One night, late in the autumn, you were kneeling on a cushion at my feet, your head in my lap, humming quietly to yourself.
Your lullaby merged with the howling of the wind outside. It was blowing one of those un-seasonal gales that would have us out on the morrow checking which trees were fallen, which paths were blocked, which roofs were damaged and which ships had not returned to the safety of the harbour.
I was drifting in a mist of thoughts and half dreams, thinking of a new collar for you perhaps, when I became conscious of the wind dying down and a silence in the room.
The fire crackled and spat as rain splattered down the chimney onto the burning logs; and I shifted in my chair, suddenly aware that you were looking up at me, wide eyed and waiting.
"Tell me a story, sir," you smiled and licked your lips in anticipation. "I loved the last one you told me."
"Tell you a story, pet?"
"Tell me a tale of another time when the wind was up."
"Would that please you, pet?"
"Yes, it would."
"Then please me too."
"I'd love to sir," you grinned, sat up, pushed your hair behind your ear and leant forward to resume your duties.
I watched you indulge me for a little while, before murmuring: "I have to say, pet, that you are the most fantastic cocksucker ever, you know."
"A story if you please, sir," you insisted, briefly withdrawing your services. Then, with my hand bunched in your hair to guide you, but without another word, you returned to your endeavours, suckling, squeezing and tasting with such blissful results, that I didn't dare distract you to reach over you to get a sip my brandy...
"When the wind was up across the bay," I began, suppressing a cough and gripping your topknot even more tightly so as to control your movements, "far away from the main land a young woman would sit at the bay window of her parent's cliff top house. She would stare out at the waves breaking against the island defences and try to identify exactly where the grey waters merged with the grey skies on such stormy days..."
Whenever the sea mists descended, she felt as if she and the rest of the town and the whole island were entirely cut off from the mainland for ever. As a young woman she had determined that if she were to sail away into such a mist she would never be seen again.
And that feeling, that determination became her "raison d'etre" after a while, for her life, without the spell of the sea-mist, weaving through her imagination, was just a shadow of all she had hoped.
As the young woman grew to maturity she was able to see that the mists came and went with the seasons, but the images of isolation remained embedded in her mind (just like my cock in your mouth, pet – oh shut up and get on with it – hush pet, you have my appetites to satisfy – yes sir – good girl).
These images prevailed even when the mist lifted. The sky cleared; the mainland could be seen from the cliffs; but the dream in her head persisted.
Walking along the beaches she could watch the fishermen mending their nets as she wandered by, kicking a stone through the sands. She could dance on the upturned hulls of the little vessels, making the fishermen smile at her antics.
She could listen to the secrets of the sea in the new shells that the storm had spread across the sand.
Best of all, she could wave impatiently at the arriving vessels, when she reached the quayside, before settling down on a bollard, her hands around her knees, watching the bustle of the port and waiting for her favourite traveller to return.
He was only a few years older than her, but he seemed to have been everywhere around the islands, up and down the coast and even across to ports on other seas.
He would sit down and tell her of journeys that he'd undertaken weeks, months, and even years previously, when he was even younger than she was. He could make them seem as fresh as if they had taken place days before.
They opened up a whole unknown world to her, pushing the sea mists far away from her thoughts, clearing her mind, so that she could absorb all the wonders that he described to her.
She had never left the island. She had hardly even left the town. And yet, in her mind's eye, she had travelled all the way up the hill along the main prospect at Penringdon, the capital of the Duchy across the sea.
Her imagination leapt at the thought that through his words she had seen the canon round the port, the armoured soldiers in the sea fort and the multi-coloured flags waving in the breeze. She had stared at the many different goods in the shops and market stalls. She had watched the well-dressed elite trouping to and from the theatres and cafes and restaurants, as envious as he was of their finery.
Adventuress by proxy, she had observed the merchants' guards taking captives up to the slave markets: beautiful women seized by the corsairs; powerful men in chains destined for who knows what fate.
Oh to buy one of those handsome specimens, to exhibit and oil him; and then to enjoy his masculinity, pleasing her just exactly how she wanted to be pleased. Yes, and she had had the door slammed in her face, when she tried to join in the bidding, just as her beloved traveller had experienced.
Over the months she enjoyed all the free ports with him vicariously. She wandered through the forests on his arm and across the meadows, laughing to see the sun shining and the clouds dispersing as they journeyed in her mind together.
She had climbed with him up through the central ranges. And there, in the passes between the snow clad peaks, she had glimpsed the heat of deserts that stretched out for hundreds of miles beyond the coastal regions into the interior.
She had looked into his eyes and watched the caravans, bringing perfumes, fine cloths to be cut and spun into beautiful dresses. She had seen ever more captives to satisfy the hunger of the citizens of Penringdon and its subservient hinterland for the exotic, the perverse and the downright cruel.
It was of no real consequence to her for, in her safe little island abode, it was all a dreamland, far across the seas where cities that floated on lakes, monuments were marbled and lush gardens hid behind the cool walls of private palaces.
He told her how the people of the outlying villages were taxed out of existence to pay for the frivolities of the gentlefolk.
On one memorable occasion, he held out fistfuls of coins in his spread hands, asking her to choose a few. She couldn't make up her mind. The denominations were unfamiliar. The writings and graven images were strange. They were an ecclectic mix that came from the many different city states that he had visited, while she was carefully educated and brought up in the narrow confines of the twisting streets of her little home town by the sea.
And she soaked it all up.
When he was quite done and his little souvenirs were safely in her bag to add to her collection of exotica, she would hug her knees even tighter in her arms and look up at him and sigh: "And will you take me there? Will you sail away and take me?"
"Yes, sweetheart," he would murmur and look out to sea. "I'll take you."
"I want to experience it all."
"I know this."
"It's not enough to hear about all the sensations; all the excitements; I just cannot wait to grow up."
"There's plenty of time."
"But, do you promise, on your honour, by all you hold sacred?"
He would look at her thoughtfully then, and push her hair back behind her ear. He would play with her earlobes gently and look into her eyes, cupping her cheek and seeking out that air of innocent expectancy, before he slowly nodded his head in agreement and smiled: "Yes, my little lady curious, of course, I'll take you one day."
