“How many of these cherries can you eat?” she’d asked, dipping each in a honey of her own making before transporting it dripping to my lips. I’d laughed, relishing her taste, revelling in her wanton reveal. Cherries, both red and black and their stones spat with unerring accuracy against the wall. When her sister brought a second bowl, overfilled as had been the first, in a like manner, both fed their fruits to me.

Cherries? Ripe cherries? Here in springtime? By all the stars ‘tis difficult to countenance such a thing.

So you say! Yet while I lounged and while I ate and drank and gazed at them the bowl grew empty and mine full and the wall stood waist deep in cherry pits.

They were a matched pair, near enough, in spite of a difference in ages of a scant two years. A well matched pair for all that the elder was big with child and the younger wishing she were I think. Not mine I add though it might have been, would have been had it not been for their last little trick.

Cherries, hand picked, dipped in womanly juices and hand fed until I, light headed with euphoria, lost my way with them completely.

“We’ve one more cherry for your delectation” they told me, smiling the while, all knowingly at each other.

“Only one?” I asked unthinking.

I was supposed to be the one carrying all the secrets yet they managed, with womanly guile, to wrest one of their own making from its hiding place with little apparent effort.

“Close your eyes” the younger demanded brushing my lashes lightly with her fingertips.

Dark ringed her nipples stared at me invitingly, close enough, almost to be bitten. I wanted to touch them both, desperately, both women that is as well as all four available breasts. Indeed in my innocence that was truly what I thought they had planned. Instead as I lounged and reached out my hands, expecting at any moment to plunge deeply into some receptive chambers my senses caught instead the whiff of another female, newly come into the room.

“Another cherry!” they murmured together, for you to pluck and fuck and then to eat……”

Well such women can be obtained if you know the right people, commodities bought and sold just like anything else. Bits of paper can be faked and records altered, fools can be conned and greedy men bribed much easier than most people would imagine. Everyone has their price, their worth, their value, and I mean everyone. In the same way as everyone has their hopes, their wished, their desires, their fears and their dreams. These two had known all along how I felt about them so they’d connived and contrived and planned these their deeds. They said little when I took from them what I needed, giving little in return save my saliva and semen which seemed to me was all they wanted. Now I’d almost eaten my fill, both of them and of their cherries. My repast ended with this last, giggly last over-ripe one, brought especially for me to eat.

I had to get away after that. I had blood on my hands, on my prick and on my belly and someone’s father whose intentions were, I assure you, not altogether wholesome, was after me.

Away yes, where neither disillusioned woman nor enraged father might follow me. Away into another time, another place, and even, for my sins and my excitement sometimes, even into another gender.

Oh and I suppose I’d better warn you before we go any further, into other dimension too. Like now, to a place not far away in distance as measured in miles but a helluva long way away when measured in and out of perspective. To a valley where, by all accounts the living is easy, the morals lax and the populace more than eager to please a stranger. It was ever so and the fault of the water, some said. But then some would blame poor old water for almost anything. Me, I went there to try my luck.

Well I went there to try the women too, if you press me to own up to it. Two or three of them perhaps and, um, for their abilities if you must know but, if you don’t mind, I’ll come back to them in a minute. Though you may be eager to hear more you will have to wait, time is precious and mine, here at any rate, is fast running out.

In my haste you see, I had full forgotten neither the Kings shilling nor the Queens sovereign were legal tender in the tavern. Gold and silver they may be, it makes no odds when coin of any kind is viewed with suspicion. How much better, and more negotiable, might half a dozen nubile slaves have been? Yea, or three ravishing beauties and one of them pregnant……

And so, the morning being fine I, eschewing breakfast took my leave of the tavern wherein I’d lodged overnight and determined to pass unto the coastal district again. Forsaking friends I sought the estuary, some distance though it was, trusting to fortune a harbour and perchance a ship thereon to make my passage.
“Have a care” they’d warned “For vagabonds and foul creatures of the depths festoon the way”

I’d smiled, secretly, thankful for advice given with good intent so unnecessarily, not for one moment daring to mention that such foul creatures as I might truly meet could only be from another dimension. I know now of course that even had I said such things no-one would have believed me thinking instead that I was some wandering madman or heretic.

Walking when the sun was too high in the sky to be bearable I soon became wearily and footsore, thankfully taking myself unto the shad seats by the Ravengate which lies under the wall. And in the shadow of the cedars which grow there so luxuriously I sat awhile and pondered my situation. Soon, when troublesome thoughts overtook me I became dazzled and hypnotised by the glittering of the sun upon the river, from whence there came, or so it seemed to me, some cloacae stench unearthly in origins mayhap.

Eftsoons I partook of the water which I carried, that same water, being blessed by her saintliness Teresa, purporting an efficacy most unusual for this, the most tasteless and insipid of drinks.

When the Angelus bell tolled from the tower I rose, as if to be on my way again, for sloth is not a virtue I much enjoy nor to tarry thither could I ill afford. And though the verger spoke to me some Latin, I cared not, neither for his tone of voice nor for his condescending ways. I had as much Latin as he, probably more, though ill served I’d have been to tell him that.

“Wait awhile” he offered in a plainer tongue. Then, when still I rose before his gaze, shrugging dust and lethargy in the heat, he spoke of alms, obliquely, judging me by my garb to be some mendicant or beggar.

“Until mayhap” he pursued, “the swans have eaten their fill, whereafter a clean crust may remain sufficient for your needs!”

Latin again then and a sign, quick enough to be uncatched lest you knew of it. Seventh house, seventh doorway but lacking the first key. A puzzle then, for one knows not oftimes the seventh, without knowing also the first. So I left both unacknowledged, feigning ignorance, biding my time, curiously cautious lest he reveal something more to me.

Sadly either preconception or ignorance blinded him, for I wore her cowrie boldly, where all could see yt.

All except he who would not for his own stubborn or perverse reason.
“Oaf!” I murmured under my breath, and so stept, shrugging my bag to conceal my smile while he muttered.

“Swans?” I asked.

He inclined his head.

“Their needs are greater than mine” I suggested, recalling the river’s stink. “Or so my nose informs me!”

“Begone then!” he said at length, cloaked, turning again to the postern. “Begone lest your presence cast a shadow to sully the pious. So royal a bird needs not the sympathy nor the sarcasm of such as thee, neither does the river, for all it’s supposed stench ……”

The last of his words fell upon deaf ears for I had already removed, my boots clattering hollowly when I crossed the bridge.

I strode in sunshine, sweetly sweating until, coming at last to the pavements end beyond the Ravengate I resumed a cooler place upon the Way.

In shade I strode, thankful for the wall which loomed ever sombre, dust cooling as the afternoon lengthened until I came unto the staithe upon the bank from whence the next part of my journey lay.

I had heard tell of the boatman’s weakness for well supped drink, a traveller’s tale nothing more, I’d supposed, for while his craft lay sore flimsy it bore well and proud the weight of him. I smiled and stared, for in truth it seemed constructed of little more than dried reeds while he himself leaned like a giant carven of oak into his oar.

He shrugged off my offered payment too, revealing his own cowrie by way of explanation, reversed in his case as is the habit of some men. But he gave me the seventh doorway plainly, eye atwinkle, with the correct key, without waiting.

“You have travelled far?” he challenged, the instant I signed acknowledgement, this being the next step in Saintly Teresa’s scheme.

“Miles beyond measure” my reply came half unbidden.…………

He nodded non committally while he stared at the water.

“Though measured they must be in the end!” he finished.

Unmistakeable then!

“Doubtless you have some property of mine in safe keeping?” I asked.
“Sure enough” the boatman said “Well hidden, it awaits your collection yonder”

Then, while we spoke in riddles the grating by the Ravengate gurgled, heavy with entrapped weed and rotting stuffs, the water sluggish, foetid and dark green in colour, patched here and there with lighter squares of floating bread.

Miles beyond measure, I said to myself. Oh how so meet, how very fitting.

Then the faster flowing current caught us, bore us from the backwater, bobbing lightly, quickly, away from the putrid reach of that grating, sunlit again, dazzlingly, out into midstream where, after a moment, in spite of everything, I shivered.

“Yonder the island” the boatman indicated, jerking his head and where his oar stirred whirlpools in miniature formed and reformed, drowning swiftly in ripples as we crossed the current. And there she bore, away to our left, indistinct as yet through the rivers draped curtains of mist.
………………

At midstream we bobbed while the island grew larger, bobbed across eddies while I thought of her speculatively. Would she be true to all she’d promised or would she, would they, fob me off with excuses once again. My instincts had served me poorly last time, now, hoping against hope I wondered if luck might deal me a better hand this.

They’d saddled me with it’s paternity, the brat, a boy even though I denied all knowledge.

“Can’t understand you when you mutter!” she said.

“It isn’t mine” I shouted, screamed.

“You fucked me didn’t you?” she snorted “Lots of times! So it must be!”

It didn’t look like me, not even remotely, nor did is smell or taste like me. It stank when she suckled it, it’s cheeks quivering with indignation, splattering lactation across the kitchen, reeking revoltingly in the volume of its incontinence.

“Write us another weird story” the younger ones encouraged while the brat bawled and convulsed and sickened me.

“When I get a moment I’ll go and get sterilised!” I threatened.

“Good idea!” the mother rejoined “And while you’re at it why don’t you have it cut off completely?”

I couldn’t hit her; she wasn’t a man, so I poked my tongue out at her instead.

“Don’t deny it!” she accused “You know when you did it, it was that night you had both her and me……”

“And me!” One of the younger ones giggled enticingly, recalling how many of them there had been.

“Please write!” they asked again. “You know we really like your stories……’specially when you put those funny words in!”

“Funny words? Like what?” I asked.

“Whatever you would call these!” they chortled pulling apart each other’s limbs.

“Cunts!” I stated bluntly “An Anglo Saxon word! As you well know!”

The pair guffawed hysterically.

“Go on then, write!” they almost screamed.

Write? I could hardly remembering what it was to wash my face let alone do anything constructive

“But……my pens broken and several husbands and fathers remain in close pursuit……!” I offered.

“A likely story!” the mother hissed. She’d the broadest backside and the largest breasts of the three. And the tastiest obviously. But pursuit? Husbands? Fathers?

And broken pens?

Those were the feeblest of excuses and we all knew it. So, while the mother made cuddling noises for the brats benefit I took the other two to my chamber in order to further their knowledge of the art world, of cybernetics and the way a male robin sings. Two days and nights it took for they were slow learners. Admittedly we did have to sleep in between.

They dragged along a dictionary, hoping to find a new word to supplement ‘cunt’ but it didn’t happen. As I say, they were slow learners.

Thankfully the mother stopped moaning eventually, after blaming me not only for her stretch marks and haemorrhoids but also the price of sanitary towels. And those only newly invented I believe!

The younger ones were much more amenable however. They believed implicitly every word I said.

As it turned out the boatman missed the island completely in the end. Foolishly the bottle I’d brought for him as more than adequate payment proved too much for him to resist.

I might have swam there had I the energy, had the currents not been too strong, had not several more things got in my way. But to arrive alone and in such a way, unannounced and half drownded upon the island of women was truly not my intention. If I was not to land at their jetty, dryshod and accompanied by all my bags and baggages then I was not to land at all. Currents and the boatman’s inebriation soon killed off such highfalutin schemes anyway.

And so we drifted, turning slowly, abeam for a while while we bobbed and bowed and took on water dangerously. Then, having shown me the island and sorely tempted me, the stream in its wisdom bore me onwards again, downstream away from it, into the gathering evening, to the darkness and onto yonder crunching, gravelly beach.

At first light I recognised my landfall as being part way along Saint Aidan’s causeway and, bidding adeiu to a hungover boatman I continued my journeying alone from there.

The land lay wrinkled beyond the causeway. Wrinkled like a dry old cheese. Woodlands winked at me from some hopeless distance. Here we are they seethed, come and see us. Nearer the plain, the marshland a’sleeping, easier, flatter that way. Maybe I’ll go now, traverse those marshes to the forest I knew lay on the other side. I might even look for Queen Jane’s house when I got there, wherever or whatever that is……

© Aahlu. 190910.

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