An Unseen Shadow

It was the Summer of 1402 in a quaint English hamlet some four miles from the village of Lurgashall that Faith Johanson found herself once again with her face buried deep between the legs of a mill worker far too poor to offer her a life beyond the tavern to which she'd been employed since her family sailed here from Denmark five years prior, and yet far too good of a man - and too good of a drinker; with a talent for getting her to lose her inhibitions to a bottle - for her to simply ignore his advances as she had with so many other drunken louts.

Ever since she'd grown to womanhood on the evening of her eighteenth year, she had become the object of many a lecherous affections.

From aging cripples describing how they'd pay double her monthly stipend if she'd only slip under the tables and suck on their shriveled, rancid cocks - giving them just one last taste of what it was like to be loved and worshiped by a young maiden on her knees.

Faith, for her troubles, would've likely only been given a taste of pestilence-riddled ejaculate had she taken them up on their untoward offers.

Others were a little more restrained in their requests; from wishing nothing more than to feel her naked flesh coddled against theirs between the bed sheets to asking for permission to lift up her dress and touch her bare rear.

It was into this latter category that Brandon, crew leader of the Chillard Mountain Mill, had introduced himself to her; and while she would have otherwise been repulsed by his request as she had been with all the others, there was still that charm - that sense that he knew exactly how absurd and vulgar his desire was and knew how to act accordingly to put her at ease.

The bourbon helped, too.

Indeed, she could still taste some of its acrid honey on his tongue as she rose up to kiss him after swallowing his issue.

At first she had indulged him by letting him clamp his hands onto her ass whilst they were alone together at the pub, but those little liaisons had since progressed into joining him at his modest home just a mile's journey from the mill and putting both her rear and her mouth to good use - making him squirm both with her tongue and her teeth before allowing him to release his scum into the crevice of her buttocks.

For all their dalliances, however, he'd never once forced himself into her. Even as his cock throbbed and seemed to ache to be inside her once her mouth had done its job, he never once violated the one boundary she had put in place between them once she started agreeing to see him: that she was not his toy or his pet, and that her womb was not his to seed.

She had indeed wanted children of her own, that much she had been certain of from the moment she had formally entered adulthood, but not children that would grow up with the burden of being the bastard spawn of some bar wench with a talent for sucking the cocks of any number of men provided they were gentlemanly enough to at least get her drunk before they made their licentious proposals.

Part of her knew she didn't care much what others thought of her - this was an age where a woman was either a maiden, a wife, or a whore; and she knew all too well which of the three she fell into - but nonetheless, she likewise knew the abuses and slanders that would likely befall her child were she to conceive out of wedlock.

Thus, even as she put her dress back on, bid an affectionate farewell to Brandon with a deep embrace and one last kiss on the lips - hoping to see him again at the tavern before too many a nights had elapsed - she felt a tinge of shame, an unfamiliar feeling to her, as she departed his home and headed out into the evening.

But while the darkness might be an enemy to many, perhaps especially to a young lady walking alone with no one else to turn to for defense, it is also an ally - indeed, a servant - to others; and one such master looked on from a close distance as the shadows flawlessly cloaked his leering presence.