Carcassonne, Chapter Six β A Place Called Home
Β© Bad Hobbit
Over supper, Rodrigo and Marie looked a little tired β we had heard them at intervals during the day, and the sounds were becoming more amusing every time. Marie had relaxed and was now very vocal when she climaxed β a quality I admire in a woman, as it rarely fails to excite me to my own peak. (The one exception was a rather fat merchant's wife in Aragon β but that's another story). I had noticed that Marie's vocabulary at such times seemed to encompass words that had previously made her blush, and I was impressed.
As we ate, I said that I felt the inn could be made more successful, but we needed to adopt a different approach. If Eleanor would be guided by me, I said I would help her transform the business within a year. She was impressed at my boast, but sceptical. So Rodrigo and I laid out the plan we had hatched on the road back from Marseilles, and set it before Eleanor. She felt some parts were a little unethical, but liked the overall promise.
A week later, members of two rival Carcassonne gangs met in the 'Coq D'Or' in the main street. They had not intended to. Each was there to meet a stranger to discuss a business proposition, but when they saw each other, everything else went out of their minds. The place was laid waste, and customers stayed away. Some drifted into Eleanor's inn and found the dΓ©cor improved as we'd applied some whitewash, brought in some new furniture and bought Eleanor and Marie new clothes. The food and drink were also better than they had expected β certainly better than at the Coq D'Or, even though the company was a little less boisterous.
I waited a month or so, then paid the owner of the Coq D'Or a visit, and found him a miserable and bitter man. The place had been a goldmine, but now it was clearly little more than a shell with little trade, though the landlord tried to cover this up. After sharing a cup or two of his sour wine with him, I said I had often nurtured a desire to be an innkeeper, but had never found the right place. He immediately cheered, telling me that it was my lucky day, as he was thinking of retiring and would be interested in finding a buyer.
We haggled for a long time over the price, me eventually paying him a little over the odds of what the place was now worth, though much less than he would have got a few months earlier. He felt he'd got a bargain, took my money and all his possessions, (including a few I thought I had bought), and left for Perpignan the next day. Three weeks later, the inn reopened as 'The Scallop Shell', aimed very specifically at the pilgrims headed for Santiago de Compostela. As 'passing trade', they had no fear of the recent history of the place that the locals seemed so worried about, and within two months we were full most nights.
Eleanor supervised the cooking, the purchase of the wine and beer, the arrangement of the rooms β pretty well everything practical. I, meanwhile, hired more staff, including several pretty girls as maids and serving wenches β much to Eleanor's disgust. I pointed out to her that they were not for my amusement but to tempt customers in and then to keep them in for food and meat. She seemed unconvinced, but acceded reluctantly to my plan.
We renamed Eleanor's Inn 'St. Jacques', to add to the pilgrim theme, using it first as an overflow from the Scallop Shell, and later as an auberge in its own right for the older and perhaps more discerning pilgrims requiring a place a little less boisterous than the 'Shell' was becoming. Soon, both places were full during the season for pilgrimages, and we were looking for a third inn. Our fortunes were improving and we enjoyed our lives together in Carcassonne.
Our mΓ©nage was a little strange to say the least. Although most of the time I lay with Eleanor and Rodrigo with Marie, there were times when the spirit of our first encounter returned.
One day, in high summer, we four rode out to the river, taking a picnic. The weather was hot, the wine was good and we were all soon swimming naked together, playing like children in the cool water. Eleanor returned to the bank, stretched out naked on a blanket in the shade, and slept peacefully. Marie, little minx that she is, arose giggling from the shallows, saw me standing there naked and said in a somewhat tipsy manner that she had forgotten what a big cock I had.
I teased her a little, saying that now she was getting fucked by Rodrigo on a regular basis, she was probably too slack for me. She said that Rodrigo was really only interested in her arse, and that her cunt hardly got stretched at all. Her language and the mock pout that she gave me got me hardening in no time. Rodrigo had clearly had a bit too much wine, as he just grinned, rolled over in the grass by the river and said, "Fuck her if you like. She still keeps talking about your cock, you know."
I was surprised at Rodrigo's reaction, and perhaps even more when Marie suddenly knelt beside me and began to suck my member. I became erect very rapidly under this treatment. After a few minutes of this, Marie came up for air.
"Oh Don Carlos, you are such a big man. I'm sure maman really enjoys your attentions, but have you entirely forgotten your little Marie and her oh-so-tight little quim? You know I haven't been really stretched for quite a while, so my sweet little cunt is probably still as tight as maman's arse." The expression on her face was so demure, just like the sweet young girl I had been offered two years earlier, but her language and her manner were so different.
I looked towards Rodrigo, who was observing drunkenly from nearby. "Don't mind me, Carlos. Go ahead, be my guest." He belched. "If Marie wants it, you may as well let her have it. But I might want to join in later." He flopped back onto the grass.
Marie smiled her sweet-little-girl smile that I had seen her use a lot of late. She could charm even the most curmudgeonly customer, and I felt sure that she sometimes used it to make Rodrigo jealous. Now she leaned close and whispered, "Fuck me, please, Don Carlos, while
maman
is asleep and Rodrigo is too drunk to care. I still remember how you filled me that first time. Please fill me again."
Whatever I felt for Eleanor, I was still the prisoner of my own penis when a girl like Marie set her sights on me. I confess that the maids I had hired were not purely for the guests' amusement, although I had yet to set my cock to a quim other than Eleanor's. Once or twice I had got as far as a kiss, an embrace, a feel of the breasts. On one occasion, a maid had unbuttoned my breeches, all coquettish and ready to service me, but had been so shocked and terrified by what she found there that she had run off in tears! But with Marie β well, that was different. This was a path I had already trodden once. What harm in revisiting it, since the girl seemed determined to take me, with Rodrigo's consent?