Infernal Fornications

Continues (and slightly overlaps) the 'Geek Pride' entry begun by 'An Infernal Folio'. Readers with chronological tendencies may wish to read that tale first, for context; those who prefer reverse engineering as a means of navigating life, pray continue. Perhaps you may return to 'Folio' later.

***

It was quite by accident that I met her at that pub north of Cambridge, but of course accidents are ubiquitous and enliven the world unmercifully. It was impossible not to overhear her conversation, of an obviously professional nature, at the next table. I could not mistake noting the terminology she and her male companion employed. Naturally my ears pricked up with the mention of the '

bastarda

hand' and the 'monastic scriptorium at Sponheim', attributes of the manuscript they were discussing.

She was small, trim but softly succulent, late twenties or early thirties in age, with dark, loose, half-curly hair that did not make it quite to her shoulders. Her smile was easy, engaging, the dimple on her left cheek arresting. She spoke with an animation and energy that is rare in a profession that tends towards pedantry and is dominated by desiccated old men with archaic sensibilities.

It was an early summer evening, darkening outside, and in fact rain was on its way. The pub, The Boar, was one of those dismal English affairs, all dark wood and encrusted history, no exuberance to be found anywhere. Except their conversation. I listened to them at my table whilst clutching my pint glass, ears straining, entranced, but pretending to be engrossed in the reading material in front of me.

Earlier that day I had grown weary of pacing the halls at the university archives, waiting for a sign from the higher authorities, any sign, that their interest in my fifteenth-century manuscript was sincere.

A dim-witted lackey who went by the name of 'Murdoch' indicated the university wanted two more days to deliberate before discussing any offer they might make for its purchase. They had had the manuscript for a week already. The potential end result was worth the wait, but my patience was tried sorely.

Aggravated, I had driven north from the town centre, until I came upon the pub and vowed that a pint or two of this cloudy English ale, warm and disagreeable as it was, would quiet my mind's movements and ease it back to tranquillity. I was wrong, as it turned out, much to my pleasure. Tranquillity is always trumped by excitement.

My organ stirred as I heard her mention 'orthography' then 'blind stamped calfskin'. How sensuous - arousing - those bookish terms are! Her words were not chosen inexpertly. Her companion, on whose left hand flashed a wedding ring, although there was no counterpart on her own, asked probing questions about the manuscript, 'the Abelartus codex' he called it, the precious manuscript - my precious manuscript - that I had deduced was the topic of their intense interest.

My erection grew insistent, poking most unpleasantly up against the confines of my trousers and closely-cinched belt, whilst I contemplated the various ways I might insinuate myself into their discussion. As luck would have it, no subterfuge was required.

His mobile rang, interrupting their talk. A short frantic conversation ensued with whomever was at the other end, his face growing increasingly worried, and he was up from the table and off to the races about some crisis or another.

My opportunity could scarcely have been handed to me under more promising conditions.

I glided over to her table, presented my business card, was pleased to hear her name uttered by way of introduction - Sophia - an honourable appellation with ancient meanings in my mother tongue, and we commenced an energetic dialectic on the manuscript.

Whilst I am not often taken by surprise in my field, her youth and sex argued against the breadth and depth of her paleographical expertise. She indicated that the sixteenth-century constituted her professional focus, but she clearly knew the fifteenth and earlier centuries well. Her intuitions on the manuscript were alarmingly accurate, and I found it necessary to deflect her increasingly ardent queries with a pretext.

The 'owner' I said. 'The owner's desires do not permit extra-curricular discussion of the manuscript unless under conditions of a negotiated offer.' I felt no need to mention that I was the owner, instead implying I was representing the owner's interests, which was accurate enough.

It is always the mention of the 'owner' which brings talk to a halt. She could not have guessed ownership, even more that I wore the authorial mantle. That it was I who was responsible for the calligraphy, the pen and the ink, and the untold hours of toil that had brought the manuscript, 'the Abelartus codex', into the world of men at that remote monastery centuries ago.

We talked for some time. She would not be outwitted, her knowledge of Sponheim was far greater than I would have imagined. She had read Trithemius, although not everything. Her sense of the range of the abbot's occult interests was deficient however, which I attempted to correct with a few hints. She was completely unaware of his sexual proclivities. My member stirred anew.

I manoeuvred her, with the offer of a ride, back to her cottage, although the verb is excessive. By that time she was intrigued. Shortly it would be more than that.

I had not previously seen the likes of her fourteenth-century psalter from the Dover Priory, as she shyly brought it out for my inspection. The aged leather of the binding was dried and cracked, but the vellum felt smooth and timeless in my hands. Her own pride in possession was pleasing to witness.

It was left only for some sherry and the chess match, that eternal jousting of intellectual (and sometimes erotic) wills in a game, to forge the next link, extend interest. I knew her nipples had grown erect with excitement as our chess-pieces traversed the board. Once she even looked down at the front of her dress to see how obvious they were. I smiled inside.

A 'spilled drink' on my part, a retreat by her to the kitchen for a clean-up cloth, and I had her pelvis pinned from behind against the kitchen counter, my member pressed against her soft, warm bum. Her protests scarcely rose to a level one might consider symbolic.

Her dress up, her entry was supremely ready, moist beyond belief - her juices must have been stewing for some time. My penetration was like the proverbial hot knife through butter. I mounted her flattened face-first onto her kitchen counter.

I was a bit rough with her, to be fair. I noted teeth-marks on her neck afterwards, although ultimately she did not mind. Her channel gripped me with a most pleasing ferocity, and within ten minutes we each had climaxed, my seething fluids well discharged within her innermost recesses.

She was distraught, naturally, but I remained calm, and I think soothed some of her fears, although I know I introduced others, especially when she glimpsed my member. She broke away for a moment and I had time to think.

I would wait for my spawn to do its work.

I left her later that night sexually exhausted, after another coupling and a second infusion of spawn. Yet also troubled. And she also now had a puzzle to untangle: my references to those oblique passages in Trithemius' occult work

Steganographia

in a note I had left on the chess set. These would assist her understanding of 'the Abelartus codex'. I knew this would inflame her curiosity.

I could scarcely have scripted the affair more perfectly, but I have felt that way before. I would let the intervening time play out.

The manuscript did not need to be sold, for money anyway, although the funds would allow some other work to be done more easily. It was more to see if ideas, dangerous ideas full of subversive aspects from the text, might seep into the higher reaches of the academy - an influential, esteemed academy - always an intriguing place to begin anything disruptive.

And she was a possible, even promising, entry-point and ally.

I did not answer the first communication she sent the next day. I almost regretted having given her my card. Finally, after her fourth increasingly frantic try, late in the afternoon I issued a cryptic reply, and vowed not to respond to anything until the day following.

I did not see her again until that Friday, when the foot-dragging university officials finally acceded to my ultimatum. I had told them I needed an answer by the weekend, or I was off to Oxford with my manuscript, insisting that I had already booked a room there and was anxious to get on with it all.

I shouldn't have been surprised by her presence at the meeting, which looked rather clumsily organised to me, judging by the expressions of the three present. The weaselly Murdoch was there along with a pompous, fleshy-faced, dark-suited fellow named Wadsworth, who seemed to be the one in charge of the negotiations.

We were officially introduced to each other at a ponderous wooden table in one of the older buildings of the university, built probably about the same time as the manuscript was written. The room overlooked an immaculate grassy court, the mullioned renaissance windows letting in the sharp summer afternoon light. Wadsworth struggled with my name, 'Phausto Sabazios', and squinted at the Greek lettering on my business card, which Sophia had already seen.

During 'introductions' she identified herself as 'Sophy Eastern'. Of course I had heard her first name at the pub but was unaware of her surname. We had to pretend we had not met. Nor that my penis already had been inside her, twice yet. As the two of us shook hands, formal smiles on our faces, my organ twitched with the memory.

In preliminary discussion her eyes widened when I disclosed myself as the manuscript's owner. Her startled glance to me had elements of accusation and betrayal but was predominantly of puzzlement. The mystery had deepened for her.

I did not expect the haggling to be a short-lived affair, and I was not disappointed.

I pointed out the extraordinary nature of the manuscript, its condition and provenance. They tried to downplay its significance, although the greed in their eyes was unmistakable. Murdoch seemed to have a middleman's role, whilst Wadsworth drove the financial details. Sophia was quiet until asked her opinion, and I was pleased with her observations, rational, succinct and spot-on.

Even better, I could tell she had divined some of the more sinister, and thus unique, aspects of the text.

They broke three times for private consultation.

Eventually they capitulated, and whilst I gave away enough financial ground in our negotiations for them to think they had driven a good bargain, it was not the healthy amount of specie that made me smile, it was the possibilities of dispersal of the ideas of the work.

I knew from the way Wadsworth looked at her towards the end that she had had a major influence on their decision. His stern gaze almost shouted 'You'd best be quite sure we get some serious academic capital out of this acquisition, young lady!'

But I knew I could help with that part.

As I signed the agreement I saw Sophia carefully studying both the gold nib of my Montegrappa fountain pen and my signature.

Dinner afterwards? They wanted to know. Would I consummate the transaction with them that night at a restaurant in town?

I demurred, citing my need to arrive in Oxford early on the morrow, for pressing reasons besides the manuscript.

'But I will be back in town Friday next, before heading home to Thessaloniki', I replied, 'perhaps we might defer a celebratory toast until then?' I also would then know whether their funds had cleared my bank account.

They agreed. I apologised for declining their offer that night, insisting that the week's exhausting activities had left me too 'boring' for dinner company.

Sophia gave a start and shot me a look. I nodded with my eyebrows.

Thus discreetly signalled, we would meet at 'The Boar' again later that evening. I wasn't sure if she would need to dodge other social arrangements with the group. Since we had not established a means to set a time, I got to the pub on the early side and settled in with a pint of 'Oakem Ale', unable to resist choosing from the tap handle labelled 'Inferno'.

I watched her arrive off a bus from my window-side perch at the pub, her sandstone-colour dress hugging her hips and waist most appealingly as she darted across the street, breasts jogging up and down in her hurry.

She sat across the table from me, her face flushed from her rushed entrance, her hair tousled. I imagined all the different ways my penis would enjoy her later.

I thanked her for her advocacy on my behalf (the 'manuscript's behalf' as I called it) and heard a bit more about what she had said to convince them. Also, about how the responsibility for publicising the purchase and analysing the textual content and publishing the cultural significance of the work would largely be left in her lap.

I smiled, both inwardly and out.

'I can likely help with that', I said. 'Already you have seen some of the connection of the manuscript with

Steganographia

, yes?'

She nodded vigorously. 'If you hadn't pointed me in that direction so that I could press that point, I don't think they would have gone for it.'

'But I am going to have to digest the work, publish my findings in a top journal, come up with some sort of brilliant analytic conclusion. It will take a good deal of time and effort. You probably don't appreciate how tight research funding is here in Britain now. In the humanities anyway. We have to provide significant academic "output" for every project.' She sighed but her eyes shone.

'There is much, much more to the manuscript and its context', I said. 'I think, with some suggestions I would be willing to make, you will rise to the challenge.'

She looked relieved.

We drank ale and talked, then ate, my erection insistently reminding me of its presence. The drive to her cottage, only a few kilometres away, seemed to take forever whilst each of us entertained our own thoughts.

I do not think ten minutes elapsed between the time we opened her front door and then were in her bed together.

She wanted the bedroom light left on this time. I asked if she kept candles in the house. So we compromised, although at this point I do not think what she might regard as anomalies in my anatomy would have been fatally repulsive. Still, I far preferred the softer, flickering and more erotic lighting of a taper.

Spectacular frisson results when two intellect-driven individuals indulge in carnal amusements. Imaginative faculties are stretched, sensual perceptions heightened, lascivious tendencies indulged and satisfied.

She spent some time examining my member more fully, with greater light this time. Her wide eyes took in the size and ardent condition of my prick-head. She kissed me on my flanks whilst fondling my testicles, running her hands along my shaft, hard and anxious. Soon she was nestled between my legs, nuzzling my testicles, suckling, dragging her fingernails along the inner parts of my thighs, then easing my prick-head into her mouth.

Seeing her wavy head-hair moving about as her mouth and tongue fellated me was most arousing. When she shifted to a sideways position, I fondled breasts, soft dangling breasts, with the hand that could reach them. I squeezed them, tweaking nipples until she squirmed. Too forceful perhaps? They were erect enough, hard pinkie-width appendages at the apex of her sultry orbs, supremely sensitive.

Far more assertive than I anticipated, she soon had determined to lower herself down on my member. She was puzzled, again, at the counter-intuitive curve of my shaft, out and away rather than up and in, but her pudenda were swollen and wet, the texture and viscosity of the flesh of a ripe, freshly incised peach, her entry initially tight but easing way smoothly.

Her facial expression riveted me at full impalement, her surprise at the stretching fullness of my penis transitioned into a look of pure, illicit pleasure. I have noted that for many a woman, the first penetration of the night is experienced either as a sense of coming home or of enduring a barbarian invasion, perhaps both.

Regardless, she leaned forward, hands on my shoulders whilst she rocked her hips into mine and I felt my serpent glide up and down her channel.

Her chest was larger than one might have expected having first met her clothed, in her professional garb. Untethered from a bra, her breasts were globular, the size of the larger grapefruits that graced the orchards of the island of my birth. Firm-skinned and milky white on the outside, they were soft within as my hands held them, and when free, they moved enchantingly, asymmetrically, as she rode me.

Once again, her arousal reached a critical point rather too quickly, and I was compelled to slow matters down. I pulled her down onto me, squashing her breasts onto my chest and holding her close so that only the smallest hip movements could be conducted by either of us. Spreading her firm bum cheeks with both my hands whilst twitching my penis inside her was enough to keep her on edge without going over. I bit her neck, a favour which she pleasantly returned.

But I wanted to be on top.

Catching her by surprise, I rolled her over, my member still impaled, and I began a rather vigorous driving into her. My bum cheeks squeezed with violence, pleasure coursing through my nerves. She caught her breath, her thighs held me tightly, and I knew she was near. But I would not let her feel release, not yet.

In and out, side to side, my penis slid along the gripping embrace of her channel. My teeth were on her neck, my hands on the sides of her hips. She turned her head and let out a gasp. Her fingernails dug into my back. I thrust deeper whilst her breath was expelled violently. Her legs went quite rigid and her pelvis shook. I made sure several waves of pleasure traversed her before I discharged within her, a satisfying release of built-up tension.

We lay stuck together, the sweat and languor of expended energy fusing our bodies. My penis shrank inside her. Her ribcage stopped its heaving and her breathing returned to normal.

She looked into my eyes, and I disengaged and rolled to the side, face-to-face with this charming English girl.

I was able to note the features of her bedroom a bit more. Faded Victorian-era wall-paper covered the walls, two small windows were on the eastern side of the room, a low ceiling with plaster cracks in it looked down on us, but overall the room was clean and tidy. The candle flickered on her bedside table, casting a warm, inviting light. Her shoulders, ribs and flanks shone with sweat, her wet groin hair matted down, head hair distraught.

With my member softened, lying limply on my thigh, she examined my body closely. She held my scrotum, and with testicles relaxed rather than all drawn up together in excitement, she rolled each of the three in her hands, looking carefully.

'I have not met a man with three testicles before', she confided, as if not sure what to do with this observation.

'I imagine it will not likely be an experience you find again.'

She looked at me warily.

'Why three?'

I laughed. How was I to answer that?

'They represent the Holy Trinity.'

I pointed to one. 'The Father.' Gesturing to the others, 'The Son, and the Holy Spirit.' I used their Latin liturgical names.

'This way your worship session remains orthodox.'

She gave me an odd look, her mouth in an unwilling but amused smile.

'The manuscripts you concern yourself with are all religious, Phausto. Theological in content, in tone, in approach. Your body as well?' Her eyebrows arched. 'You are trying to tell me you are somehow divine?'