With appreciation for Ishmael, who so generously shared his plot ideas. Thanks!

"Were I to stitch from matins to vespers," I fume aloud, "I could dress but half the courtiers I've promised!"

"I advise it be the lower half, then." At my sour scowl, Margaret smiles sweetly and shifts the infant to her freshly bared breast, where he suckles the wet red nubbin which once was mine alone. "Garreth, I again beseech you to give me more of your stitching that I might--"

"--stitch with one hand whilst spoiling with the other?" I shake my head, stealing yet another covetous look at the nipple standing proud. "Making the babe's barley gruel fresh each morn whilst we break our fast on porridge days in the pot? Airing and sunning him like the rugs of some rich manse, bathing him each day as if he were a prince? Taking him to market, to shops, to church?" My anger finds full voice. "All the while making your clumsy stitches, which I must tear out in secrecy to spare your heart's hurt? I shouldn't be the first tailor to go blind from the work! Or mad from a wife's help!"

"Garreth! I should beat your hind full sore for speaking to me so!" Her eyes show not her temper but tears.

Shame wells in me, for she deserves not my wearied wrath. "Margaret, my very bones are tired," I explain. "I rue my words, and--"

"Hush, husband. I know well how long you toil without complaint." My wife, as always, quells her rightful anger at my dark disposition and brightens our rooms with her cheer. "You had but to bid me stop, if you would not teach me as masters teach apprentices."

"They beat them, full sore and more." Though it be their right, I am sickened at the cruelty of certain tradesmen and artisans. Their boys' battered faces and downcast eyes as they limp the city at their master's bidding pain me sharp since my own son was born. He will never apprentice to such a man, never cringe when called upon but only smile his eagerness to please a good man who teaches that which he knows and loves--

"Were I your apprentice," Margaret says with eye a-twinkle, "I'd work my best for my husband lest he be so weary, and work my hardest for my master lest he beat me. And be obliged to fill master or thrill husband at his whimsy." She has the grace to blush at her boldness.

My stitching I set down as my rod does rise. "Both husband and master would thrill and fill your cunnie in return."

"Oh, joy!" she counters. "I cannot decide: husband or master?"

"No man can ever master you, Margaret." I sigh. "I should not have spoken so harshly of your stitches. If you would be my master for the nonce, I'll not object." I give my wife a bawdy wink. "Mayhap my words merit a beating."

"No. I'll strike you not, for sparing my heart's hurt over my poor stitching, though it pains me still to see you work until your eyes cross, yet chase sleep all the night. Let me put the babe to his cradle. A warm clyster would smooth your hackles."

Would I had the time! "I'm to deliver the--"

"Garreth, I'll not hear excuses!" Margaret insists in a soft voice which means our son sleeps. "Fill whichever bag you like while I see to the babe. The kettle is warm still." She turns away, cooing as if it were she the infant, and bends over the cradle whilst I bend over the hearth.

Soon enough the leather clyster bag bulges. I loose my breeches and bare my posterior, feeling Margaret's approving eyes full on me.

"Your skin is so white," she murmurs, taking up the greasepot.

I hold my cleft open for her. "If it be your wish, you may stain it red with the strop. Not too many strokes, as I'm to sit and work while the sky is light and beyond."

She glances toward our sleeping babe, then turns her attention to the greasepot, from which she anoints my fundament. My shaft wakes to her probing finger anointing my eager hole. "I dare not wake the child," she finally says.

"The child!" I hiss. "Am I never to make sound in these rooms again?"

Margaret's reply is the quick thrust of the fat tip of the clyster bag into my slippery pucker. As always, I intake God's good air sharply; my nether portal stings no less for the year since the tip was first introduced.

My wife waits not for my taut fundament to ease but gives the bag a mighty squeeze. The water from the kettle seemed not so warm as this! My staff rises with the heat, but fair Margaret pays it no heed but again squeezes a draught into my nethers.

"Garreth," she says in words carefully measured, "I strive to take the babe and myself away that you might work in peace." Another draught. My rod beats with my heart. "And I sought to help you, though I knew not how and only made you work the more. Your foul mood is rightful, husband, but it poisons our home."

Again a great surge of the water stretches my nethers taut. I thrust my hind up, silently asking for my due. Margaret obliges, filling me so that I must clench myself hard about the bag's fat tip lest I loose my foul load.

"I shall rid our rooms of your poison, Garreth. I know how it must be done."

"How?" I ask, my teeth and pucker gripped tight.

"You shall have a soothing purge each morn and my cunnie each night."

My manhood lifts, along with my spirits. More of the clyster water streams into my bowels, the cramping pain delicious. I moan, softly, for my son sleeps.

"And tomorrow I shall give the land-lady a few coppers to take the babe whilst I give your hind the stropping it so dearly needs! All the day as you sit and stitch, it shall make you mindful of our union to come." Gush! My member would burst with need of her, not to-nite but now! "There, you've taken it all." The tip withdraws from me.

"Margaret, my love," I beseech, turning that she might see my rampant manhood. Again I must squeeze myself lest I soil our rooms.

"We'll not partake of the pleasures of the flesh until tonight." She turns, rummaging in the basket. "I'm afraid we've no turnips to plug your bung, sir, so out you go!"

I scuttle like the crabs at fish-market, my gut-full weighs me so. My wife calls after me, "Don't forget it's the same again to-morrow!"

But it is not to be.

Upon my return, Margaret and babe are well-bundled for an outing. She fondles my staff through my breeches, reminding me of tonight, though my memory needs no aid. All the morn I sit in the window's good light, moving myself as the sun crosses the heavens, my hands working swiftly as my thoughts do roam over Margaret's fine flesh, plumper and more appetizing than ever since our son's birthing. The swell of her milky breasts, yes, and the taste of the droplet which flows from my gentlest kiss, the pleasant round of her belly 'neath my hand as it searches low, lower, lower still until it doth find the crisp hair of her cunnie and its own sweet droplets, the jellied orbs of her newly-wide rump, each cheek a-bounce in my grasp as she rides me...

"Margaret..." The sound of my hoarse whisper in the silent room startles me, as it announces her. She is flushed, breathing quickly.

"Margaret! Are you ill? Where is the child? What's happened?"

"I ran with the news, my good husband! The judge ordered and the church performed a public purification! Would we had seen it!"

Would no one had seen it, nor my own! I was pilloried in the great church square, my entrails purged and my posterior beaten, again and again until the demons which bid me lie with Maude did depart. Would it had never happened! Would that poor, sweet Maude had told me her secret and I'd done right. Instead, Maude perished beneath a runaway horse's great hooves, taking with her child--my child--who was never to be born. "Where is my son?" I demand of Margaret.

"With the land-lady. I must tell you what happened, Garreth!"

"Must you?" I ask, but she sees not my distaste for another man's misfortune.

"The sheriff made his arrest, with foot-soldiers lest there be trouble. The judge held the trial in secrecy but witnessed by both priests and nobles that it be fair in its determinings. The church did carry out the sentence that very day--I'd have known sooner had I not been walking the babe hither and yon that you might stitch. Oh, I wisht we'd seen it!"

"The sight of a man's suffering--" I begin archly.

Her excitement tramples that which I would say. "The Irish tinker stood right close, and told all to the butcher's boy, who told Cecelia the goose girl, who told every shepherdess and goat girl and scullery maid. The whole city knows of it, and we the last. As always."

Because I was similarly purified, I am shunned by many, mocked by others. The church pronounced my soul clean of sin and approved my union with Margaret, but that which my Lord on High did bless was not good enough for all. Were it not for Margaret's counsel, I'd have fled to begin anew.

Instead, I held my head high and my ears deaf while doing my best work until either eyes or hands could do no more. Had I no buyers, I stitched garments in common size and did convince my next customer he hungered for a green bodkin with black trim--and that he'd have to wait for it, as others had before him made their own selections.

Now my services are ever in demand. Coins paid with scorn spend the same as those given with honor. "Margaret, I remain sorry that my own purification deprived you of the news."

"I am not deprived but delayed, Garreth." Her smile warms me. "Your purification provided me with husband and infant. The tinker reports the punishment brutal, much worse than your own. The square echoed with his screams, drowned by the mob's shouts that he receive ever more!"

"Spare my remembered agonies with reports of new and worse, woman."

"As you wish," Margaret says, though I see she wishes to tell all she knows. "He languished in the jail but a day, bleeding from end to end, and died without the church's blessing. At least his family did not see him thus. They left the city in disgrace upon his arrest. As well they should. I'd have cast a stone to drive out the blood of such a man as he!"

"Who?"

"Did I not say? The Magistrate! He who would lie as husband with poor Maude!"

"But I--" Lay with Maude many, many pleasurable times, and paid the dear price, bared before the mob. The only good to come of the torture was my Margaret, who stood in attendance to him who delivered my penalty with such skill and pleasure.

"You denied it not, but 'twas only at the Magistrate's insistence that they did purify your soul with pain and purge. Both church and judge decreed punishment harsher still when it came out that the Magistrate himself also lay with Maude!"

I can scarce believe it. "The Magistrate with a pretty scullery maid?" I know my blunder the moment the words do leave my lips. "And her not half so fair as you. What fools could accept this as truth?"

"'Tis said," Margaret says, "that when alone with a man, Maude was merry, saucy, and knew wifely ways to please."

True enough. I've lain with many fair maidens, and taken more than my share of their maidenheads, but only Maude would stand bare-fleshed in the day's first sun, or spread herself by candlelight that mine eyes might feast on her moist secrets. I know not my wife's body thus, but only by touch, as a blind man might know his woman.

Margaret says, "A boy came to the sheriff with a tale about seeing Maude sport with the Magistrate."

I shake my head. "Boys who tell tales ought to be whipped for it." As I never was until the Magistrate did order it done, and as my son is never to be.

"He is but a lad, too young to invent what he saw. He'd been sent round to find Maude and bid her come to early supper, but he feared interrupting her in the company of a gentleman, so he watched and waited for his time. Maude did kiss the Magistrate's lips, and he hers, and her bared breasts, like a suckling pig, which made her to collapse."

Margaret laughs, as do I, but for my own reasons. My good wife Margaret does indeed lie to receive me, oft after I have suckled like a piglet, but Maude did not so much lie as allow herself to fall in grassy meadows or hay-filled barns, laughing, until I did kiss the merriment from her lips and plunge my staff to her core.

"The boy told the sheriff that the Magistrate did revive her with a physic of dewdrops from his rod to her lips. Maude then kissed the shaft in her gratitude, which seemed to be great indeed. He would to suckle her breasts anew, and raised her skirts that he might suckle her belly until she did gasp. He turned her away, bent with her skirts up that he might service her as the bull doth service the cows. He bellowed as a bull, too, the boy said, and Maude did low as if she needed milking."

As she did with me, during the same few months? My shaft's many entries in her cunnie made me believe her to be mine alone, for the time. Worse still, the Magistrate enticed her to ever so much more than I'd dreamt. Her kisses to his shaft! And his to her cunnie! I'd never imagined such pleasures! My own liberties seem as nothing compared to his, yet he'd ordered me "purified"--abused and shamed for my lesser crime! How dare he?

Margaret continues, unaware of my outrage. "The good sheriff could not act on the word of a child, but he questioned Maude's friends, and they said he spoke truthfully."

"Why did they not come forward when I--"

"They feared the Magistrate's wrath, Garreth. We all did, and as you never claimed innocence, and indeed, were guilty as they did charge--"

My heart hammers in my chest. " 'We all did'? You knew Maude?"

She shrugs. "The city is not so large the maids and serving wenches make not one another's acquaintance. Know you not merchants of cloth, of buttons, laces, and ribbons, the tinker who hones your shears? She sought me out when she became giddy at your attentions. I confess, we laughed at your expense more than once, Garreth, we two who knew you so--personally, though I'd not laid eyes upon your fair face for two years or more. I still dreamt of it, and the body I imagined beneath your sark and breeches. But you required what I would not give, which Maude so readily would..." She shrugs yet again. "With you, with the Magistrate, with a few others as well. We all knew of it."

"Yet knowing how I suffered for my sin with Maude, you told me not?"

"To what purpose? Maude was with her Lord, your horrific penance was complete, and we were married in the eyes of the church. Why tell you I knew of Maude, or her dalliance with the Magistrate? One word from him could yet have ruined you."

I cannot leave it lie. "You knew he was as guilty as I, more guilty perhaps, yet said nothing as they purged me and beat me at his command?" My hand has balled itself into a fist which would strike her save for my control.

"Garreth, calm yourself. Shall I give you a second clyster? You always feel better after--"

My arm strains to punish Margaret. Only my will holds it at my side. "I bent naked before the entire city for my sin. I screamed, Margaret! And my wife speaks not!"

"I was not then your wife. When it was done, I kept my silence. No good could come of a second man's torture. As it did not." Her voice softens. "The man is dead, Garreth."

"You could have spared me, with a few words, woman, but you were silent!" Unbidden, my fist rises to deliver the blow.

Margaret strikes first, the flat of her hand snapping sharply across my face. Though I've been beaten without mercy, bleating my pain into the mob's ears, never before have I been slapped. The sting upon my cheek surprises me and makes the near eye fill with tears. The other joins it almost at once, for what I must now do grieves me.

"Margaret, you must be punished."

"No! I but slapped your face!"

"Not for the slapping, though it, too, was not your right." I take her arm most firmly. "Your silence served not the memory of Maude and her unborn babe, nor the man who would that very night be your husband, tormented in the pillories when he was neither the sole sinner nor the greatest. Had you told what you knew, I might not have suffered then or later." Nor would I have met her again with her heart softened with pity. It was the worst experience of my life, but worth its outcome.

I steel myself for the duty at hand. "Your silence hurt others. It hurt me. It left the Magistrate a year and more to live free of such suffering as I have known, to lie with who knows how many others, to order the jailing or punishment of those guilty of the same offenses as he himself commits, and in the end saved him not. Your silence will be punished."

Already tears streak her pretty face, but she no longer argues the rightness of it. "How shall I be punished?" she asks. "As you were?"

My belly sickens at the imagined debasement of any woman before the mob, and my eyes prick with sympathy at the thought of my Margaret in such pain. But I know what I must say. "No, not as I was punished. You will be punished as you erred: in silence."

Margaret's eyes follow me as I make ready, filling the kettle from the oaken bucket and renewing the flames below. I select dried herbs, crushing them in my hands, savoring both the scent and the memory of my mother, who taught my sisters and me which to pluck and when, that we might have medicinal draughts should we fall ill. I'd had few herbs since coming to the city in my youth, my heart torn at the loss of my entire family to flux, until I wed Margaret. Her knowing eyes find remedies enough for a village, shyly growing amidst the city's weeds and offal. Oft drying bundles of this flower or that leaf dangle from the rafters, scenting our rooms, until Margaret gives them to ailing friends or sells them to strangers.

I've no oar to represent the paddle which my hind did first taste as I rode the pillory, but I lay out the stout leather strop I suffered and which Margaret did pilfer. I open the large clyster bag, which she brought likewise, that I might fill it with my herbal remedy.

My scrap basket has all I would need ten times over. I select narrow snips cut from selvage of the sturdier yard goods, regardless of hue, most the width of my two fingers and so strong that I cannot tear them with my two hands. A piece of midnight velvet tumbles out as I draw one length. It gives me pause. Yes! I set it out with the other scraps.

Last, I fold the fine blue silk with which the Magistrate's man did blind-fold me, following the bias, corner to diagonal corner. I have saved the silk this year and more, awaiting its proper use, never finding it apt until my wife's punishment.

A sideward glance toward her chair shows Margaret's trepidation, as it should. The horror in her fair face saddens me. Knows she not that though I must punish, my heart forbids me be harsh? That the brief pain I shall deliver as lesson hurts me nearly as deeply? Would that she might learn by my taking it for her, but our own nobles are proof enough that a whipping boy teaches his master not.

"Margaret, I shall blind-fold you, that you know not what is to come, as I knew not." Her eyes widen before they close at the velvet's approach. I tie the luxurious cloth in place with a length of black braid, a favorite trim of fine gentlemen.

At last the water in the kettle steams. I dip my large tankard and drop the crushed leaves into the mug.

"Spearmint?" Margaret asks, her nose sniffing like a hound's. Could she see it, she would know not only the herb but its likely source.

"Peppermint." Tea from its leaves is sharper, icily bracing. Steeped long and strong, my mother employed it often, sips from the hot cup clearing our noses, chests, or bellies. It should prove a worthy brew for my Margaret's first taste from below.

"You shall be punished in silence," I remind her, handing the bit of azure silk. "Tie it in place over your open mouth." When she has obeyed, I take my wife's hands, noting both their clean softness and the hard spots from her harder labors in my behalf. Margaret's hands are never idle, no more than are mine, but I will force them so. I circle her paired wrists with a long scrap of damask remaining from a green bodkin unable to slim a plump baron despite its generous cut. "Stand," I order.

I hold her steady, recalling well how loss of my sight to the blind-fold stole away my balance as well. I guide her to bend over the chair's back, then knot the damask to the rung where her heels had been hooked when she sat, only moments ago.

The vision of lovely Margaret's willing submission, her hair tumbling toward the velvet blind-fold, the wet mouth stretched just a bit by the silk gag, her hands bound so low as to bend her fully, her broad rump aimed Heavenward, causes my staff to stir. I raise her skirts, then the simple petticoat, stitched clumsily and no doubt her own work. Her milk-white rounds pimple at their sudden exposure to cooler air. No cause for concern, as I intend to warm them thoroughly.

My rod wakes fully and asks to be freed from its cloth jail. Knowing Margaret cannot see, I soothe it with a long stroke nearly as tender as hers, but free it not.

"I've no oar," I tell her, "but the butter-paddle should serve." It is smaller than my hand, its grip short, as women shape the churned butter not from a distance but close, to shoo flies as required.

I pop the flat of it across Margaret's goosefleshed orbs, which start with a quiver like a fine horse beset by biting flies beyond reach of its tail. A faint pink mark forms, darker at the low edge, in the shape of the little paddle; my stroke wants flattening.

The next shall be better. I swing the little paddle in a short arc. It bounces from her springy rump delightfully, in a way that makes my manhood stand tall. I swing it again, and yet again, as swiftly as my good right arm can deliver the blows accurately. A lovely rose infuses her snowy skin, which flinches at each stroke to the lowest part of either buttock.

Clearly this is the portion God intended parent or husband to punish. I draw my arm back farther and lay it harder. Margaret cannot help but move beneath the onslaught, cringing, pressing her halves tightly, but she stays as positioned though her lower limbs be free.

Some minutes later, between my own rapid breaths, I hear a gagged groan. Margaret can take no more for the moment. I stop at once, setting my hand on the small of her back that she know it shall not raise the paddle now.

My eyes do drink in the sight, the rosy skin swelling slightly, seeming both scuffed and sweat-dampened. Its hue is breathtaking, a deep pink infused with hints of peach, blue, even violet. I shall buy a piece of good brocade, mayhap even a length of velvet, and fashion a tight bodice for Margaret, in just this color, it suits her so. As it inflames me. I shall beg her to wear it often, and recall this vision each time she agrees.

I bring the greasepot next, setting it down after gathering a generous daub on my forefinger. My other hand enjoys the beaten heat of her hind as it opens Margaret's cleft, where I am newly surprised.

The white rounds stained rose with the butter paddle held a secret between: within her halves Margaret is the same shade of rose, deepening dramatically to a violet-brown at the tiny pucker which I intend to anoint.

My staff weeping with joy, I must turn away lest I spend its wealth in my breeches. I breathe slowly, deeply, reminding myself that my wife's loveliness will remain long after the punishment she requires for her silence which tortured me so. As husband, I have the right to demand viewing at any time, and to beat her should she refuse. She is my property and can no more deny me than could my cow, if I had one. Perhaps we should get a cow; our son needs milk to grow strong, and Margaret cannot nurse him forever. Or a goat. They say the milk is sweet, and the kids a delight as they frolic...

My manhood somewhat recovered, I shake such considerations aside. I now have an obligation, and of course the right, to continue Margaret's punishment. The grease lies thick on my two fingers. I spread her anew and anoint her tawny bud thoroughly, first outside, then easing in.

The tube of muscle does grip tight my exploring forefinger. Margaret needs opening if the clyster bag's tip is not to rend her. I take many minutes stretching her for the wood to come, adding grease and fingers and more grease, until my three large digits can enter. Margaret must find it a discomfort, if her gagged moans and rapid breathing are to gauge it.

The peppermint tea in my tankard has brewed to its deepest color. Quite warm still, but not hot. I strain it through a bit of cheesecloth into the clyster bag and reattach the bag's tip, my eyes seeking out Margaret's glistening fundament all the while.

When I ease the fat tip within, she seems glad enough for my preparation. Her slick pucker at first opens to admit, then cannot, or will not, open further. "Come, Margaret, allow it inside," I urge her, "because although I will force it if I must, I would see it happen through your will rather than my own." I rotate the wooden tip, pushing it ever so slightly further inward, apparently without paining my wife.

At my pause, I observe her taut fundament with interest; it throbs minutely with her speeding heart. Again I slowly twist, delving the deepest hole Nature provided her. The tip slips ever deeper. "Good, Margaret, very good, and so very beautiful," I whisper, overcome with the sight. "As worthy of my loving attentions as your beautiful cunnie, yes, let's open it a bit more, yes, oh, my, look at it glide in, yes, only a little more, open for it, for me, yes..."

The tip waits, fully seated deep in Margaret's entrails. Her violet-brown bud is stretched thinly white at the rim, but I see no evidence of even the smallest rent.

I am determined to infuse her entrails with the strong peppermint brew in sudden spurts. To that end, I lift the clyster bag to move the contents to its mouth, that they might spill through the deeply nestled tip and into her body. I squeeze.

Margaret thrusts her hips toward the herbs hanging to dry from the rafters. Another draught. She stamps one foot. I wait, rearranging the leather folds of the bag to ensure all the brew will make its way into her. There is so little, compared to what was forced into me, that she must take every drop.

By the time I can detect no peppermint tea in the bag, Margaret restlessly shifts her weight from foot to foot. The peppermint oils have enlivened her nethers admirably. My rod is equally enlivened, if not more so.

Before I withdraw the tip, I say, "Margaret, know you that I shall proceed on removal slowly, lest you loose yourself in our rooms. If you release so much as a drop of peppermint, I shall make use of the strop." At once I wriggle the tip, still deep, and ever so gradually twist it from its delightful moorings. For an instant, no more, Margaret's tiny bud tries to follow, grasping at the wood, before she clamps herself tight.

"Very good." Without so much as a clatter, I raise the little butter paddle and begin anew. Part of me hopes Margaret loses control. Though I am enamored of the hue of her paddled flesh, I long to see the rounds stropped red.

Briefly but thoroughly I assault Margaret's nether cheeks with the paddle, then observe their trembling color and her efforts to contain herself. The beating is in no means severe, and the long minutes before the paddle again finds her are exquisite torture for my eyes and manhood. Four times I strike her in a volley of swats, then watch and wait.

I shall burst if I continue in such fashion. Instead, I lower Margaret's petticoat (vowing to stitch her a better one, and soon) and skirts, then free her hands. I help her to stand; she grips my arm most firmly, in such need of support is she. My nimble tailor's fingers make short work of untying the blind-fold's cord without tugging her tresses. She blinks owlishly, even the soft light in our rooms paining new eyes.

I place my own just before her. "You suffered in silence as directed, Margaret, most admirably. When I remove the mouth cloth, you shall say nothing until you divest yourself of the purge. Upon your return, you will always remember that silence can indeed hurt, and that you must always speak freely with me upon pain of another silent punishment. Do you understand?"

Her agitated nod worries me, until I remember that the purge's insistence on a speedy exit is redoubled when newly upright. I strip off the gag. "Go on," I say, scooping her rounds in my hands right through her skirts, urging her out the door.

Upon her return, Margaret's very posture seems newly submissive. "Are you well?" I ask.

"I may speak?"

"You must. No silence between husband and wife. You shall speak your mind, always, as I shall my own."

She nods. "Thank you, Garreth."

"For license to speak your thoughts? It is nothing, Margaret." I wave it away with one hand.

"Not that. Thank you." She traps the hand and brings it to her skirts, in the back. "For punishing me so, and for your words during the worst part. It pleased you, what you saw?"

"More than words can express. I--" I shake my head. Such thoughts as I had are better left unsaid.

"You shall speak your mind, Garreth. Your voice, your very breath, announced your want to my ears. I would know your want, could I then see your face, as I do now."

I feel it heat with shame. "What I want," I begin, "is--"

"--your right to demand, as husband, and mine to give as your wife. Should I refuse, mayhap the butter paddle would change my mind. That, too, is within your right."

"What is the meaning of your words, Margaret?"

"You are not usually quite so dim," she says, her saucy smile teasing without spite. "You have but to tell me what you want of me, and I suspect you shall have it, given gladly. Shall I raise my skirts, show you my love-nest?"

I answer not, but she lifts them as high as if I'd begged. I see wisps of the fluff which guards her cunnie, and pink glistening from within.

"And shall I then bend, displaying my punishment for my husband's approval?" She does flip the skirts high as she folds herself o'er, hiding her head in the cloth but revealing the rounds, still flushed pink but no longer rosy.

The layered skirts muffle her voice. "That done, shall I spread my tender halves wide, that my husband might grease me well?"

My heart thunders within my chest like huge horse hooves, and my staff beseeches me to release him, release him at once! The pink inner cleft, now darker than her beaten rounds, entrances as before, but the bud captivates: still a curious shade neither violet nor taupe-brown, it pouts open ever so slightly, showing a wee line of sable and, incredibly, the deepest rose hue within, so open is her fundament.

"I said, 'That my husband might grease me well.' Or shall I apply the grease myself?"

"No," I say, but no sound does come. I clear my throat. "No. I'll grease you well."

"If I am to speak my mind, I must say that I hope you would do more than that, Garreth."

"Speak your mind fully," I order, picking up the greasepot.

She gathers a breath. "If I refuse, it is your right to paddle me afresh."

"If you refuse, it is my duty." My laden finger enters her fundament easily, circles within, and withdraws. Margaret releases her cheeks from her grasp, but shifts her position to remain as widely available to my attentions.

"Do you wish me to refuse to speak my mind fully?" she asks coyly.

My reply is a volley of pops with the butter paddle. "This is what I wish," I say shortly, and paddle a half-dozen more. "Now speak your mind fully, my good wife, or it's the strop." I doubt I could force myself to do it, but she knows not my weakness.

"Not the strop! I, I--"

I brandish the thick leather. "Speak!" I bark.

"I hope you will use that which you did grease as you would my cunnie!" She claps a hand over her bold mouth.

My staff makes quick work of his escape, his capped head pressing gently where it would venture. My hands feel new heat from her rump as they hold it open ever wider, the better to enter and to see the entry.

"Oh, Garreth! Oh, husband, it pierces, oh..."

I pull back at once, but she gropes behind herself, grasps my manhood, and restores him to his place. "Pierce me, husband, but slowly. Ever so slowly."

The fundamental grip all but strangles, but I am able to enter a finger's breadth more, later still another, until over many long minutes it eases and I glide the final journey without such effort. "All is well, Margaret?" I ask. Surely my rod cannot be in so small an opening without paining her!

"I am more than fine. Use me as you will, husband. The peppermint has left me curiously restless, and you must to attend where I cannot."

I dare move within her, and she raises herself to respond, then pushes me deep again, just as we might sport with cock and cunnie, save the tightness and forbidden nature of our act. The sensation is alien, nearly Divine in its essential goodness.

"Oh, God!" Such blasphemy! It is I who should be beaten and purged. "Oh, my good Lord..."

"Speak your mind, Garreth. Speak freely."

"Oh, Margaret, yes, again, again, oh, this is earthly Heaven... yes, deep, deeper! To feel as this, so good, so good that I cannot, I must, I shall, no, I cannot--ahh!" I spend within her fundament.

My shrinking rod pulls free with a tiny sound. Margaret's reply is a small, distressed cry which I silence by replacing shaft with thumb. My cream moistening her entire cleft, my wife does work herself on my thick digit easily, ever deeper and faster, until her fundament grasps my thumb tightly, repeatedly, and she does shiver, whispering my name, then slump.

"Margaret? Margaret!" Is this love a sin? Have I already paid with her life?

"Hush, Garreth. Women whose husbands make them to spend need a short rest alongside them." We sink to the floor, heedless of its chill, our bodies pressed belly to back. "Garreth, my love for you grows in leaps and bounds this day. I love our baby equally foolishly," she announces. "You know that to be true."

"I do. He's a fine boy. And he shall have many brothers and sisters, God willing."

"Yes, but too many, birthed often, wear a woman down to nothing. They die while their children are yet young, and the widower husband must find a new wife to care for them, and she has babies as fast as the first--"

"That is the way of it. Mayhap it be God's will."

"Mayhap we have free will, husband, through which we choose to obey God's laws. If you fill my cunnie this and every night, I will soon be with child, and will be only Garreth the Tailor's first wife of several."

The thought of Margaret's death is too horrible! I could not bear it. "I need not such satisfaction each night, not if it will lead to--" I cannot say the words.

"You are a man, not a saint, requiring release, if not nightly, often. But if you were to cleanse me with peppermint and take me as you did, no child would grow within my womb. Then, in a year perhaps, you could again take cunnie and plant the seed when it is wanted, and still claim my fundament as it pleases you."

I might know such delights whenever I liked? "Margaret!"

"Or if my hind suits you not, then beat it. Paddle it sore, until I kiss your manhood that you might stop, and in gratitude once you have!"

"And I your cunnie? So long as my staff enters not?"

"Yes, good husband. Anything. As I should do anything to please you, I adore you so. You have but to state your wishes."

I rise and help Margaret to her feet, then dust her skirts. She makes a pretty, pained face when my touch on her nether quarters is firm, but kisses me with renewed ardor. "What are your wishes, husband and master?"

I smile, knowing it is not I who is master here. "Go see the land-lady, ask if she can keep the babe for a time more. If she won't take the coppers," I say, jingling coins into her hand, "set them on the table and walk away. Then return and mix a good large draft of peppermint tea. We shall both be purged before our first taste of staff and cunnie, if it pleases you as the prospect does me."

"Yes, my good husband! Yes!" Margaret all but dashes from our rooms.

I take the oaken bucket to hand and tromp to fill it at the well. We will need much water this day. And every day.

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