Chapter 77: Cuckolding

The colonel's lady was a beauty, a stately woman of fine proportions and haughty grandeur. And she was a terror in bed, nearly insatiable and wholly satisfying.

My job was to guard her, ride with her as she visited kinfolk and friends in the various camps during her stay with the army. She was from Virginia, and, we were told, the wealthy Northern Neck, indeed a very dear friend of Martha Washington and the whole Custis family. She was visiting her husband, a rather self-important staff officer with a reputation as a lush and a libertine.

The lady rode side-saddle and enjoyed moving rapidly, leaning forward with her rump high, her long hair streaming and the reins held loosely. I never saw her go much slower than a canter, and she often galloped her big horses until their tongues hung out and they were heavily lathered.

When she got wherever she was going, she waited for me to help her down. I think we both enjoyed the protracted contact of my hands on her thighs, hips and ribs that usually became hands full of her jutting breasts and firm back as my thumbs slid past her hard nipples. She would smile up at me, shrug out of my grip, rearrange her clothes and stalk away while I took care of the horses and tried to regulate my breathing and calm my aching member.

It took me a few of these visit before I realized that the colonel's lady was having sex with the men she was seeing, all of them, sometimes two or three a day. She would emerge after a half-hour or so, a bit flushed, but almost every hair and ruffle in place, cock an eyebrow and nod to me, remount from my linked hands and kick her horse, and we would gallop back to her stout husband or off to another coupling without a word to each other.

One day, after four or five of these assignations in the same week, a storm caught us and we took shelter in a small inn. We sat in a corner, shoulders and knees touching, and drank something.

"Why do you do it?" I asked her, courage and curiosity rampant, her smell and warmth stimulating.

She looked at me and raised an arched eyebrow. "None of your damn'd business," she said, pouring more dark wine into her glass from the carafe.

"Your husband is sporting the biggest pair of horns in the whole Continental army," I said, watching her lick her lips and flare her nostrils.

"Indeed," said she. "That's just what I intended. I'm proud to hear it."

"But why?" I insisted.

"Because he is a bully and a drunk who has abused me and then ignored me, consorting with the lowest sort of woman." She set her mouth in a thin line. "Is that enough? Must I provide the titillating details?"

I nodded and drank my beer while the rain poured down, a real cloudburst that rattled the windows and shook the shutters.

"Come," she suddenly said, "I'll show you. Rent us a room."

I took care of that detail, feeling a surge in my groin, while the lady waited, hands on wide hips, her proud chest rapidly rising and falling. We were the only customers. Then I took her elbow and escorted her upstairs, bolting the small, slope-ceilinged room's door behind us.

She stood at the narrow window, peeled out of her tight jacket and then stripped off her lacy shirt, tossing it aside negligently. Her back, at least what I could see above her lace-bordered shift and tight corset, was a mass of scars and bruises, mostly old and narrow, and many criss-crossed. Her upper arms and shoulders bore the same marks, dozens of them. There were even a few on the upper parts of her jutting breasts. I had seen slaves thus striped but never a white woman. The welts extended up to the base of her neck and disappeared down her deep-cleft spine toward her wide hips.

"He did this?" I asked stupidly, holding her long hair away from her back while she stood statue-still. I fingered some of her deeper wounds.

She nodded. "From the first night we were wed. His idea of love most would call rape. He uses both a leather cat and birch rods."

She turned to face me, rose on her toes, put her hands up on my chest and kissed me, hard and long. I folded her in, held her tight and kissed her back, mashing us together. She was very firm and quite warm.

"Satisfied?" she asked, sinking back down and leaning her face on my chest. I patted her back carefully, feeling her breathing rate increase.

I took off my heavy belt, pulled out my shirttail and yanked the long-tailed shirt over my head. "I've got a few of those," I said, turning so she could see my back. "Some I even earned." She felt at several of my old scars and wounds, and then put her arms about my waist, pressing her hard breasts into my back while her hands explored my chest, raked through my belly hair. I turned about and held her at the hips, waiting for an invitation I suppose.

"But I have more," she whispered to my chest. "Don't I?"

I undid her skirt and she kicked it away and then sat on the side of the bed and got out of her shoes and stockings while I shed my boots and britches. I came and stood before her, turgid but not erect, and she looked up at me as I unlaced her stays and drew her shift over her head. Then we rolled under the quilts and enjoyed each other until the rain stopped.

She was very strong and demanding and her crests were lengthy and violent, real spasms of delight that shook us both to our foundations as her breathing became rapid and shallow, just a series of gasps. We lay together, resting and listening to the eaves drip.

"Looks like it might do some more," I said as the setting sun emerged, very red on the horizon.

"Um," she said, gnawing at one of my nipples, my sack of stones in her hand. "Might have to spend the night."

"Suppose," I said, kneading her firm bottom. "Damn shame."

"Let's get some food," she suggested, pulling free and rolling out. "Build up our strength." I lay there and enjoyed the sight of her big, luscious body as she got her clothes on, not bothering with the corset. The marks on her back continued across her rounded buttocks.

We dined among a crowd from the stage and enjoyed the noisy, smoky atmosphere until two officers entered, looked about and then came directly to our corner table, two captains, one of whom I vaguely recognized.

"Melissa Jane," said the older of the two, ignoring me as though I were another chair. "What are you doing here?"

"Staying dry," she said, touching the tablecloth to her lips. "Won't you sit down and join us?" She introduced me as her escort, and both men glanced at me and then turned their full attention to her after pulling up their bench. I could hardly blame them, pretty as she was.

"It's good to see you again," the senior captain said, taking her hand. "This is Captain Dickson. I've told him all about you."

The younger man licked his chops. They ordered some food and wine and then the senior officer turned to me for the first time. "Why don't you take a walk, private. We can attend the lady."

I looked at the woman who had recently arched under me and gasped out her pleasure on the end of my thrusting prod. She smiled. "No, stay," she said.

"I'll make it an order," said the captain.

"I already have my orders, sir," I said to him as quietly as I could. "She's in my care."

"G'damn you," the captain hissed, ignoring the fact that I outweighed him by a couple of stones. "Leave. Get out to the stable with the other animals."

"No sir," I said. "It's up to the lady. You heard her."

"This slut?" he growled at me.

I reached across the table, took his hand, turned it over and crushed his fingers together, bending his thumb back to his wrist. He squealed and tried to pull away while Captain Dickson watched, obviously amazed. Then he jumped up, grabbed my shoulder and yelled, "Release him at once!"

I did after giving the man's hand another half-twist that seemed to dislodge two of his fingers. Then I stood and faced the younger captain. "Sir," I said to him quietly, "this lady is my charge, my duty is to her."

"Don't," said the woman calmly. "Go on," she said to me, "do what they say. I'll be all right."

"Let's go outside," I suggested to the officers. The older man still grimaced as he pulled on his dislocated fingers.

"Please," said the woman, and I left, drew up a bucket of water from the well, drank deeply and then found a light for my pipe. I leaned against the back wall of the tavern, listening as best I could for any signs of distress.