Chapter 33: Harvested

The three people entered the tavern from the stage with a look of disgust and disdain. Two bewigged men, one a good bit older than the other, and a blonde woman in a very fancy dress. All three, in fact, were very well dressed and surely out of place. They sat at a table after the younger man brushed off the furniture with his large kerchief. The woman looked unhappy, the men disgusted.

She was a pretty girl with very pale skin and golden curls. She wore a blue silk sacque dress with an embroidered stomacher that flattened her bulging breasts and emphasized her narrow waist. It was completely out of place way out here in the Jersey wilderness. She sat up very straight, perhaps because of her stays, and pushed out her lower lip some as well as a fine pai of globular milkers. I imagined that pouting mouth about my aching member. My brain operated in only one direction.

The older man ordered brusquely while the younger man pawed at the blonde girl, importuning her for some sort of favor. She shook her head, tossing ringlets and bobbling her young boobies in and out of her square-cut gown's indecently low neckline.

I went back to my ale and cheese and tried to forget the little playlet despite the glowing youth of the female actress. The stage had brought in ten or so customers and the place was already smoky when they arrived. My gaze roamed the group but saw no threat. My table companion was a drummer, huckster or peddler, a title he preferred, who traveled relatively freely through the area and was a fount of trivia as long as I bought him beers.

"No!" the girl said loudly, and I pivoted to take in the scene. The younger man was standing, brown wig slightly askew and weskit undone, and pulling on the girl's arm. She was struggling to maintain her seat, holding tight to the chair and then the table edge, nearly bulging out her bubbies from their corseted restraint with her effort.

"Come," the man hissed at her, "it's time you paid."

She slapped at him and missed. The older man pushed her into the younger one's arms, urging her to, "Go on, now, that's a good girl."

"No!" she cried again, even louder, and I was at their table in two strides. I grabbed the young man by his neckcloth and tossed him aside like a worn out broom. Then I looked into the girl's blue eyes and smiled.

"May I help you?" I suggested, offering her my hand.

"No," she said, sitting back down as the older man stood and fumbled a small pistol from his waist. I twisted the uncocked weapon from his hand and tossed it across the room to the inn-keeper who was watching us with repressed amusement. He seemed to always enjoy a fight. Most of the other patrons studiously ignored us.

"Sit," I said to the older man as I turned to face the younger who was scrambling from the floor with his hand on the hilt of his ornate hanger. "Don't," I said to him, lifting him up so his feet barely touched the floorboards.

I sat him down, sputtering, brushed his back ostentatiously and took the fourth chair, facing the pretty girl. I smiled at her and she blanched and then blushed. Twin globes of pink flesh tried to climb out of the rigid neckline of her gown pushing a tiny line of fancy lace before them. The deep cavity between her high breasts seemed to grow even deeper, and I expected her nipples to pop forth at any moment.

"What's going on?" I asked the older man.

"Lover's quarrel," he said, "not that it's any of your business." Small muscles beneath his eye spasmed and began to tic.

"It is when it interrupts my drinking," I said.

"My son is going to marry this young lady," the older man said. "He wanted to talk to her alone. Get some things straightened out."

"Wanted to roger me, you mean," the girl said quietly, hands in her lap, chest rising and falling quickly. Her skin was nearly translucent, and her cheeks glowed toward the crimson. She looked from man to man and then lowered her eyes after holding mine briefly. They were a wonderful color, like a winter sky. She had narrow shoulders and high cheekbones. My ballocks trembled.

"We're bespoken," the young man said, straightening his lacy cuffs, adjusting his wig and avoiding my eyes. "Have an understanding."

"Lie," the girl spat. "They's trying to buy me."

"Give them back what's theirs," I suggested, noting her jewelry.

"But," said the older man as the girl screwed a wide golden ring from her forefinger and handed it to him. She undid her pearl necklace and dropped it on the table and then worked her ear bobs free.

"There," she said, pushing the small pile at the glowering man and ignoring his simmering son.

"That's hardly all," the younger man said loudly, reaching out to grab the front of the blonde girl's dress. He tore the fancy stomacher loose with several popping sounds, and the girl stood, knocking over her chair. She unloosed the coat-like dress at her waist. It bunched out at her hips, and she shed it onto the floor behind her with a wiggle of her arms.

Then she stepped back and untied her wide petticoat, let it fall with a rustling sound and stepped from it. She stood there in the middle of the tavern in her white shift and tight-laced stays, seething with anger, a very interesting and highly arousing picture. A few light freckles dotted her bare shoulders and her erect nipples showed clearly though the thin fabric. She had womanly hips for one so young as well a fine pair of female mounds nestled high on her heaving chest, held up and shoved together by her corset. I admired her smooth clavicles and long neck as well as her deep cleavage.

"Now, now," the older man said, obviously embarrassed, "no need for that." The girl crossed her arms at her chest.

"I think you'd better leave," I said to the men as the girl stood there trembling. She put her hands on the back of her righted chair to steady herself and leaned forward a bit, spilling her obvious charms toward me and looking as if she were about to weep.

The young man stood, his hand again on the hilt of his sword. He reached out with the other hand and said, "Come."