Junior McGinty paid eleven dollars to bring hisself a bride from Boston. She were a cooper's daughter, some thirty-years-old and never married, so he tole us. So when Lane McGraw tole us she had arrived in Poleyville, eighteen miles up the river we were curious to hear what she looked like.
"She got a squint," Lane McGraw reported with relish.
"How's she a-coming?" Junior said, impatient.
"I reckon she'll take a ride up with Shaw Hutton when he brings down the trace," Lane tole him. "I didn't wait un see. I had my four kegs o' whisky to haul. She weren't a-coming with me."
It don't take no more than one day to come from Poleyville as the trail is well graded. So we knew the next day the bride would be arriving and that next night were set for the wedding party. Give her a day more travel to get here and have the solemnities performed at the supper hour so the bride and the groom could be decently bedded overnight.
It was a big do here on Little Ohio. Ohio's big and dark and lonely and the trees shut out the light. Six years I'd been in my own small patch o' woods, a hacking away at the trees to let in the light. And for five o' those six years we'd had no minister to do the marrying. Now we had a minister and the next course, as the men saw it, was to get some women in for them to marry. It ain't easy to convince a woman out to the backwoods. In all the nine months since Pastor Huff rolled dead drunk off a wagon tongue when he first come to Little Ohio there hain't been a wedding for him to do. Until now there hadn't been no woman left unhitched any closer'n Kittery Ford.
So the word went out and everyone come down to take part in the wedding. Lane McGraw brought his four kegs o' whisky. Gobber Harley brought a couple o' kegs o' rum, Titch Morgan brought his own barrel and far off over the hills ye could hear the distant bang o' a smooth bore musket echoing through the trees as some man or the other hunted game to bring to the feast. There were some thirty or fifty men in the territory depending on how far the word went. Nobut four o' the men yet got wives but the four women all come a tramping in to fix up the wedding right for the new bride. Sally Injun come barefoot and care-not for the copperheads and Widow Nathanial made her new husband bring her down on the mule. They all come to my little patch o' the woods, as this was where the bride would be set down when she come from Poleyville.
It were the spring then and the ruts in the roads barely hard enough for traveling so we knew the bride would make poor time. I thought it pretty certain the trace would come before dark as I trusted Shaw Hutton. It was my goods he was bringing in the trace, sugar and powder and calico, all stuff I had ordered from the factory towns east. But the day went on and more folk arrived to cluster around my cabin patch and Shaw and the maiden weren't there yet. Ye saw folk ye didn't see so often. Old Man Morrissett come, him tall and swaying with a grey beard down half way to his belly. And both the Churchie boys, that we hadn't seen since the fall were up country hunting and got the word o' the wedding and came down to see the bride. And Little Ransome come.
Little Ransome were a boy as had come out with his father a year and a half before, and his father had taken with the fever and died before he had even the walls o' his cabin built. Ye'd have thought the boy would have trudged the trail back, but he hadn't. He was a whip thin youth with hair as long as his shoulders and a look o' fierce fear in his eyes. There were times when the men made sport o' him, the one time putting him head down in a hogshead o' spoilt beer and another time hauling him out as far as Squaw Creek and making like they were going to sell the taking o' his scalp to a party o' Injuns that were camped there. He were in the bigger end o' his teen years, but short, which is how he come to be called Little Ransome.
I were glad to see the boy there, when I saw him standing shyly round the door's edge o' my long shed. He still lived out in a tiny shack that he build where his father had laid the foundation for a cabin but I thought he might have died o' the cold and o' hunger over the winter. The boy didn't have no money for powder, nor even a rifle to use it with, should he get the credit. He lived by what he could get with his bare hands in the woods so he was living mighty lean. And I had heard from the men one o' the things the boy did to get some cornmeal when the hunger was on him bad enough. Three or four o' the men tole me the boy were that desperate for food that he had done them a French in return for a peck o' cornmeal.
If ye don't know what doing a French means, it's something the whores do and like to do to keep from kindling a baby in their bellies. It means to be taking a man's member in a mouth and sucking it dry. There ain't no whores up in Little Ohio so the men here were running taut enough they were willing to take a French from a one o' the male species. So when I saw the boy there I thought, "Here's a chance to get my cock sucked!"
It weren't to be. The boy only done sold the Frenching when he were so hungry he didn't care no more. Thin as his ribs stood out it looked to me like he would be willing, but there were all the biscuit and whiskey and cornbread and meat being laid out free for the taking that night, so Andy Taverner came in grumbling, "Little fuckin' Nancy-boy ain't willing to oblige me. Whoreson sure was willing when there were snow on the ground!" He glared around. "He thinks he can tell me yea or nay!"
Well, there were trestles laid out in the open air and great fires made for roasting the meat. Junior McGinty had a great platter o' deer livers that the laid out smoking hot, and the jugs o' whiskey and rye and rum were lined up in rows. Hot fat dripped from the carcasses into the flames and sent sizzling yellow flares up. The cornbread came out in golden wedges. The women built a kind o' a bower to do the marrying under and Junior didn't say them nay. All they had for the flowers to wind in the bower were the early white lilies that grew in the dark on the riverbank and the tiny dark violets but they kind o' stuck these on top o' the bower so ye could see there were them white petals a-top. It would have looked pretty if they hadn't all wilted before the end o' the afternoon came.
By and by it were late afternoon and there were men getting merry and the raucous sound o' song could be heard. Some o' the men were for sing "Merry Month o' May" to welcome the new bride, but Henry Oliver were maintaining they couldn't be singing that as it were April still. It was Chauncey Churchie who made out that this were May, and the first day o' it but the rest o' us reckoned it for only the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth day o' April. So they got Bobby Huff to ask him as he'd have to know the date, needing to write it down on the marriage certificate. He didn't know, so Chauncey and Henry came to blows over it, the two men punching and grunting and leading in with the shoulder to try to crowd the other man back.
That kept the crowd interested for a while, for a crowd it was by then. I counted twenty-five men and the four women. Little Ransome he stayed near the women and he made hisself useful feeding the cooking fires, and setting up the trestles. I found myself a staring at him as he worked, because he had long thin wrists coming out o' the ragged sleeves o' his shirt and I was thinking thin as his wrists were they might be strong and I might have the boy work me a hand job soon as he went off somewhere out o' sight o' the men. Surely the boy couldn't refuse to do that for me that had already done Frenchs for half the men. I might not never have had a French from him but if he gave out to the other men he could do me a hand job and be glad I paid him. So I watched him narrowly and felt my cock swollen hard in my britches as I watched him. I weren't the only man that watched him I think.
Then Junior McGinty suddenly had the thought that the groom ought to take a bath before he got to lie down with the bride, as it had been some long time since he took the grease and sweat from his skin. So he went down to the creek to bathe, and some o' the men went with him. "But don't ye come, Longman," he tole me. "I ain't one o' those Injun drunks ye've been a-buggering."
I gave a great laugh. "I'm not buggering yer ass, Junior," I tole him. "I'm staying here to marry yer bride while ye're away in the water bathing."
But then after Junior and a half dozen men had gone down to the creek it were the rain that come instead o' the bride. It come down a long hard drizzle, settling in. It fell on all the new leaves and the bare boughs and it set all the fires to seething out great clouds o' white steam. It was the kind o' rain that sets in and rains a long time. A number o' the men went into my long shed to drink and they hauled the benches in there. And they hauled Pastor Huff in there too, as he was so drunk on that he was sitting there bleary with a jug o' rum in one hand and the rain dripping o' the brim o' his hat onto the open page o' his Bible. Widow Nathanial had them do that as it were the only book there was hereabouts and she weren't letting it get ruined.
So Junior came back up wet to the skin now and with his hair all plastered down combed and he stood by the fire until he steamed like the fire itself did. It were going for six o'clock I reckon when I heard the cry. Shaw was coming with his two bony-backed horses in the long shafts o' the trace. Shaw come, but not the woman.
"Where in hell's the bride, Shaw!"
"Where's who?" asked Shaw.
"Here's McGinty getting married today," Casey Churchie cried, "And ye done forgit to bring there bride down. Didn't ye see no woman in Poleyville when ye set out?"
"I seen Annie and Maggie," said Shaw with a frown. "But they ain't neither o' them widders yet. I can't see them marrying McGinty."
"Were there no other woman, a third woman?" we exclaimed.
Well it sorted that there had been a woman there the day before, but she come on the boat and she left on the boat. "Didn't think she was for Junior," Shaw shook his head. "Not that I hear. I thought she must have lost a baby or suthin' as she was looking up at the woods and bawling fit to bust and all that time she never got off the boat nor laid off bawling."
So there we all were with them baked meats and the wine and the bride changed her mind. Seems she'd seen how dark forest it is on the Ohio and couldn't bear to live there, even for a husband that didn't mind her squinting. We had no reason now for a party. We held the party without one.
Huff, he were confused. He stood up looking for the bride and sat down and stood up again. It took him awhile to get it straight that he wasn't doing no marrying that day. "I am a minister of the Methodist Church," he said, pulling his collar straight. "An ordained minister." That didn't make no difference. Junior stomped around looking like black death. His friends shrugged and looked away making sure not to meet his eyes, because most like he weren't either going to get his eleven dollars back. And the women, being practical, began to mess the food out before the men got anymuch drunker.
I saw Little Ransome gnawing down a great chunk o' meat and he had a yellow chunk o' cornbread balanced on his knees too. It were cornbread I had supplied, so I came to him, "Ye like to eat good?" I asked him.
His eyes came up to me, but he guarded his tongue.
"That's there my bread ye're eating," I tole him. "I've got something more for ye to swaller, if ye want to show me ye're beholden."
The boy said nothing, keeping his face straight. I leaned in, "Ye ain't got too much meat on yer bones," I tole him. "Too scrawny to be a man yet or maybe never. But ye got a pretty mouth, Kid. I don't care that ye're skinny. How about ye let me fuck ye? Me or me and the rest o' the boys here. I'll gi' ye seed corn by the bushel if you say yea to me, so ye kin have yerself yer own cornfield. Yeah, and I'll cram yer mouth with all the meat a sister-boy like ye would really like."
"I won't be your whore," said the boy. "Leave me the hell alone."
I drew back a pace. "Hey," I said, "That how ye talk after I supplied some o' that food ye're eating?"
I didn't try coaxing him. He turned me down and it weren't any o' my business to see who else had him if anyone did. He weren't going to make his pretty mouth smile for me. I could see that fear bright in his eyes, fear and fury. I frightened him. Sure but I thought I saw something else, something that wasn't just fright. He was a Nancy-boy, a bumholer, a sissy. He might tell me he didn't want it, but ye know what? I was sure he wanted my cock in him. There were too much in the little pauses he gave, just a mite too slow a reaction, when he decided his words. Yeah, he wanted me milking my cock out inside him, even if he didn't care admit it yet.
So the rain came down and Heath Jones tried to get his fiddle to play, but it just screeched and joined the noise o' the men whooping. It had gotten too damp some time before and no more way could he fiddle it. So there was no dancing like there might have been at a wedding. We tried it with the men stamping time, but with the rain wet outside and not enough women to be partners it didn't take. It was a sour little party there we had that day. The pretty bower that the women made got top heavy with the rain, the sodden dead flower petals dropping to the ground and the whole thing listing over. The men began to go early, leaving in twos and threes.
"It's not too dark to git back," said Shaw and left the trace in my yard and led his two gaunt horses off. Sally Injun left, with a jug o' whisky on her shoulder and the rain splashing up on the ragged hem o' her skirt with every step. Widow Nathanial went and the Miller boys, and McGinty. And I thought Little Ransome had gone as I didn't see him awhile but then he was back, sitting up dark with the wet in his clothes and gnawing away on another hunk o' cornbread.
The little slut, I thought. He was willing to go out in the woods for some other man who enticed him. It was me he turned down like he had a right to after eating my cornbread. But he lingered. Yeah, he lingered sitting back by the wall, not so far from the fire and silent watching all the man as the laughed or bickered.
"Th'Devil's gonna marry that squint eyed Marshfield woman, if she won't have McGinty," Chauncey Churchie roared. "There's no other man for her now." That was her name, the change-her-mind bride, Marshfield. "Poor old Junior! What's he a-going to do now?"
"He's a-going to get him a squaw for a bride, less'n he wants to take up cornholing the Injun boys like Longman!" Henry Oliver cried.
"She coulda married anyone o' us," Wheeler complained. "If she didn't like the look o' Junior. I woulda married her no mind o' a squint. I'm that sick for a cunt I wouldn't care what I fucked."
"Poor old Junior's he gone home to beat him all alone," Old Man Morrissett shook his head sorrowfully.
My long cabin smelt o' rum and smoke and rain. The rain in the chimney sent the steam and smoke into the room. Casey Churchie was rocking back and forth on his bench, crooning as he cuddled a whisky jug. "Came for a wedding, came to see the couple bedded, didn't get to see nothing. Couldn't have seen nothing... They'd have pulled the latch string on the cabin door."
"How about we find a new bride for McGinty?" Wheeler said suddenly.
Round about then Little Ransome got out and slipped out o' the long cabin door into the gathering dark.
"Ye dumb Ruben!" Chauncey Churchie said. "Where we gonna find him another bride? Ye got 'nother eleven dollars to send away Boston?"
"What about we go ask for the Larrister girl over Kittery Ford?" Lane McGraw suggested.
I spat. "The Larrister girl is what, all o' eleven? Her pa will take his gun after ye, iffen ye even come asking."
"How about we get th'Little Ransome boy?" Wheeler suggested with a smirk and a sidelong look at the space the kid had just vacated. "He ain't got no pa to raise an objection."
There was a roll o' laughter.
"Think McGinty'll feel better for a fuck on him?"
"Get 'em married!" Lane guffawed.
"How about it, Pastor, ye willin' to marry 'em?" I asked.
"I am an mininster of the Methodist Church," Huff enunciated clearly. "I am ordained to perform baptibisms, weddings and burial services." He nodded owlishly at the room.
"Huff ye're drunk! Ye'd marry a man to a boy!?"
"He's always drunk!" The roar o' laughter went around again.
But it was Wheeler who said, "Come on, boys. We'd better git after him if we're a-going to get that boy marrying to anyone tonight."
A bench went over as they stood up. There was more laughter and the jostling o' six men trying to get out the door at once. Bobby Huff stayed where he was, still clutching his bible. Chauncey Churchie bounded out into the dark and I heard the splashing as he leapt into the drumming rain.
"McGinty's not going to marry no boy," I said.
"No, but we will!" Wheeler cried. "God love us, I haven't stuck it in a cunt so long, I don't care no more iffen it's male or female than ye do."
Then they were gone. It was Old Man Morrissett, Pastor Huff, Lane McGraw and me all looking at the open door that was flung open to the shiny cold rainy night. The men galloped through the puddles and were away, with a last distant hunting yell in the dark o' the trees.
"They'll rape him," Lane McGraw said at last.
I stood up and closed the door. "He's nobbut a whore and it ain't rape when ye take a whore unlessen ye don't pay her. He's given a French to this one and then that one for cornmeal and then he's tole this one and that one nay. Ye think the men'd leave him alone after that? They know they kin have him and they just need to persuade him. I don't doubt they'll persuade him not to be so choosey tonight." My voice came out harsh. I didn't like it, but I was none of the boy's keeper. Tweren't no way I could change what would be done that night by hallooing out in the dark after 'em.
"Ye sound like our young Nancy-boy's done riled ye hisself," Lane said to me. "Did he turn ye down, Longman?"
"He did," I said.
"And did ye want him?" Lane asked.
I gave a shrug, "I'd a-taken him."
"Ah," said Lane, and he let hisself out.
The long shed where we were sitting was a fair disorder. There were the bones o' carcasses roasted and grilled and gnawed strewn about. Empty whiskey jacks rolled on the punched earth floor. It needed tidying and my cabin a few yards over that had hosted some more o' the party weren't no better. I knew I had to pick up some part o' the disorder or I'd have the foxes come sniffing out the meat. And at that time I had new built me a henhouse and had a dozen layers there so I had no wished for foxes digging at my foundations. I got up and started half-hearted to pile the bones up. Huff and Morrissett were working away steadily at the liquor. No doubt they'd stay the night and any man that got tired o' chasing the boy in the rain and the dark and wanted to sleep dry would come back. I had all my stores newly bought also and not sorted through. I wanted to make sure that was to rights, so although it was past the hour o' dark I didn't seek out my bed. Also I was listening because far off in the dark I could imagine I heard them, the yells o' men drunk hunting for pleasure.
It was nigh on two and a half hours later before they brought him back and by then I was nearly to my bed. But the cheering and stamping was loud outside in the heavy darkness o' the rainy night and when the long shed door was thrust open there were torches being waved.
Wheeler stumbled forward, "Longman, we got him!"
I came out and felt the rain fall in my hair. The boy was held between two men, the white o' his shirt torn and showing a white shoulder. He had mud on him, mud on his face half washed off by the tracks o' the rain. He looked up at me because he barely came up to my shoulder. Even in that mud his eyes looked big. His mouth was pulled flat and I thought I saw fury through the grime.
"Now McGinty won't have him," Chauncey laughed. "We've been after him and asked him. But ye... word is, ye don't mind doing a spot o' cornholing, and this here boy," he broke off with laughter. "This here boy is prime for cornholing."
"How about it, Kid?" I asked. "Ye want me cornholing yer butt?"
He shook his head vigorously, "No Sir, I never done that." His voice was high and nervous.
I raised my eyebrows. "Ye ain't never been had from behind?"
He shook his head again voice getting weaker, "I French. All I ever done were French..." He looked around at the gang o' men holding him. "I only done that for food!"
"We saved him for ye, Longman!" Casey cried.
"He don't look so pretty with all that mud on him," I looked around. "And he ain't telling me he's willing. I ain't a-buyin' if he ain't a-sellin'. Mebbe he'd rather have a one o' ye pound his pucker for the first time if he's too choosey to bend over for me." I shook my head.
"He's willin'!" Lane McGraw cried. "And ye want him; Ye said ye did! He's yer boy-bride! He'll make a fine bride. Come on. He won't say ye nay!" They gave the boy a shake.
Wheeler took my arm, "He'll be pretty as a girl once ye get him peeled. Wait'n see. He'll be all pink and pretty. Ain't no bride prettier, not even ol' squinty eyed Marshfield! Ye'll love it, come on!"
"Where's Huff?" Chauncey exclaimed. "Lord, don't tell us after all that running we done, he's passed out too far to read the vows!"
"What other chance ye got for a good fuck?" Wheeler cajoled. "Onect ye break him in, he'll be like a filly. Ye kin ride him any time ye like. He's near as good as a girl and young too, not like the whores way over mountain. Ye kin have him around to fuck any time ye want to. Don't spoil our fun!"
And all the while that boy's eyes were a-fixed on me, like a man measuring to take a shot or not, thinkin' to see if he has the range. His chin were up and there weren't no beard on it. I didn't see him shake his head no again.
"Would ye marry me?" I said to the boy.
"If I have to I will," said Little Ransome. "I'd sooner be done by ye alone than have all the company bugger me. They won't heed me tell them nay." He looked me full in the eyes when he said it, and it seemed to me his eyes were askin' me for it.
I let myself be persuaded. Huff was found and led into the rain and then brought into my cabin. They took the boy into the long shed a few minutes while they got Huff ready. For a man so drunk he was amazingly able to stand on his feet. Lane McGraw held his arm so he wouldn't buckle and they made him drink some coffee. Huff's blue eyes bulged as he drunk it and he gave a great snort like a horse, but then he said, "I can enanunciate perfectly clearly," so obviously the man was fit for his labor.
But then my bride weren't a-ready and I were restless. I thought they had to be talking to the boy agin to persuade him. I wasn't going to be part o' no show where the bride were unwilling. If the boy had changed his mind I'd not go through with it. I should have saved myself the fretting. He were willing, just as I thought he would be. They boys just had in mind to make fine show it. They come back and tell me he were willing still.
"Nay, ye're lying, Lane," I said.
"I'm not," he asserted. "I swear he'll say the words with ye. His own promise he's given. Would I make a fool o' ye, the way the Marshfield made a fool o' McGinty? Ye have my word on it, or my long bore rifle." So he made that his bond that what we did that night wouldn't all be a mockery, which were a pretty powerful promise,
In truth I was randy to have it done, having a stiff pricker straining my britches. I was fevered to have the Nancy-boy. Only he didn't come forth and he didn't come forth until I turned on Lane, "Here," I said. "What's this, the boy willing, but still needing for persuasion?"
"Randy for yer ride, Longman?" He grinned at me. "Sure, but the boys are getting him ready for ye, like and the wimmen would ha done with there Marshfield girl had she a-come. Iffen ye take the boy, don't ye want him all a-gussied up for ye?"
It happens that the boys had decided to fix him up fair like a bride-girl for me. It were in the dark hours o' the night, the rain still heavy, hissing so loud outside that ye couldn't hear the wolf cries in the hills. The firelight and my lamp light threw long shadows behind the men on the walls. I stood there with my eye on the door, kind o' jigging on my feet, almost angry to get on with it until they brought Little Ransome in.
They didn't had just washed his face for him, they had done dressed him in a gown. He had a white petticoat on. The water they had poured over his head to take the mud off had left his hair streaming and the worn old cotton petticoat transparent. Ye could see through it the shape o' his young boy chest, just a start o' the man muscles. I could see it plastered wet and tight against the front o' his thighs so his lump o' prick and bollocks were clear. They'd put beads around his neck, stringing about the glass beads we trade to the Injuns and they'd gone out to the ruined bower in the rain and got some white flowers and put them in his hair. Them flowers were limp and dead and the boy with the dirt cleaned off showed a cut on his mouth and a new bruise just under his eye. They grinned as they brought him to me.
Pastor Huff had the book open to the right page but I think maybe he didn't need to because he started the service right off and done never looked into the book where he placed his thumb. "Dearly beloved," he said, "We are gathered together to see this couple weddin' in holy matrimony. If anyone here knows o' any impediment to this here marriage let him speak now or forever hold his peace." Word perfect he said it and not a man spoke up, Little Ransome looking at me with grim eyes and mouth, patient.
The guys stood grinning and Huff went on. "Do ye..." He peered at me and stopped dead.
"Eli Longman," I prompted him.
"Do ye, Eli Longman take this woman to have and to hold, for richer or poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and health as yer wedded wife?" he intoned.
"I do," I said. Huff was going good for a man so drunk.
He turned to the youth. "Do...ye?"
Nobody said anything. Then Wheeler hissed, "Tell him yer name!"
"Ned Ransome," said the boy.
"Do ye, Ned Ransome take this man to be yer lawfully wedding husband, to have and to hold, for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, to honour and obey from this day forth, long as ye both shall live, so help ye God?"
"I do," said Little Ransome in flat voice looking around at all as if he dared us to mock him, him in the gown of a girl.
Huff peered at us again, wrinkling his brows. Lane steadied him so he wouldn't pitch forward on his face. Another pause went by.
"Pronounce 'em," Wheeler hissed.
Gobber Harley took it up, "Pronounce 'em, Reverend."
"I now pronounce ye man 'n wife," Huff said. "Ye may kiss the bride."
I leaned forward, took Little Ransome by the chin and put my lips on his. The men gave a crow o' delight. When I released the kiss the boy was panting open mouthed. "Legal, by damn!" Wheeler exclaimed. "That's as legal as any wedding I ever attended."
"Kiss 'im again, Longman!"
So I kissed him again. Kissing the kid made my member swell tight into my buttons. I were full aware that it weren't so long before I'd get my cock milked. I weren't sorry I'd let the men rope me into their sport tonight. The boy wouldn't say me nay agin now, could he? Married we were, and I could make him do whatever I wanted. I put my hand on the back o' his head and clamped my mouth tight on his and stuck my tongue out a-seeking.
A moment more and I scooped him up, dragged him up in my arms and carried him over to my rope strung bed. I sat down on it holding Little Ransome on my knees and kissed him some more. I broke the kiss grinning.
"Ye randy boy, huh? How about giving me a French now?" I ran my hands over him feeling his flat tits under the thin cotton petticoat. The men laughed and cheered.
"Thank ye, boys," I said. "Now I got me a little wife for me own," I grinned at them. They stamped their feet on the board floor and cheered.
"Peel him off!" Wheeler cried, and Andy Taverner took it up, "Peel him off, Longman! Show us his skin!" There were the six o' them in the room then, Wheeler and Andy and Lane and the two Churchie boys and Gobber Harley. Huff had gone out and Old Man Morrissett had never come in. They wanted to see a little skin. Lord but they could see almost all he had in that thin white cotton. I figured there was no harm in it. I pulled the boy's skirt up, right up his thighs showing his skinny naked legs pale against the dark cloth on my legs. And that made me harder than ever so I was more than ready to get my cock inside him somewhere. So I kissed the boy hard again and ran my hands over him squeezing.
"All the way!" Wheeler cried. And Gobber shouted, "Fuck him, Longman! Fuck yer little Nancy!"
I laughed at first, before I saw they meant it. They didn't want to have the night end now. They wanted to see the sissy-boy.
"It ain't legal unless it's consummated," Lane said to me. "And we aim to see it consummated." He gave a nod.
The other men agreed, "If this here marriage is legal, it's got to be legal same like a marriage when a man takes a girl. Ye don't take his maidenhead and he can claim ye ain't really married," Chauncey tole me. "Now iffen he were a girl we'd take yer word on it and the proof'd come when she got a brat in the belly. Here their ain't a-going to be no baby in the belly, so we want to see our proof."
"He ain't got nothing to be modest about!" Corey said.
"How about it, L'il Ransome?" I said. The boy shook his head. But I peeled his petticoat off over his head anyway. I put my hand down between his legs and clasped his member in my hands. It had a fine warm feel to it, so I squeezed it up until he gasped and pulled back. He was a-pushing his backside against my leg.
I bumped my thigh back up against his butt. I squeezed his prick a little longer. The more I squeezed the more his butt moved, contracting and wriggling against me until I was sure I'd come bursting through my fly buttons.
"French him, Nancy!"
"Ye sure ye ain't never had a cock in here?" I asked him. "Ye ain't acting like ye never rode a cock before. Ye're acting like a horny bitch can't wait until ye get it inside ye."
He turned his eyes up to me now. "I'm scared!" He said. "Mister Longman! I'm tryin'."
"Alright," I said. Then I put him down on the floor in front o' me, down on his hands and knees facing me. The men lowed like cattle, groaning at the sight o' the boy with his eyes fixed on my fly buttons. My hardness was obvious even before I took my cock out. It weren't Little Ransome that leaned forward. It were Wheeler that that grabbed him by the ribs and hitched him forward so that his face went up against my prick.
I fed it to him, inch by inch down his gullet and I saw his eyes widen for a moment as he desperately straightened his throat so my cock would go down instead o' choking him. Yeah, the boy could French alright. I fed it to him straight down and he sucked me good. I got him to lick me up and down as I fed it to him, in and out, holding his head and banging it up and down into my crotch, wet and tight and moving tongue. I heard him gulping.
And at the same while Andy Taverner was rubbing on the boy's butt. "That's it, bitch. Suck yer man! Ye suck him good, Boy!" Wheeler held him too, both men shoving him up against my crotch so he couldn't retreat. I gave it long strokes, short strokes; he could take it all.
I didn't run my cock in his mouth for too long. I had him get it good and wet and enjoyed the feeling for awhile. But I was ready for more even if the boy weren't. "Yer like it, Nancy?" I asked him soft. "Yer like it fine?"
My only reply was a gasp, deep from the bottom o' the boy's lungs, so I turned him around again. For a moment my prick stood up dark against his white arse and all the men leaned forward to see. Then I placed it and breached him. He weren't ready for it. I heard him cry out in pain, but that's the way it is, first time, be it girl or boy that takes it. Oh, he took it, tight and close around my pricker. A hard thrust it took to drive him home. I drove and the boy panted and pushed back and the men steadied his shoulders until I drove a smooth stroke. I used more spit, my own, since he needed more slickness than that his mouth had left on me. Ah, damn and the devil, but it were good, such a fine, new cornhole I never had before.
Then I were a puffing and gasping, and the boy he gave another cry out, like he thinks I'm a-going to hurt him. But nothing stopped me. I cast my seed, full in his nether hole, the pump and pulse going on as I sighed and shivered and the boy held still. He was dark haired from the wet 'o the rain his head were a-hanging. He were mine for sure, consummated before them witnesses.
I drew out. My cock was sure foul with all that was in him. And then when I had it out o' his hole the men moved in on him. Corey Churchie took him by the thigh and Andy by the edges o' his jaw. They moved for to get their own members out. And I said, "Not so fast. If there's a man here tries to touch my wife, I'll kill him."
They moved aside at that. Andy Taverner, he said, "Aww, Longman!" And Gobber said, "Fuck ye, ye're a devil, Longman! We didn't hunt yer a boy to go home unsatisfied!" And Wheeler, he were a swearing. They all commenced a swearing at me. But young Ransome he came behind me and goes a-crouching on the floor.
"Yer don't mean it!" Chauncey said.
"I do. Fair and square I married him and all ye witness before it. There's not a men will I give my leave to touch him any more than I would iffen it were a girl-woman I'd a-married," I said.
Lane, he were laughing. "What for did ye think we married them for, Churchie?" he said.
For a moment there I thought Corey and Chauncey would kill me, one coming from each side, a blow from what ever weapon they might snatch to hand, and with so many guys coming in at me all once, I think there's the strong chance I'll be the loser in the brawl and my new little wife will find his hole fucked to bursting while I lie stark on the floor with my brains dashed out. But it weren't like that, for I've got hard eyes and hard fists and they saw most likely a brawl would hurt them. Besides they were so drunk that Gobber sat down on the floor and Corey Churchie were a-hanging onto the wall to keep from falling. So they let it go.
But Andy and Chauncey they kept trying to persuade me. And it were only Gobber that went out, on account o' him needing to puke and wanting some rain to wash it off his lips after.
"Mine, he is," I said. "Square. Witnessed it, ye all did."
"Longman, ye're a devil," said Andy and I thought he were part laughing.
"What would ye sell him then?" said Churchie, desperate.
"Nay," I tole him.
"But if he's wife o' yourn, ye have the right to do it," he argued. "There's a fair number who sell out a wife as I've known. Surely ye'd sell the few minutes o' him just to me. Won't ye, huh?"
"Ye've not money enough," I said, and I stroked Little Ransome. "The boy is mine."
It might have gone on a-while more, for Chauncey in particular seems unable to give up on it, but then Gobber came back and he said, "Do ye... do ye come quick see th' Pastor."
At first we were not interested, myself in particular, since I thought it might be he were making an argument that the marriage weren't sewn up square, but then Gobber Harley cried, "He's done drowned in the yard!" and them men came out.
I took up Little Ransome and heaved him back onto my bed. "Stay ye there," I said. He were naked and he were in the safest place the men couldn't have him to fuck without me seeing to stop it. So I went out and sure enough, Pastor Huff were rolled over on his back in the rain, Lane holding him and mud thick on his cheeks and nose.
They held a torch close and it were true. The man had fallen down drunk on his face and drownded. They shook him and Lane tried pressing hard on his chest but no puke nor no water could they get out o' him. And this had the way o' making the men more sober and forgetting they didn't get their members sucked.
"Huff, will ye wake up for us, man!" Andy he were a-kneeling in the mud there, but Huff he made no reply, so we each took a turn, slapping him, except Gobber who can't no how bring hisself to touch the man. So then we put them both, Huff and Gobber in my long cabin, Huff laid out on the table and Gobber below it to sleep it off. But all that while I made sure to keep an eye on my own cabin door so the men knew I had the mastery o' my own house.
"There'll be no more marrying on the Little Ohio," Chauncey mourned. "Who's to say the book now, with Pastor gone?" So then they went away from me, in the dark and the rain still coming down but I think it were only two three hours til light.
He were still in my bed, Little Ransome, the blankets o' mine pulled up against his chin, so not a lot o' skin were showing, just his face. And I gave a great belch, but no puke come up, for my whiskey stayed down. I can hold it good. And then I lay down with him and took the boy in both my arms. At first he shuddered but then he lay still. I had no more rutting in me. I were drunk and spent and tired.
He slept and all his skin were smooth and warm and sweet as a new laid egg, and I slept with my arm over him.
It were in the morning and I knew I had to get to the livestock, where I had a heifer and them chickens I mentioned. But Little Ransome got up. I stood there, one foot in my britches and admired his bare smoothness. He picked up the gown, the wet petticoat he were a wearing the night earlier and he held it up against his crotch. There weren't so much o' it he could use it to cover all o' him, and he backed out o' my cabin. I came too.
"Mister Longman," he said, "May I have my britches? Where are they?"
I found them for him, where they were lying in the long cabin. He put them on, but then I stopped him, "Where do ye think ye're going?" I had to use my hand to stop him, on his shoulder reaching out quick.
"Have ye not done with me?" he said.
"I've not," I said. "Nor I never will. For ye're wife to me now, Little Ransome. Didn't ye say the vow? So ye'll be staying here with me."
Then he commenced crying, quietly. After the chickens were fed and their water pans full and the heifer led around back, I said to Little Ransome, "Ye're to make my fire, boy. Didn't ye know? That's the work a wife does."
"I'll run," he said. He didn't run. He said it like a threat. He stopped crying.
"I'll come after ye," I said.
So he made me my fire and then he made me my breakfast like I tole him. There were a new egg that morning, which I tole him to cook, along with cornbread and some o' the meat that was left over cold. He made it for me. Then I tole him to eat it hisself. I ran my hands down over his ribs which stood out like a corduroy road through the rents in his shirt. "Ye need flesh on yer ribs, Little Ransome," I tole him. "God and the devil knows ye're not fat enough to be pretty. But ye'll get plump if I feed ye right. Meat 'll grow on yer bones and ye'll have muscle. Thanks to God I married ye young enough I can build that muscle on ye. For if I'd waited a year or two more the starvation would keep ye lean for life iffen it'd hadn't killed ye."
"Mister Longman," he said, "Ye don't mean to keep me here and fat me up, do ye truly?"
"Don't ye remember the vows?" I said. "So long as we both shall live, as I recall." Then he looked at me sideways a long time and said nothing.
"Hush yer chatter," I said. "That's the worst o' having a wife about. She'll talk yer ear off." And he looked at me sideways like he thought I were crazy.
I didn't want no man looking at his skin, for fear it might give them ideas, which I'll be bound they had already have enough o' after his Frenching. So I made him to try with a needle and thread on his shirt. "That's a wife's work, inninit?" Good with a needle he weren't, but there's many a woman don't have the skill what has grown up in the territory with nothing finer than bone to learn sewing with. So Little Ransome sewed up the rents in his shirt and patched it with cotton cloth I gave him.
"By rights I shouldn't let ye from the cabin without a gown to wear," I said to him, "But yer won't be the only wife on Little Ohio to put on britches. I've seen them on Injun Sally myself. Yer won't mind too much if and I only give ye the calico for one gown this summer?"
He looked at me again like I was crazy. "Calico?" he said. "Is it fun of me yer making, telling me you'll give me calico for a gown?"
"Suit yerself," I said to him, "Ye can sew a gown and wear it Sundays, or ye can make shirts o' it, whatever pleases yerself."
Then it were late in the afternoon and I were sweaty and dirty from digging a hole deep in the ground. Also my head were still a-throbbing from too much whiskey. But I didn't take any more o' it knowing that whiskey don't chase a head faster than going dry do. And by then the hole were four or more feet deep in the ground and the few men that were about had come in.
Lane were there, looking at me and looking at Little Ransome sideways with a smile playing inside his beard. And Andy were there, fair haired in the new sun and the rain spotted woods, but looking some hung over. And Gobber were there, but he were red in the eyes. Henry Oliver were there also, but there were one man who weren't standing ready among us. It were the one man we needed. We needed a true minister who could read the ritual for us.
We all assembled around the grave mouth, including Little Ransome. All the men there looked at him out the eye corners, but they pretended they didn't look at him. And I cleared my throat. I thought maybe little Ransome should be wearing a cap on account o' I remembered that no woman goes to a service without her head covered. But then again he were dressed like a boy, so maybe if he did have a cap I'd have said to him to hold it agin his chest as Henry O were a-holding his. That marryin' a boy were confusing, as not all the rules is the same.
I were the only man what can read in all that gathering, and I don't read so good, but I lifted up the bible which was found under the bed in my cabin, where the pastor had dropped it after the marryin'. It were kind o' wrinkled from the rain that got on it, but I hefted it up under my eyes and commenced turning pages.
And all o' a sudden there were a strange wind all around me, like as if the trees that tower high above us were set to spinning, and the wind were in my ears hissing but without the feel o' the air. I felt myself sway like a tree and for a moment I had the thought that I might topple into the grave on top o' Huff who were lying there laid out on his back with crossed arms in the bottom o' the pit where we had heaved him. Only I didn't sway more. I stood motionless, page turning slow. I read it silent to myself and this is what it said: "When I call these parts of our laws leges non scriptae, I would not be understood if all those laws were at present merely oral, or communicated from the former ages to the present solely by the word of mouth." Now I hadn't got even half a notion what words o' that color meant, but I did know they ought to be saying, "Almighty receive unto the soul o' our dear brother here departed..." If not that exact, it should have said something close to it. It didn't.
I turned the book over in my hands and instead o' the word Bible picked out on the spine, nor the words Prayer Book, what it said were Blackstone's Commentaries. Which means the book that were used for marrying me ain't no book o' the Lord God at all and maybe it meant I ain't married at all and little Ransome ain't my wife forever and ever, anymore than them Injun boys that had whiskey from me to turn their butt up for me. But I didn't say nothing while I felt the whole forest heave and rock around me. Instead I turned the book over, back to the page that were open.
"Dearly beloved," I said, then, "Almighty receive here the soul o' our dear brother Pastor Huff here departed. Do we now commit his body to the ground: earth to earth 'n' dust to dust. And that in sure and certain hope o' Resurrection to eternal life, what comes from our Lord Jesus Christ." I've heard it that often I knowed what to say.
When I had done speaking and stepped back, the men commenced to start shoving the dirt down on Huff's corpus, and Gobber said, "My, but ye read near as good as the dear Pastor hisself did."
I just gave a nod. I took the book away and put it in the cabin, down in the bottom o' a box I had where it wouldn't be no one could take a look at it.
After that we got the hole filled in and the men left. And then Little Ransome helped me some with the chores I had to do. I had a field o' corn and the tares get in it, so we had to hoe ready for to put the seed in the ground. He followed behind me quiet and his eyes looking to his work, which I liked, so I stopped him and pulled him up against my body.
It were his mouth under my mouth as I kissed him. He didn't recoil away from me. He said, "Mister Longman, kin I ask ye for something?"
I cleared my throat again, "Ye can ask me, Missus Longman," I said to him.
"Kin ye..." He took a deep breath. "Ye going to rut my arse again, ain't ye?" Then the words came out in a rush. "Can ye get some tallow or something for me? I ain't saying ye nay, but that's an unkind place to pound me so. I'm a-feared that I can't sit down today."
"I'm yer man, lawfully wedded," I tole him. "Which means I'm to look out for ye and care for ye comfort. If it's a little thing like that ye ask, I'll do it."
"Thank ye, Mister Longman," he said and dropped his eyes until I turned his chin up so I could kiss him some more.
So we went on hoeing. And I thought like this. Mebbe the wedding weren't lawful, though Pastor Huff performed it. There's some would say, I'm fair certain, that it ain't real if it's a man and a boy gets wedded. And maybe it weren't a lawful wedding at all, since we only took to calling Huff by the name o' pastor when we saw the book he carried. I never seen the book close to me before and no man on Little Ohio other than myself and Huff had the skill to read. It was just something we naturally assumed seeing he carried a thick book and kept it guarded close to him like it was precious. Maybe we should have called him Lawyer Huff instead. O' course he didn't tell to us that he weren't no Pastor.
Yet but when the men had departed, they had nodded to Little Ransome and said as was fitting and formal to the occasion, "Give ye Good Afternoon, Missus Longman." Oliver even had had his hat off and held it respectful for the boy. So that meant they considered him a wife o mine, and why shouldn't they? We'd been as drunk as most men get at a usual wedding. Indeed they'd witnessed the consummation which made it something more than a usual wedding. I wanted to be married and they admitted us married. Couldn't it be so?
So then I turned to Little Ransome, "Now answer me this," I tole him softly. "Ye married me last night when ye were drunk..."
"I wasn't drunk, Mister," he tole me.
"What reason did ye marry me then?" I said.
He hesitated, "Lane tole me ye don't lay about with yer hands much, so I wouldn't get a beating from ye if I tole ye nay. But I was a-feared o' all them men last night. They've hurt me before. I was certain they'd hurt me some bad if I didn't."
"That so?" I asked. "Didn't ye marry me to get the food in yer belly?"
"No such," he said." They ran me off my legs last night. I had sooner they used my arse without a beating, than take the beating also. I never did the French but when I had to and no man had my nether end before. Jesus help me, how that hurt! Lane done tole me ye'd not hurt me, but hurt me ye did. Ye've got a prick on ye like an axe handle."
"What I want to know is, do ye think we're married?" I said.
He gave a nod.
"It's a man's duty to feed his wife and to clothe her," I said, "This I'll do for ye. Ye need turn no thought ahead to yer hunger. If it lies in my means I'll have food for yer cook pot. But do ye tell me ye don't feel randy for me? Is it fear only that brought ye to my bed and board?"
He turned his eyes away from me, "Mister Longman," he said. "I ain't particular..." He turned them up again. "Ye're a fine figure o' a man..." He lost his words again. Then when he got them back again they came out something o' a squeak because o' the boy-voice that he had still. "I'd want it if it didn't hurt my arse so much, Mister."
"I can do ye gentle, Ransome," I said.
He gave me a nod and I took him in my arms and put him down between the corn rows again. Mind ye, we was out in the open for all to see, for the corn weren't in the ground yet. "Eh, Little Ransome," I said and I had his new mended shirt open but gentle so I wouldn't rend it. I had my mouth on his throat kissing him and then down on his chest kissing him there on the smooth skin between the two nipples. He watched me while I kissed him and watched me while I moved over him and stripped the britches from him. His member needed stroking before it stood but two or three strokes had it up and pointing and when I stroked it wet with the spit in my palm it made his mouth go into a wide fierce flat line while he bucked his hips in a slow stroke up against me.
"Do ye not hurt me!" he pleaded.
"Why should I hurt ye?" I said.
"Ye're too hard for me," he said. "I'm new yet."
"Ye're hard here also," I said. "Lay ye back and I'm make ye some pleasure. It's not all pain." So I touched him where I pleased and in ways that made him shake. His cock stayed tall for me. By and by I had his arms wide so I might kiss the hollows under them and taste the sweat o' him, and I had my own member poking hard into him. I pulled it out o' my britches. He came down with his mouth to kiss and lick it. "Lick me more," I said.
And then I had him on all fours and I wanted to push my prick into his arse end again, but I did not, mindful o' the grease he had asked for. I had bear grease up at the cabin and that night I would use it. For now I'd make him bring me some other way and all I put up into him was a finger. I made it wet from sucking it before I fucked him up the cornhole with it, poking and poking, sliding into the tight opening.
"Jesus, I love ye, Little Ransome," I said. "Does it feel good to ye?" While I finger fucked him, I worked his pricker. He soon had it trembling and bucked his arse back into me to get more o' the finger.
"Easy, easy..." he begged. I fucked his arse end with my finger until he came, cream up into my palm as I swirled it over the fat round head o' his prick. He fucked my hand and palm and came on me with a whimper.
Then I made him eat it from my hand before I put my own pricker up into his gullet and fucked that. It was sweet. He did his French on me, sucking and sloppy, using his tongue to ride about and swirl. I had a fine time o' it. My prick soon quivered. I was done. He was that good at it that I didn't last so long. And then we lay my arm under his head on the bare dirt in the cornrow. My britches were still at my knees and his were down about his crotch so that his pink fat pricker lay soft on his ballocks like three odd eggs in a nest. And he smiled at me uncertainly, starting to trust me.
"I don't need to beat ye to get a fuck out o' ye?" I asked.
"No, Sir, Mister Longman," he said.
"Why would I beat ye iffen I can coax it out o' ye?" I said. "Iffen you need coaxing, coax ye I will. There's no man will call ye a slut no more, for you'll be givin' that only to me. I like ye for a wife Little Ransome. Ye're as pretty as a filly. I like ye fine."
There's not so many preachers on the Ohio, let alone the Little Ohio. So o' course ye have to marry when and whom ye can. There's plenty o' couples, I know that get their marriage at the same time as they get the baptism o' their first or second child. So why couldn't I make a true marriage with little Ransome? It was one if we called it one. And that was what I needed, a man by me that I could fuck regularly and a wife by me that would keep the cabin for me and do my cooking. I loved little Ransome. It came easy. He was mine and when ye take someone for yourn I guess the love comes quick. He wouldn't do so wrong by me, for all he didn't know yet how to be much o' a wife. He'd learn as I would.
It was bare dirt under us, and the naked dark trees tall over us, that tiny plot, a bare half acre and full o' stumps in the dark great woods. It was a fine place, as much land as ye could clear to make it yourn. Sometimes the work near to broke me, yet I never regretted living there, where ye could have whatever ye wanted if ye only worked to earn it.
He was some work, Little Ransome. I had to fight onct or twice to keep the men back from him, and he always stood behind me afraid when it came to that. And he cost me, o' course, in meat and calico and leather for his moccasins in winter. But that was nothing to me. I got good joy from just having him round about and in my cabin, with his quiet ways. That's how it was, and that's how it began. I give my oath to the truth of it; his mouth and his arse and his own dear self, they grew some needful to me.
End of story by Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca