and think about what I have said.”

“But...”

“No, YOU need to think. Really think about what I said. Think about what you want to do. Whether you stay or go home is your decision, not mine. Mark my words, I will send you home the first time you pull any more shit on me. I lived here for almost a century, very happily I might add. I can do it again. Right now, you make me very, very unhappy. THAT is what you need to be thinking about. Unhappy Crag equals bye-bye to Garnet.”

“No more sneaking, conniving, or plotting for things for Crag to do.”

“I’ll be back with Siggy, when you see us, go to the stream and stay there until dusk, or until I come to get you.”

I left to get Siggy. I told her we could talk after Garnet left, that Garnet was going to take a walk and think about things while we talked.

We got to the cabin and walked in. “Garnet, you can go for your walk now.”

“Yes, Crag.” She looked a little dejected. I was wishing she was feeling a lot more dejected and worried. I was having my doubts about her coming around. After all, if an ass-chewing could turn a giantess around easily, more giant men would stay home. They would do it merely for the steady pussy. Not looking good at all here.”

When we were inside I said, “Siggy, we were happy until she came here, weren’t we?”

“I was, it’s hard to know what you’re thinking most of the time Crag.”

“I was happy. Understand I am quite old compared to you girls. I have done things my own way for many decades. You came along and snuck into my heart. I really care for you.”

“Garnet was a shock. At first, it was OK. Then she started manipulating, she concocts things because that’s what she wants. She never asks me, she somehow manipulates us to do her bidding.”

“Don’t get me wrong, most of her ideas have been decent. It’s where she expects me to drop everything and go do what she wants, that I have an issue. I am not sure anything can make her happy. After doing one project, she comes up with another one without let up. Lately, her treatment of me is that of a thrall. I’m here to do her bidding. I can’t allow that any longer”

“I see. Hmm.”

“She snuck this behavior up on me. Generally, I am a quiet guy that asks for very little back. The past week she has become a total harridan. She’s not happy unless I am doing her bidding and she hasn’t had a kind word for me in weeks. Whatthefuck is that?”

“Let me rephrase this, Garnet is on bad ground. I told her she needs to think about things. If she doesn’t get off my ass and can’t behave civilly, she is gone. I will send her home.”

“Good grief. This isn’t about me, is it? I know I had my courses but we never had problems with that before.”

“No. It’s not about you - at all. It’s all about her. It’s always about her. I am old and wise, I think. If it looks like shit and smells like shit, I don’t need to taste it to know that it’s shit. I feel it deep down. Being older, I spend time thinking about things. I may not say a lot of sweet things to you, but remember, I have always been a hermit up here on my mountain. I do care for you.”

“You don’t really say it.”

“I have had nobody here before that I considered a permanent mate. The few giantesses that came and went. They returned to their homes. Humans are short-lived. I have not had anyone before that I really wanted to stay with me for a time. Is it me? Probably. I can’t help who or what I am. No apologies. I have responsibilities that come before anything else. Life and death responsibilities.”

“So, do you love me?”

“Uh, that’s an unfair question. Let me ask you one first. Where will you be in one hundred years”

“Shit, I’ll be dead if history tells me anything.”

“So, is it fair for me to fall deeply and madly in love with you? To fawn on you all the time. To pour my heart and soul into you, to have you just wither and die on me in thirty or forty years. What becomes of me after that?”

“Consider this. I have seen everyone I know or meet come into my life, and then they go away. It’s been that way my entire life. Except for my immediate family, and they have their own destiny elsewhere. Everybody has left one way or another.”

“Should I fall in love with every maiden that comes along? Should I become best buddies with every man I meet? No, discretion is required. For a very long living person, falling deeply in love is painful. Lots of pain. Please understand this about me.”

“Am I stand-offish? Yes, but for a very good reason. I can be here for you, I am intensely fond of you. But, if you want true love like the minstrels sing about, I am the wrong tree to bark at. That heart-pounding love that they talk about seems fleeting to me. I’ve seen too much, done too much. I won’t ruin any future I have, by falling deep in love. It goes against rational thought. It’s just not me.”

I paused to watch her sniveling and sobbing lightly.

“But I thought ... I thought you would grow to love me. Just what does intensely mean anyway?”

“It means I am sweet on you, I admire you, I look forward to seeing you when I’m away. I appreciate everything you do. I really enjoy our having sex. Who wouldn’t?”

“So you’ll never really fall in-love with me?”

“I’m not sure it’s possible for me. The best I can do is be fond, very fond of you. Think about something for me. Have you ever seen two people fall very deep in love with each other?”