The Family

I'm standing in my own forge. The timbers are still new and the smell of pitch and thatch is strong in the place. Soon it will be replaced by the acrid scent of smoke and the bitter tang of metal. The day has been long. My arms are burning with exhaustion. The current batch of weapons I'm making is nearing completion. The last sword is in my hands now. The final sharpening almost complete. Usually I work in iron, but these swords are for the Carls of the local chief, so the cost of the new metal was made. I am known for weapon crafting, as it's the symbol of my house now. Behind me, hanging above the ever burning forge is my first great work. The steel double sided axe with engravings on each blade is set into the clay at the top of the forge. The symbol of my house is a combination of the two images on the blades. It is emblazoned on the anvil shaped sign over the door of my shop. There sits a sleeping bear at the bend of a river, and behind it sits a burning mountain of fire. The people of the village name it, the Burning Bear Forge.

My mind is drifting. The hard work often sets my mind adrift as my body flows in the hammering, the smelting or the sharpening. I take the blade away from the sharpening implements and examine its edge. Satisfied, I lay it next to its kin. In the way of my father I take a huge sigh in the dying embers of the day. I bring my hands together behind my back and have each pull against the other. I lean to the left and right as I do so, letting the muscles of my back and stomach un-tense. I twist to the left and right and step out from under the roof of the forge. I look to the horizon and watch the sky move from blue into orange and then into the red. I smile at the dying day. This part of the sunset always sets my body into a nice relaxed form. Hands snake around my middle and then slide down behind my leather apron, and then down into my pants. They settle at my hips where my legs are joined to my waist. The hands pull me back into the ample chest of their owner, and I feel the sweat of my back stick to the cotton shirt covering that chest.

"Geir. Are you woolgathering or just cheating on me with that sunset again."

"Esa. How fares our house?"

"Oh I'm sure you will find it in order. Erik has been asking after you all afternoon. I've kept him out from under your feet but you should see our son before he finishes running off his dinner." I have a son. Our son, Esa's and mine. We forged him on the day of our first joining. The same day I forged my first great work. We make quite a trio. Me, Geir Smith, sometimes Geir Burningbear, standing the tallest in the village with waist long straight black hair, and skin darker than most which I gained from the blood of my mother. Esa, who stands my wife, and as tall as a man though still a head shorter then I. Her waist long red hair is often in a mass of red curls. Her skin is the pale white of milk though she wears long clothing to cover it most days. Our five year old son is Erik, named for my father's father. He is a bundle of fire disguised as a child. He has blonde, almost white, hair that never seems to order itself. His eyes are like his mothers, like a bottled sunset, only his are darker. Esa calls him her little thunderclap, because his eyes are a storm filled sky. Erik spends most of his days getting up to any and all trouble available in the village, coming home with all manner of bruises and filth attached to him. I wonder what our life would be like without the forge to shelter us. Such strangeness in the three of us, our hair and my darker skin, would make us outsiders anywhere, but the forge is a necessity for a village that wishes to grow and defend itself.

Suddenly we see five children break around the corner of a house down the street. Erik is at the lead of them. His hair catches the final rays of the sun and it seems to halo around him as he barrels down the main road of the village. As they quickly gain ground on us I can hear the children yelling.

"Erik Smithson, we're coming for you! You're going to get yours!"

I can see now that the other children are sons of some the other craftsmen in the village. I see the chief's youngest is the one yelling and encouraging the others to continue the chase. Erik is easily outpacing them. I take some pride from that, but try to keep it off my face. I take a great sigh and turn to face the forge. Esa growls in her throat, which sets my skin to pimpling a little. As Erik is about to move past her she deftly snags his ear in one hand, and using his momentum, turns his speed into the opposite direction where he collides with my side. I cross my hands and wait for Esa to deal with our son.

"Erik Smithson, what in the flames of the forge are you about. You've stirred up some kind of children's riot."

Esa gestures with gestures out to the other children who were literally falling over themselves to stop their chase before they get within arm shot of Esa. Her closed hand had not left my son's ear in his orbit around her, and she used it now to get him back on his feet.

"OWWWWwww. Mommmm c'mon that hurts like hell!"

"You watch your language when you're speaking to me. Now spit out your tale of foolishness for today." Before Erik could speak, Earl, the chief's son, spoke up.

"We was playing village watch and Erik was the bandit. Then he actually stole some coin from the baker's stand and so we had to catch him for true justice!"

The child spoke with an over emotional tone, in obvious imitation of his father. Esa released Erik's ear. She stood looking down at our son. Erik was fully dejected. His chin was down on his chest and his blonde hair was hanging down into his face. I give him a nudge with my hip.

"I was the bandit mom. I was supposed to be up to no good."

Esa gives him a swat to the back of the head and then grabs the back of his shirt and hauls him over to the other children. She gives him a little shake. Erik fishes about himself until he pulls two copper coins out and tosses them to Earl. Esa gives them all a motherly stare and then addresses them.

"That's enough Justice for today. Earl would you do my son a great favor and return this to the Baker, with my heartfelt apologies."

She places the coin in his hand and favors him with her deepest smile. The boy takes the coins then looks up into Esa's smiling face. He gets a kind of silly look on his face, then mumbles his thanks and speeds off with the other kids trailing behind him. I walk up to Erik and bend low to speak into his ear.

"Go inside and clean yourself. As punishment we will be laboring in the forge until my latest work is done."

I turn him back to the forge and the house, swatting his behind to spurn him into action. I smile after him and straighten as my wife slides her hand along the center of my back and down almost to my leather covered ass. She speaks quietly, without looking up at me. I look down at her and watch her mouth move as she speaks. I'd like to silence it, and taste her.

"That is not a punishment. You've answered his dreams letting him work in the forge." She continued with a sigh. "I was hoping we could have some time together after he was down. You've been so busy with the chief's order, I find myself aching." As she spoke, her hand slid further down into my pants and cupped my right side. She laid her head into that same side. I slide my arm around her. I turn her to face me and embrace her. I kiss her mouth and feel her tongue slide into my mouth where it fights with mine. With more self-control then I thought I could manage I break our kiss and move my mouth to her ear.

"I'll wake you when we are finished."

I step back from her. Its full dark now, but I can always see my wife's face in even the smallest sliver of the moon. She has her eyes closed and her mouth is still slightly open from our kiss. She gathers her hair into her hands and pulls it around to one shoulder. She begins humming and walking into the house, stroking her hair as she goes. Her eyes never open, yet she walks with sure steps. I move to the forge and prepare for the night's work. I count my blessings as I lay out leather and pre-cut wood for hilt and bindings.

In the night, my son and I set blades into wood and bind them with the leather. The moon is well past its zenith when the work is done. The blades finished and the boy near to collapse, I flare up the forge with the bellows to keep its fire going through the night. I scoop Erik up into my arms and carry him into my home. The house is a simple affair all on one level. Erik has a small cell in the back of the house with a bed and small chest for his clothing and toys. I lay Erik into his bed and then place some blankets over him. It was late spring and the chill was off the land, and the heat of full summer had yet to come. I move back into the main room.

The main room is a collection of seats and shelving with a fire pit in the center. The fire is still raging in the pit at the center of the room. With no chill to dispel, the fire has soaked its heat throughout the room. Esa and Erik like the extra heat, but there are times when it almost feels oppressive to me. Other times the fire is set into my skin, a part of me. Other times it's like that skin is loose on my bones, and I feel like a starving man looking for his next meal.

I feel Esa before I see her. My heart skips a beat as it moves into a new rhythm, her rhythm. It happens sometimes when Esa and I aren't together for a long time. She steps into the frame of the door to our bedroom. I can only make out her silhouette through the flames. Even so I can tell she is bare of clothing. Her arms are crossed in front of her breasts, but the stance of her feet is wide and the light of the fire shows me the void between her legs and the unmistaken feminism of her shadowed form.

I move around the fire and let my hand trail in the heat rising off it. As I reach her, I put my hand, hot from the flames, to her cheek. She presses her own hand against it, and I can feel the softness of her. In the years since the birth of our son she has become even more beautiful than the maiden I had taken next to the river. Her body has swelled with the weight of our child. Though she had lost some of it to the work of running our shop and more than a few hard winters, her body is soft in all of my favorite places and hard in the better ones.

She moves my hand from her cheek and presses it to her breast. I slide my hand around the roundness of her breast and then let my thumb massage her nipple just under the protuberance in the center. She coos a little and started to remove my clothing. I let my other hand stray to her hips and slide it up and down her sides letting my fingernails trail along her skin. As I have been finding the shape of her, she has been removing my clothing. I am now naked before her, and I'm glad for the heat of the fire in the room. I pull her to me and my firm manhood is between us, pressing against her stomach. I kiss her and our tongues dance. Now both my hands are entertaining her breasts and she is writhing her lower body against me.

"Take me to bed, husband."

I oblige her, scooping her up into my arms. She is planting little kisses on my chest and shoulder as we go. I lay her onto our bed. Its oaken timbers creak slightly and the feather mattress bends to our weight. She stretches out into the full length of the bed and runs her fingers through the bear fur covering. I'm between her legs now and feeling at the wetness there. My fingers enter her and I beckon her from within. She is moaning into her fist, trying not to wake our child. I don't make it easy for her as I taste her while my fingers move inside her. The hot wetness there grows in both qualities. I look up to see her writhing with the pleasure. She is biting onto the first knuckle of her index finger. Her eyes are closed shut. Her hips are rolling under me and I run my free hand up to her breasts and I feel more heat there, and also some wetness. I get a smile on my face as I hear her stifled moaning reach their heights. Her hands grip at my ears and she pulls me up to her breasts. The wetness I felt is the remains of her milk. Our son had not fed there in many years, but at times I've tasted that sweetness myself in the interim. I pull a little sweet milk from her nipple, but after a few seconds Esa pushes me over on my back. She crawls down my length and stop at my root. She takes me into her mouth. As she pulls me from her mouth, her breath is hot and wet on me. One of her hands is now caressing my seeds and the other is moving my manhood. She keeps her mouth still and rubs me against her tongue and cheek.

After a few eternity laden minutes, she crawls up my body kissing my skin as she goes. When she reaches my face, she straddles me and begins to slide her wetness over my solid manhood. I place my hands on her hips and settle her searching slit over my hardness. She rolls herself over me, and I begin to slide into her. Inside, she is the burning sun. She is a lake heated by the days of summer. She begins lifting herself up and then sliding down with the creeping pace of a sunset. The sunset in her eyes. As she reaches the base of my root, her pace increases.

The sounds we make are the sliding of her wetness against my solid cock and our own ragged breath. As we approach our finish, I reach up and wrap my arms around her as she flexes at the waist. I sit up and continue the motion until she is lying on her back and it's me setting the pace. I press into her as deep as I can. I feel my seeds pull against me and the approach of my pleasure spurns me to greater speed. Her fist is pressed into her mouth and her other hand is between us. I can feel her rubbing at herself just above where the root of my manhood is trying to push all the way into her. I feel a sudden increase in her wetness and now she's pressing in all around me. The extra feeling of pressure releases me, and I'm pouring myself into her. We are both gasping into each other while trying to kiss and taste each other. I let my full weight settle onto her and she shifts a little to let the bed take some of my pressure. I'm still inside her as she whispers to me.

"Mmmm I've needed that for days. How did I ever get so prosperous as to have a husband with such varied talents?"

"I've learned here, taking lessons from the goddess." My response spreads a smile over her glowing face. She kisses me again and then gives me a little slap. Her next words are the barest of whispers but listening to them makes my body ache as if suffering a blow.

"Your still firm inside me. Have you been denying yourself of my attentions for so long? Have you the strength for another lesson?"

I give no time for discussion. I wrap my arms around her and roll into a sitting position. Esa wraps her legs around and buries her head into my shoulder. She bites me a little as I stand up.

"Ohhh Geir what are you doing? You're so deep inside me like this."

I walk a little around the room. Esa rolls her hips a little and I move inside her. I can feel myself brush at the edge of her insides. Esa bites at my shoulder a little harder and the pain mixes with the sensations of my cock and I think I might pass out. I press her back into the frame of the entrance to the bedroom and move my cock in and out of her a few times.

"So good. Don't stop." I press my mouth to her mouth to silence as we move past the door to my son's cell. She must feel the cold air as I step out into the forge.

"Oh you filthy man. Taking me out where anyone can see. I'm no Miller's wife." Esa's comments brings memories to bare in my mind. In our first year of life in this village, we were strolling at the edge of the village, where the river fed into the Mill. There we saw the top of a naked woman essentially hanging out of an open window. After a few moments it was clear that the woman was being thoroughly ravished by some unseen force inside the house. Her cries of abandon set off the fire in us. We hid ourselves in a bend of the river, and as we listened to the woman beg for completion. Esa and I traded pleasure between ourselves under the stars. Since that night, we found ourselves being more and more audacious. As I walk out into the forge I care not for what eyes are on us. It was almost as if I didn't control my own feet.

I set her bottom down onto the anvil and with the pressure of her weight no longer holding her down on my root I saw myself in and out of her. My pace is slow. I feel the heat of the forge and beat of the flame that lives in the burning coals. Esa feels it as well and I feel a sweat break out across her. I have eyes only for Esa. Her full body beneath me. I'm pulling myself into her as fast as my body can manage. Her moaning is unrestrained now as she uses her hands to steady herself on the anvil. She is calling my name. I feel like her voice is far away. There is only the heat and beating of the heat is the rhythm of my cock pressing into her. After many moments I hear words in her moaning.

"My back. Why is my back so hot?"

I look behind her, as I continue to press myself deep into her. The coals of the forge are flaring, and light is beating to the pressure of the heat and beating of my heart. With each beat the heat seems to flare in intensity. I watch as the coals move from red to blue and then white. There is no heat, only the light of the flames that should be crackling around us. Madness takes me.

I pick her up again and as I walk to the forge I purposefully let her weight bury me deeply. When we reach the forge it brushes her leg. The contact wakes her from the pleasure of her body.

"Geir? What's happening? What's wrong with the forge?"

I have no answer for her. I release her body into the coals and I slide fee of her. There is a crackling and a hissing as her skin makes contact with the coals. I hear the breath of her body escape her. No longer inside her I feel a sudden gust of cold wind and it snaps me to my senses. Filled with the sudden horror of what I'd done, I lean over her writhing body. I press my hands into the coals and press my head into her body to listen for her heart beat. My hands don't burn but the coals still hiss and squirm under my hands like they were made of cold water. I hear Esa whisper to me.

"Geir. The heat. The heat feels sooo goooood. Finish me Geir. Take this fire."

I feel the heat of the forge then. The beat of it. The beating of our hearts. It's drawn into my hands and up my arms. It runs down my spine and into my stomach where it balls up like molten steel. I enter her again. The heat extends out into my cock. I bend over more and lock my mouth onto one of her nipples drawing her sweet juices into mouth again. It is hot and spreads a metal tang in my mouth. I can feel her growling now, a deep growl like a resonance in our bones. The heat and sound and the beat of the fire is too much. I open my eyes as I explode into her. My hair has fallen in front of me. It's burning gold. The black ebony of it natural hue is blown away by the golden light radiating out of me, lighting the whole of the forge. I look to Esa and have to shut my eyes. She is the sun. The paleness of her skin has been replaced by the white hot burning of the coals. Her hair is like literal flame and it writhes like burning serpents.

I pick her up from the forge, sliding myself from her while I pull her to my chest. She is motionless and limp in my arms. The light is fading from both of us. The heat remains. It's like a fever running though us. I feel weak and collapse next to her. I stay conscious long enough to carry her to some straw in the back of the forge. I collapse on top of her.

We awake before the sun. Esa is shaking me while trying to push me off of her. She is darting her eyes about. I bolt up and look to see an empty street. Thanking the gods I jump up and shuffle Esa into the house. She's telling me off as we retreat to our bedroom and wash ourselves a little.