Eleventh Excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

He took her hand, stood and turned to stand at her side, looking out at the Beltane fires.

Bleddyn brought him his dinner but Gwilym forbade him climbing onto the roof. Gwilym sent him home after requesting Bleddyn to ask the girls if he and his brothers could stay there tonight.

From the roof he could see the farmers lighting the twin bonfires and driving the livestock between them, ensuring their fertility for the coming year. ‘Ah yes,’ he murmured to himself, ‘Beltane is here again.’

As night fell and his work continued, the villagers built up the fires and Gwilym saw the flames flickering as painted villagers danced around them and adventurous men leapt over them. The villagers were in various states of drunkenness and undress, and every so often would pair off and walk to the outskirts of the fields to couple. Gwilym smiled to himself, remembering his youth and the fun times he had spent at long-ago Beltane fires. He wondered if his boy’s foster mothers were there again this year. They were reputed to be great favorites at the feast. Both had come away from last year’s fires with a baby. All these thoughts were bringing his wife, Kaitlyn, to mind and he shifted uncomfortably from his lying position to relieve the pressure on his loins. He finished hammering in the last piece of river jade.

“Nice work Gwilym!” came the throaty voice of a maiden from the other side of the tower. “You’ve built a fine tower. And the capstone is beautiful."

Gwilym rolled onto his back and saw the form of a maiden, silhouetted by the moon. Moonlight shone through her long, curly hair and revealed the hour-glass shape of her body through the simple shift she wore. As she walked towards him, the moon shining through her shift made her appear naked. Her large, firm breasts bounced and her thigh muscles contracted and relaxed with each step of her bare feet. She stopped just above him and he could make out her profile in the moonlight. It was Grainne. She held out her hand to him, staring unabashedly as the swelling of his crotch.

He took her hand, stood and turned to stand at her side, looking out at the Beltane fires.

“The villagers are celebrating their fertility with gusto this year,” remarked Grainne.

“A lot of them have extra seed money because of the tower. They have a good chance of a fertile year coming up.”

“A tower such as this is a great fertility symbol itself. I was drawn to it by its shape,” Grainne said throatily. “And on top of this tower, who should I find but a towering man, full of life? The moon flows through me tonight, Gwilym.”

He turned away from her and stared out at the countryside. He thought of Kaitlyn and his boys. He had never strayed from Kaitlyn and he couldn’t sully the memory of the boys’ mother with a cheap encounter with a priestess of Avalon. No matter how tempting she was.

To read the entire first draft in one shot, click here:

He felt her move behind him and her hands caressed his sides and then up his taut belly to his large chest. As her hands met in the middle, he felt her body press against him from behind, her large breasts squeezing against the small of his back, her knees against his calves. “It is Beltane, Gwilym, and I choose you as my lover tonight.”

She lowered her hands and he stood, accepting his fate but refusing to take an active part in it. She untied the drawstring of his breeches and drew them down his legs.

Gwilym turned to her then, no longer self-conscious of his swelling, and was surprised to see that she had taken off her shift and stood naked in the moonlight. She knelt then, and performed one of the priestess rites for which Avalon was famous. He moaned aloud in the remembered pleasure; how long had it been? Kaitlyn was dead these three months but she had been uncomfortable with the twins for two months before the birth also. Kaitlyn had been an adventurous lover, had readily accepted all of his suggestions and they had enjoyed a rich and varied love life. But this woman was trained in pleasuring a man and the skill she showed was making him lose his self-control.

He tried to concentrate on something else and noticed now that the moon was lighting up the rune marks on the stone, making the patterns glow in the shape of a lion. Then his eyes shut in a particularly pleasurable move from her.

Grainne lay down in the center of the rune, and Gwilym took hold of his fate and mounted her with passion. She gasped in pleasure as they coupled, long and hard in the light of the full moon. He used all the skills he had developed over the years of his travels to bring her to a long-lasting climax, and then he followed her shortly after with his own. As he looked up during his climax, he noticed that the area around the tower was obscured by a thin mist. ‘A little early for that’ he thought to himself as he felt himself fall asleep.