Chapter 68: Friends

You are not going to believe this next story. I hardly believe it myself. I was headed back toward our retreating army, dodging patrols and well behind the pursuing British under Cornwallis when I came across a small settlement well hidden in a gentle valley. There were just a few wooden houses, perhaps ten, a small mill and a log meeting house. The village was filled with Quakers, a breakaway sect perhaps, who seemed to be almost self-sufficient and basically disinterested in the outside world and its problems.

I knocked at the first house I came to, hungry and tired. The woman who answered looked me up and down, smiled and invited me inside. Her furniture was heavy and plain, her crockery utilitarian, her manner confident. "I'm happy to see a man," she told as she set out bread and poured me some cider. While she stirred her stew over the fire, she said her name was Anna and that her husband, along with most of the town's other young men, had run off to avoid being forced into the militia.

"We don't hold with killing," she said.

"Few do," I said, watching her stir and enjoying the sight as well as the smell.

"And you?" she asked.

"I'm a soldier," I admitted. "I've killed men."

She grunted and brought the iron pot to the table, ladled us both out a bowlful and sat across from me. She was a fine looking young woman, her wispy hair drawn back into a bun at the nape of her neck. Her dress was dark and plain, without decoration or lace, and the body beneath it both muscular and well rounded. We ate. She doled out more for me, and her eyes never left my face as if she was studying me. When she finished, she licked her lips, took my hand and led me to her bed. "Time to sing for your supper," she said with a small laugh.

She knelt on the side of her high bed, knees well apart, put her head down and lifted her wide rump. I was never one to be begged, so I flipped open my codpiece, withdrew my swelling tool, tossed up her skirts and went to work, spreading her legs as a first step. She was very tight and rather dry at first, but with some effort we got the long, hot shaft stuffed into her and after a dozen or so slow, deep thrusts, we were well lubricated and enjoyed a fine rogering that brought us both to huffing, moaning climaxes. It was nearly as matter-a-fact as ditch digging, seemingly emtionless.

When I withdrew, she stood on wobbly legs and then collapsed across her bed, rolled to her back, arms spread wide, gasping for breath, chest rising and falling. I crawled up between her legs, reseated my long, hard spear and drove it slowly into her squishy quim. She did not object. Up came her legs to cross behind me, and she grabbed my shoulders and arched her back, biting at her lower lip.

"Oh, oh, oh," she cried once we got into proper rhythm, mouth gaping wide, eyes closed as our pace increase steadily. We heaved into each other with all we could muster. My thrusting drove her head and shoulders off the far edge of her bed before we came again, howling with pleasure and relief. I fell away from her and pulled her to me, gobbling her mouth. We rested, legs wound together, and when she got her breath, she sighed, "Enough, enough for now."

I kissed her forehead sweetly, rolled out and buttoned up.

"I've got some chores that need doing?" she said, up on one elbow, smiling at me as she tucked one large boobie back into her bodice.

"Like the ones we just did?" I asked.

"No," she giggled, "harder work. Look up. You can see through the roof."

So I found the ladder and did some patching and reshingling for her and then split a bit of fire wood. When she called me to supper, I was surprised to find four young women and a wrinkled, white-haired man at the table, almost filling her small house. I sat at the empty space beside him, bowed my head as he asked a blessing, and then ate in relative silence, feeling the women's eyes on me from time to time. When the light meal was concluded with a thick piece of apple pie, the man beside me cleared his throat and wiped his bearded mouth on the back of his hand.

"These ladies," he said, gesturing at the four young matrons, "share a problem. Their men have left them and stay away for fear of being forced into the army. You may have heard."

"I've been told," I said.

"As you can see," he smiled, "all these women are of an age when male companionship is, if not necessary, then certainly appreciated from time to time."

I nodded and looked from face to young and shining face around the sturdy table. All the girls smiled. They were an attractive lot, plain farm women; healthy, sun-tanned, wide-hipped and deep-chested. All had their hair knotted on the back of their heads and all wore the same sort of drab. home-made dress and short boots. All had work-worn hands and sinewy forearms. They varied in size and shape, but none was more than twenty-five years I am sure.

"Meg there," he nodded at the most mature of the four, "does have a child, a son, fine boy, but the others were only recently wed. What they would like, if you are willing, is to be refreshed, to be, well, how shall we say, to have conjugal relations with you as a substitute for their missing husbands, purely physical, you understand, no promises made or given. You simply cover them."

I looked from woman to woman and each one nodded at me and smiled. My root trembled.

"You have met Anna here, our hostess this evening, and she has told them that you are fully competent to perform this, shall we call it, duty? Well equipped, I believe she said." The old man smiled at me. "I would have volunteered myself, but I fear I am no longer up to the job."

We all laughed briefly.

"They have made a schedule that assumes you will spend the night with one of them and then have congress with two others during the day, one around mid-day and another before this late supper."