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Little Red, Riding Wood Ch. 01

By: Rob_mDear



Little Red paused to rest on a lichen covered log, having ducked around and behind a miniature forest of thick undergrowth within the woods themselves. She listened to the distant sounds of the grunting, slamming, and cutting exertions of the woodsmen felling another load of trees to send to market. The distance and the foliage put her well out of sight of the laboring woodsmen. Even so shielded, she gave a wary, furtive, well-practiced glance over each shoulder to confirm that she was, at least for now, in complete privacy. It simply wouldn't do were anyone to know.

She drew that most treasured of objects, her personal journal, from beneath the cloth wrapped loaves of fresh baked bread in her wicker basket. After rummaging blindly around the weave at the bottom with her hand, she next grasped hold of and pulled forth the writing stylus, that clever creation of paper wrapped around a small, straight stick of black, burnt wood that her father had learned to construct when laboring at his old job as a book smith in the big city. The city must have so many marvels, Red thought, that she must go there some day, she simply must.

After opening the book, she turned the crinkled, uneven pages quickly ahead to the point from which she could continue, a fresh blank sheet for today's thoughts and observances and occurrences and fancies.

Red looked up at the leafy treetops masking the sky. The forest was the lifeblood, body and soul of their tiny village. They survived by foresting, trapping, and hunting. The town folk lived a simple, common, physical existence, in harmony and balance with nature around them, both as its master and at its mercy. The men sweated and worked in the forest, while the women cooked and cleaned at home, waiting to service and be serviced by their men in the dark of night. The people mostly liked their simple lives that way, all except for Little Red and her father.

Little Red's name was Celia. Everyone called her Red from the day she first grew hair on her head as a babe, because unlike anyone in that part of the world she had scarlet red hair that fell in wide, springing curls onto her shoulders and below. It wasn't the blondish red or orange red of some. Her hair was deep red, the color of a shallow glass of red wine held up to the dying light of an evening sky. 

She had few freckles on the pale skin of her round face and cheeks to go with those midnight-rose-red curls. Crystal water-blue eyes shimmered out from that face beneath the hair. They would have been striking in and of themselves, in their clarity and intelligence, if everyone had not so focused on her colored, curling locks.

She was petite at the youngest age, and so they called her little, back then. But like the other hardy forest folk, from the hulking, muscled men to the soft and shapely but hardworking women, in time she grew, not so large as most of them, but certainly into a healthy, mature and rounded woman. 

Yet even after she had grown, she still remained Little Red to everyone in the village, which was everyone in the world, as far as Celia's experience allowed.

Today was her half-birthday, and an important half birthday at that. She was now six months past the ripe and important age of double twos, that magical branch in forest life where a man or woman is said to have crossed into adult hood, and also a point by which any woman who still sported all four limbs and all of her teeth should already have been married for several years, and probably pregnant with one child while pulling another about in tow.

Such a fate held no interest for Celia. She wanted adventure. She wanted to see the city. She wanted to use her brain. And she wanted to write. Today, six months past her full double-twos birthday, unlike all of the other girls of her own age, she remained unmarried and intended to stay that way. Happily unmarried, she felt. She wrote as much in her journal.

* * *

"What's that you've got there, Red?"

Celia spun around in surprise, letting her red cloak whip about to surreptitiously but quickly cover the top of her basket. She'd fortunately just been tucking the book and stylus back into the bottom, but as usual she'd been so lost in her own thoughts and writing that she'd lost track of time and ther things around her, and apparently dangerously so.

"Bread for the workers, of course, the same as every day. Would you like to buy one, Gautier? I have some rye left."

He gave her an odd look, as if he weren't completely sure what he had seen, but knew it wasn't bread.

He didn't answer. Instead he moved to her. Not so much to her, in fact, but at her. Celia felt stalked, and cornered, like prey before a predator. She unconsciously took a half step back, when she realized that there was a large tree there. Gautier moved forward, filling the space in front of her with his massive bulk.

All of the woodsmen were large and muscled, with broad shoulders and protruding, barrel chests. Gautier was the largest of all. He dominated every scene, every job, every conversation, and every laughing, riotous, drunken gathering. Gautier was a force that could not be dissuaded, dodged or dislodged, and everyone knew it.

Everyone except Celia.

The girls all adored Gautier. His rough, commandingly handsome looks and imposing bulk implied a manly sexual prowess that set the girls twittering and giggling whenever he was near, and often when he wasn't.

Everyone except Celia.

"Have you thought on my proposal, Celia?"

"I already told you that I have, Gautier, and the answer is the same, and always will be the same."

"And that answer is?"

If he thought that acting stupid and dense was charming, he was mistaken. Celia bestowed on him a glare generally reserved for rats found scampering through a kitchen, or a roach spotted scurrying from the light. Despite her outward display of resistance and courage, inside she felt frightened. The abrasive bark of the tree trunk dug into her back as she tried to retreat further, almost as if she were trying to merge and become one with the tree itself, to hide within it or use it as a shield.

He stopped with his own body bare inches from hers, so her face was pressed almost into his neck. She could smell the sweat on him from his day's labor, and the day was only three quarters finished. He towered over her, looking down like one more tree in the forest blocking the sun. To call him as smart as one, Celia thought, was to insult the other trees.

"The answer is no, Gautier. I already told you. I asked Father, and he said no."

She hated herself for feeling and acting weak, by implying that the burden of the decision rested with her father, even if it were common practice in their village. She had said no, and in her mind, that was what mattered, not what Father said. This oak-headed ox could rot in the woods, even if Father had agreed, which he certainly had not. Father would always surrender to his daughter's wishes, and Celia wasn't marrying Gautier, or any other dumb, ignorant log in this town, no matter what anyone else said. She had her own mind, with her own ideas for her future.

In fact, Gautier was the one man in town who would never, ever even make it into her journal. Celia couldn't even bear to write his name there, as much out of spite as loathing.

And yet it was so much easier to cowardly tell him that Father had said no.

"It's time I spoke with your father, and asked him myself."

"Go ahead and try, if you wish."

Celia bit her lower lip nervously. Father would say no. She hoped. He always had. She just had to make sure.

* * *

Celia walked among the loggers at the edge of the growing glade they'd created the past months by felling trees. It was littered with tree stumps on which to sit, where they were shaded by the trees and yet the air was more fresh and free than under the stifling canopy of leaves in the denser forest. The woodsmen had gathered for a break, alone with two hunters returning from further into the forest, each with a brace of fine, meaty rabbits. 

The entire group reeked of malodorous sweat. Too many of them bathed infrequently, or wore the same shirt several days running. Others just naturally smelled, no matter how freshly they scented themselves. She held her basket open, for some at a long arm's length, letting them each take a loaf if they chose, and if so to drop the proper coins into her open palm, which she quickly transferred to an inner pocket within her red cloak.

"I gave Fleurette some wood yesterday."

That came from behind Celia's back, although no effort was made to keep the rude boast from her young, demure ears.

"You mean 'little' Fleurette? The womanly one who just came of age?"

"Ha. Just of age?" he snorted. "She begged me to lay my log right between those two, full, soft pillows of hers."

Three of the men laughed. The loudest was Gautier. Whenever she handed out bread to them, she kept her hood drawn up over her head and low across her face, no matter how stifling the summer air in the woods might be, in order to hide her face from their intrusive stares, and to hide any blush in her cheeks resulting from their always pathetic, roguish comments. She wore her red cloak always. In the summers, she had a lighter version, one which guarded against scratches from random briars and twigs, and more importantly afforded her some discretion against prying eyes.

"You did not. She's betrothed to D'anton."

"Not yet! Not officially. And I think she feels she needs some tutoring, so that she's properly prepared for him. He'll thank me for it, I'm sure."

They all laughed loudly at that.

"You want to tutor all the girls of age, Marque. You should take the school master's place. Or start your own."

More laughter. Celia moved through the group as inconspicuously as she could, while trying to ignore the vulgar banter as much as or more than their filthy conversation pretended to ignore her own presence. Yet even as they joked and bragged, they incongruously leered at her face and curves, or tried to sneak peeks within her robe at her womanly, young figure as she leaned over to offer them their bread.

"I'd love to give her a feel of my wood, where ever she'd like it most," she heard Ancil rumble to Masson as she passed. The emphasis on the word "her" told Celia that she herself was his love interest, not Fleurette.

Ancil was a particularly brutish pig of a man, with a wide, upturned nose, and small beady eyes, and one whom she would never consider in a thousand summers. The thought disgusted her. The thought of touching any of them disgusted her. Mostly. Worse even than that, the thought of sharing a meal or an evening with any of them bored her.

She ignored the comment, as she did similar comments every repetitive, tedious day. They never tired of their own inanity. They said childishly manly things like this all the time, around all the girls, and she knew it was meant to be overheard, hoping the girls might take them up on their filthy offers. Celia knew, too, that many did. 

It made her skin crawl, and sometimes it made her hasten home, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder, but she told herself that it was just the men being men. The other girls said it was harmless, or they giggled embarrassingly at it, or they blushed in fear of discovery, or a mixture of all three. 

Celia could take it, and tried to do so unflinchingly. She wouldn't let these logs cow her.

"Your log couldn't satisfy her, you twit. A woman like that needs to have a better post set in her field than yours, and set by a master woodsman who knows how to saw."

"A woman that fine needs a few posts set in her fields, all at one time."

The laughter at the remark was too loud and raucous, even for Celia. 

She knew they were still talking about her and for some reason, today, it got to her. The chorus of guffaws for once made Celia blush. She moved to the periphery, turning her back on them all now, purportedly to offer bread to the pair of hunters. The two sat there, grinning at her like two hungry wolves that had pinned their prey between them and the rest of their pack.

Celia felt the blush rising further into a self conscious burn in both of her cheeks. As soon as they had dismissively waved her basket away she took off through the woods, not out of fear, but merely to hide her own discomfort and shame, as the course laughter of the woodsmen first redoubled at her hasty exit, then eventually receded behind her. 

That they'd gotten to her irked her. Each had asked in turn over the past six months to marry her, and each had been firmly rebuked, either by her or, if they persisted, by her father at her own pleading.

They were all hurt and insulted, so they tried to get back at her. None of them were worth her time. She had her journal. She had her books. She had her father. The humid, warm summer air beneath the forest canopy rushed through her ears as she hurried home, finally quieting the sounds of the brutish men back at the camp, until she felt comfortable enough to slow her pace, catch her breath, and take some time to think before heading home to prepare the evening meal for her dear father.

* * *

Monsieur Sinclaire Couerduloup exited the school house with his wire framed reading spectacles perched perfectly on the tip of his nose, exactly as he needed and preferred so he could both look down through them to read, as well as over them to see where he was going. He was well aware that the men of the town scoffed and laughed at him for the habit behind his back.

He paid them no mind. He thought less of them than they of him.

They could toil and struggle in the depths of the forest, wrestling day by day with nature. They had no understanding of or appreciation for the intense labors of the mind. It completely escaped them, making them pitiable to Sinclaire, rather than intimidating. They were not models that he ever had or would seek to emulate, no matter how derisive their whispered comments might be.

And for all of their manly labors in the forest, Sinclaire had seen and faced adventures and dangers in his life that they were too timid to ever even attempt to pursue. Unlike them, he'd been beyond this small village, living for a while in the wider, amazing world beyond the forest and the river, before feeling compelled here to finish out his days in the boredom of this small, isolated world.

He smiled happily as the school children filed past him, some politely offering their parting greetings while others, mostly boys, bolted screaming out into the sunshine the very moment their foot touched the bare earth just past the threshold.

"Your numbers, Sebastien. Recite your numbers tonight!" he yelled after the fast receding wind that burst away masquerading as a little boy. He smiled in happy resignation, knowing that no such thing would be done. If he reached one in twenty children here, he'd be pleased, but really it was of little consequence. Monsiuer Couerduloup was often surprised that the town even bothered to pay him, or otherwise support the school. They'd do as well to let the children run free in the forest, until the day came when they were large enough to chop wood or to breed.

Within a few years, the older boys would come of working age and leave behind their school days, probably never again to read or count. The next day they'd be in the forests, hunting or cutting wood, while the older girls would in their good time be betrothed, wed and pregnant, with a gaggle of little ones clamoring behind them, as they baked and cleaned and kept house for the return of their men.

And so their lives would continue, each and every day, until they were old and sipping their mush from a copper ladle.

Sinclaire had higher hopes for his beautiful, brilliant daughter Celia, although he couldn't see how such hopes could ever come to fruition. Here he lived, and here he was trapped, and here she was trapped, unless he uprooted her to take her to a life style she'd never known in the dirty, dangerous, and disease ridden big city that had taken her mother from them both when she was only two.

He had no other children. If he had one, great regret in life it was in not having a son. Celia was enough, he told himself, a perfect daughter, and more intelligent, he felt, than he was himself. But it would have been wonderful to have a son, as well.

Instead, he had one and only one daughter, trapped here with him a world in which she didn't fit, with no real future to speak of. Try as he might, he could think of no way out, and no other place to go. The city was too dangerous, especially for an innocent girl like Celia who had almost never if her lifetime even seen another village. Yet to stay here was to endure a living death.

There had to be a way to give the girl what she wanted, needed and deserved, just as his own mother had found a way to do so for him.

He could worry about it another day. He always put it off until another day while guiltily telling himself that he mustn't delay forever. It was too important to ignore, and too daunting a problem to address. He shook his head to clear it of the thoughts.

For today, the children were now gone, and Celia he was sure sat awaiting him at home with a hot meal and her warm, comforting smile, the brightest spot in his days.

* * *

Celia halted in a particularly dense patch of wood. In her distracted haste and anger she'd randomly, she told herself, but really quite deliberately taken the wrong path. She'd wandered now too far along that wrong track, lost in her thoughts and anger, into the denser woods south of town, rather than straight back home.

It was getting late, too late, but she still didn't want to head home quite yet. The air felt different here. It always did. It was still fresh and hot and oppressive, but it was oppressive in an odd way. This was an older, untouched, unkempt part of the forest, belonging to itself rather than to men. It was thicker, more defiantly still and more humid. It had a certain feel to it that Celia couldn't name, but had always tempted her dangerously in to explore.

She'd recovered her composure. Her feelings now dwelled on the simmering anger at having allowed them to get the better of her. They were so low in her eyes that to have them elicit any response from her made her feel lower than them. What hurt most of all, though, was that they were right.

Or partly right.

Her body had come alive in the past few years. She had feelings and desires and sensations that were new, and had caught her completely unawares. She'd never understood what it was to be a woman, until she'd become one. The feelings were also not only new and unexpected, but unusually intense. She felt different from the other girls, even from that slut Fleurette. She felt driven, against her better judgment and other wishes, in an unsavory but so tempting direction.

She lay awake too many nights, tossing and turning, and thinking of... logs. Not just logs. She thought about lips, and broad shoulders, and strong, scruffy jaw lines. She thought about pressing herself against sweaty, muscular chests, while being held tightly there by barrel-shaped, oak-hard arms. She thought about lips irresistibly pressing lips, with the soft scratch of a beard and mustache tickling her chin and cheeks and nose.

She thought about struggling and resisting, but always half heartedly, always for show more than effect.

She thought about offering herself to a man, to give him all of the pleasure that he could take from her body, and by doing so to feel like she became an actual part of him.

Celia slumped against a tree trunk, sliding down in exhausted frustration to sit with her back against it on the damp, cool, moss covered ground. A meager ray of dappled sunlight made its way onto her face through the broken roof of green leaves above. Her heart still raced from her run and from her fierce reaction to the men.


Little Red, Riding Wood Ch. 01



Ancil was a pig. They were all sweaty, smelly, vulgar and most of all stupid men. Two of them together couldn't get through a page of a children's book. Their lives were filled with chopping, and swearing, and eating, and rutting. Every day, day after day, was the same bestial routine for them, and the worst part was that they didn't seem to notice at all. They never questioned it. They were happy with it.

There wasn't a man among them who Celia would choose to spend more than a night with. But there were a few who could offer her a comfortable log in the dark discomfort of a single, hot, humid night. 

Ancil was a pig, but Marque was cute, in a boyish way. Masson wasn't very comely, to look at, but he had a marvelous physique, with rippling muscles that glistened in the sun when he worked up a sweat. The men's sweat could be so vulgar and smelly, but at times, when Celia was in a certain mood, it had a heady effect on her, like that one sip too many of gooseberry wine. It made her want and imagine impure things, in vivid detail.

Celia's finger was wet now. Without thinking, she had pulled her knees up to her chest and slipped that finger inside herself. She was so wet there. It had been dampened just by sliding that finger up and down between the delicate petals of her private, forest flower. That naughty finger could slip in so very easily, if she allowed it.

Masson was no joy to speak with, and certainly wan't too pleasant to look at, but he wasn't repulsive. To be mounted by him might feel so much better than using just one or two small, too delicate fingers.

He probably kissed like a brute. Celia had only ever kissed Joyelle herself. And Gisselle. And Floressa, and Gallia, and Harmonie. Just for practice, of course. Just to know what to expect, and how to do it right. She and Joyelle (and Gisselle and Floressa, and once Gallia and Harmonie both at the same time) had spent many pleasant hours practicing kissing, and some other things.

She remembered their kisses clearly. They each kissed so differently. She imagined that first cool, soft touch of their lips on hers. Harmonie and Floressa were shy, like her, while Gisselle was eager and unrelenting, and Joyelle giggled uncontrollably.

It felt odd, but nice, to have their full, yielding bossoms pressing against hers. Floressa's had felt the best. They were smallish, but her nipples became as hard as wood themselves, poking into Celia's own larger breasts in a most delightful way. The feel of them had surprisingly made Celia's own buds harden, as well as inspiring a dampness between her legs.

Celia's fingers were moving now. They'd penetrated deeply inside of her, as if they had a filthy man's mind of their own. They were mere twigs, compared to the thick branch that she longed to feel inside of her, but they were nimble and energetic, and they knew exactly what Celia liked. They moved when and where she needed, rubbing, touching, humping, probing and pleasing her in just the right way, at just the right speed.

She had many times rolled on the ground, giggling and groping and kissing with so many of the girls. They were stupid, too, but not as dense and droll as the men. They at least used their meager brains for something. They were much more comely, too. As they kissed her they told Celia herself how very beautiful she was, which made her feel warm and open inside.

Masson, though, she knew, would feel very different. She imagined his imposing bulk, in place of Floressa's petite, lithe body, pressing her down into the ground. She imagined his chest on hers, not soft like pillows, but hard, like the headboard of a bed that had fallen atop her and crushed her down beneath it. She imagined his powerful physique holding her in place as she struggled weakly, but only for show and not really trying. She imagined his wood pressing against her own wakening body, first pressing against her thigh, and then against her flower, and then finally forcing its way into her.

Celia whimpered at the thought. She was writhing on the ground now, no longer leaning against the tree. Her scarlet cloak was cast open, with her white skirts pulled fully up above her waist, exposing her naked lower extremities to the vacant, unheeding forest.

Her fingers reached inside, trying to find that magical spot. She felt the soft, pulpy flesh there and pressed it hard against the bone behind it. At the same time, her other hand ran frantic circles around and around the swollen nub on the other side, the outside, her other magical spot.

"Oh, Masson," she moaned, having no fear in this part of the wood of being heard by anyone. No one came here. This was the Wolf Wood. There was nothing of value to be had here. It was overflowing with rocks, boulders, gullies, ditches, streams, fallen logs, and thick tangles of growth, making it very difficult and tiresome to navigate. 

And, if one was unlucky, it was dangerous. 

Celia came here often, though, for the privacy. She met no one and nothing to frighten her. It was a place where she actually felt more safe than around the woodsmen, as long as she was wise and careful.

"Oh, Masson," she moaned again.

Her fingers moved frantically as she tried hopelessly to imagine the feeling of his cock moving inside of her. The idea was so tempting, yet so artificial. She'd seen cocks. The woodsmen would take them out to pee, and more than once she'd spied them off alone, pleasuring themselves during a break, when they thought no one was looking. It was both puzzling and entertaining to Celia, the way their cocks changed, growing harder and longer when they were readied for use.

But they took them out so often, in the seeming privacy of the forest, that Celia had seen more than a few. Really, men were just obsessed with their logs.

She tried to imagine how a cock would feel. It was hard. It was a pleasing size and an unexpected shape. But it was just abstract to Celia. A cock looked like a thick finger, a jointless finger that might bend anywhere, or for some of the harder men, like Marque, something that couldn't bend anywhere. It was a finger that could point accusingly at her opening, hovering there, and then reach inside of her to find and scratch the itch that her fingers could never reach.

It would be so big, so much bigger and thicker than even three fingers. Surely cocks were too thick to fit properly. It couldn't be comfortable, although all of the married girls, or the girls like Fleurette who were too eager and sluttish to wait until they were married, all said with demure smiles or evil grins that it felt better than good.

Celia took their word for it. She imagined something better than good, better than fingers moving inside of her.

Her eyes flew wide as her body awakened further. She'd had these sensations many times before. She'd been able to bring her body to this same point, a point where every nerve inside of her screamed for just a little more. If she could just find the key, a cock inside of her could do it, or something else, she would know. She could feel that there was something more, but couldn't get there.

She didn't know what would happen. She didn't know what her goal was. She only knew that her body was telling her "just a little more." Her body was screaming and begging for her to get past this magical boundary. It was already an aching, tormenting, tantalizing pleasure that she felt, but her body knew that there was something just beyond its edge that must feel even better.

She was so very close.

But as always, this was as far as she could get. Her hips raised from the ground, lifting themselves up in a frantic effort to do what her fingers alone could not, to reach more deeply inside of herself than her fingers ever had or could. She rocked and writhed under her own touch, but to no avail.

Finally, after untold frenetic, thrashing minutes, she fell to the earth and threw her blue eyes wide in unvoiced frustration. She listened to herself panting as she tried to recover. She even bellowed openly up at the branches in anger, but not so loudly that someone in the distance might hear her.

It was all so unfair, Celia thought. Here she was in this tiny little backwards town, surrounded by dozens of sensual, powerful, but doltish men, and a herd of equally beautiful, soft, and alluring but dim women. Yet for all of her needs and desires, the only man in the entire town who she felt was worthy of her attention and affection was also the only man she could never even think of having, her own dear father.

It was frustrating. She lay on her back, staring at the dancing leaves above her, alternately masking and revealing blue sky far above. She caught her breath as she slowly came to her senses, leaving her with nothing but an overwhelming sense of frustration.

She sat up, leaning again against the tree, while removing the journal and stylus from her basket, along with a small corner of a loaf for herself. She took her time, nibbling on the bread while writing in frightful detail about how Masson had taken her under this tree in the Wolf Wood, as she was heading back to her father. She wrote of how wonderful his cock had felt as he showed her the way to pleasures almost as good as those which she'd been given by her own, dear father, in their most secret, dark nights at her grandmother's empty cottage in the woods.

As she dotted the period at the end of the last sentence, she read it over once, quickly, smiling in approval at the effort, with a particularly wicked grin at the delightful if horribly impossible last detail. She'd added that last part on a quirky whim, and suddenly found it to be the most appealing piece of the work. She took great pride and a vaguely unsettling joy in it, reading those last lines several times before tucking the journal and stylus back into the basket, at the very bottom where no one would ever find it. This was her best effort yet, she thought.

When she was finally ready, still frustrated but resigned, and at least satisfied and elated by her flurry of imagination, Celia got up to return to town to see her dear, darling, worthy father. She looked forward to cooking and cleaning for him, and pampering him. She was almost like his wife, but at the end of the night she would go to her own cold bed alone and unfulfilled, not at all like a wife, with that familiar feeling of yawning emptiness expanding throughout her body.

* * *

Their little, forest village did not lie far from the river, which was not far from the wider river, which led in turn to the big city that Father spoke of with both trepidation and longing. It was a place of riches and wonder to Celia, and adventure and danger, and a place that offered a very different and so tempting sort of future.

She envied even the bored, dimwitted wagoner who came once a week merely to haul the logs from their town to the river, taking the lone wide, well-worn road, which was really nothing more than two muddy wagon tracks through the sparse Riding Wood to the east. The woodsmen, to protect their livelihoods, kept it well cleared. To the north lay the Hunting Wood, almost as thinly treed as the Riding Wood. There one found wonderful flowing streams and natural, open glades of grasses and flowers, as well as all of the game that their town would ever need to survive even during all but the longest and most brutal of winters.

To the west lay the Chopping Wood, where the woodsmen worked day by day, felling trees, cutting lumber for their own houses and buildings and fences and walls, and shipping the rest off to make a tidy profit for the town, enough to let the wagoner bring back the goods and wares they couldn't make themselves or find in the forest, goods like the marvelous books that Father bought with his own wages, for his and her pleasure.

To the south lay danger. To the south was the Wolf Wood, the densest, darkest and most forbidding part of the greater forest for hundreds of miles around. There not one but two packs of hungry wolves roamed at will. That wood belonged to them. The leader of the larger of the two packs was a huge, black wolf, more fierce in size and demeanor than any the town had seen for generations. The townsfolk firmly believed that with an evil intelligence he brooked no trespassers. Few people ever tested that superstition.

The hunters ventured into those woods, on rare occasion and only when at need, when game grew scarce in both the Hunting Wood and the Chopping Wood. When they did, they always came back with much needed meat, but also with frightening tales of being stalked and hunted themselves by one pack or both, or by just the monstrous, black wolf alone. They always came back with terrible if fantastic tales of bare escape when a whisker thin, arrow sharp close call was all that had come between them and certain death.

To everyone in the town the Wolf Wood was a place of terrible danger. It represented a near certain chance for a horrible death at the maw of the black wolf and his pack.

Celia, smiling on her own way through and out of that wood, knew better, but appreciated more than any the sense of adventure behind the sentiment. 

* * *

"Why does grandmother live way out here?"

This was asked of her father, way back when she was of school age, when her grandmother was alive and she and her father journeyed once a week to visit and share supper with her.

"She likes the privacy, and she likes the deep forest."

"But isn't she afraid of the wolves?"

Her father was silent for a time.

"Yes, a little. But if you're careful and wary, they're no real danger. They know that men are dangerous, and other game is more worth their attention. You'll always be fine if you know what to do, when to do it, and always do it to keep yourself safe."

"So grandma isn't afraid of anything?"

"No, darling, she is, she very much is. It's part of the reason that she lives way out here. There are lots of wolves in the world. Lots and lots, of all different sorts. Most of them wear clothing."

Celia pictured this in her mind, wolves walking about on all fours in blouses and trousers and even waistcoats. She started to laugh. Her father smiled condescendingly down at her, reading her thoughts.

"I mean men, Celia, who behave like wolves, not wolves who behave like men."

Celia was embarrassed at her mistake, but still amused by the image. She thought on it further.

"But who would hurt grandma? She's so old and kind."

"She's old now, yes, and probably you're right, no one would hurt her now, but old habits and more than that old fears die hard. She's lived here most of her life. They did hurt her once, quite often, and very sadly. She was very beautiful once, when she was young. She was very much like you, with hair and skin like yours. She stayed that beautiful even after I was born and my father had unexpectedly died, and was no longer there to protect her. That loss crushed her. She did what she had to do, for herself and for me, but she never liked it."

Celia stayed quiet, trying to read between the lines, but not really knowing what she needed to know to fill in those gaps.

"Eventually, when she couldn't take it anymore, when I was still a boy, we moved out here, into the forest. I hated it, at first, but she sent me regularly in to town to work to pay for supplies — she wouldn't ever go herself, and never did again — and she taught me how to read and do my numbers, and many other things, almost as much as I've taught you."

He paused a while to think, and Celia realized that he would finish the story in his own good time. She walked beside him, as impatient as a child often is, but holding her tongue from asking the woodpecker's barrage of questions that clacked in her head.

It really wasn't long before he continued, although by then she felt she was ready to burst.

"The path then was even harder to find than it is today, because I was the only one that used it, and under her strict instructions I took care to never use the same route too often. Only a handful of hunters that she trusted knew where the cottage lay, and dropped by from time to time to check on us, and bring us food. I never understood why, but men are queer creatures and do queer things for queer reasons. They always struck me as sad, in a way, though they went to great lengths to hide it."

He paused a moment in thought, actually stopping on the path. When he looked around into the depths of the forest, Celia looked, too, although she knew that he was seeing things that she couldn't see, as if they were in two different places, or rather, the same place at two different times. Again, with a patience that is uncommon in children, Celia waited for him to begin again, both walking and talking, which he did after not very long.

"I myself snuck in and out, always careful that no one could learn where we lived, and in that way she stayed safe until I'd grown to be a man, and at her urging I eventually struck out for a time to try my fortunes in the big city and to get a true education. It was very hard to leave her, especially since she depended on me so. But at the same time, the idea of the adventure ahead of me was glorious, and she said that she could never hold me back from the call of my own life. And the city was glorious, more wonderful than words can describe in very many ways."

"So why did you come back, Papa?"

Her father fell silent, then, with a look that she'd seen before. Celia knew she'd get no more out of him, which was all the more the bother because she felt like the didn't understand any of it. There was a whole, wonderful story in there to be heard, and Papa wasn't telling. He simply took her hand and led her through the thick, labyrinthian forest to her grandmother's house, for roast turkey with special gravy, and fresh, clear water, and always, always extra helpings of grandma's amazing bread pudding.

* * *

There had been a time, not today, when Celia was and should have been afraid. As she wandered out of the Wolf Wood now she glanced around hopefully, as she always did, looking to relive the excitement of that day. It was the day the wolf had come to hunt her, or so she liked to think.

It was only two summers ago. She had wandered all the way out to grandma's empty cabin, to be alone and to write and to think, as well as to experiment with her own awakening body.

As she had returned she spied the wolves, frighteningly many of them, walking parallel to her off through the trees, to both the left and right. They were low, gray, agile forms, gliding smoothly through the twists and turns and obstacles of the forest like fallen leaves floating down a stream, unlike her own halting, stuttering, inconsistent progress,. As soon as she'd seen them her heart had begun to race in growing, serious fear. She was tempted to run, but bravely kept her composure, following Papa's advice by keeping her pace and her course steady, but with a constant wary eye on the wolves.

She approached a spot where the trees thinned for a stretch, like a spot that had wanted to be a glade, but had been firmly told by the rest of the forest that no glades were allowed here. There, at the far end of the more open patch, stood the black wolf itself, staring at her with devilish blue eyes that mirrored her own. It stared at her with a penetrating intelligence of a sort that mocked and sneered at the dim minds of the woodsmen. She stopped in her tracks.

They stared at each other for a good while, neither moving, other than a quick glance around by Celia to see that the flanking wolves, too, had halted but were not moving any closer to seal her in to their trap.

The great black wolf stared at her, and she stared back, although with not nearly so much courage as she pretended to remember. It was far larger, in her eyes, than even the hunters had described. Its black was like a dark, forbidding cave where light could never penetrate. She could see its taut, bunched muscles broadcasting the rending power of it's limbs. Its mouth, when it opened to carelessly expose a pink, lolling tongue, was lined with teeth that looked like full sized daggers to Celia.




Little Red, Riding Wood Ch. 01



And yet, most frighteningly, above and within all of its utter blackness, floated those dangerously intelligent, blue eyes.

Both stood their ground, squared off, for interminable moments, as Celia's heart raced. As certain as she was that she faced her death, as frightened as she was, her mind still contrived to imagine a conversation with the wolf, almost a duel of words waged to determine her fate.

You are in my wood, woman child.

"I wish to leave your wood, wolf."

His teeth bared at her. He held that pose, silent and unmoving, before he continued.

You may, if that is my wish.

"What is your price?"

The wolf laughed. It was a harsh laugh, both like and unlike that of the brutish woodsmen.

I have no price. I am a wolf. I am the wolf, here. I do as I please. I take what I please. I give leave when I please. No woman can stop or sway me, either by guile, or puny, female strength, or by paying any price.

Celia felt herself trembling as she continued the conversation.

"What do you want from me?"

I have no need to tell you. I would take whatever I want, and you could never refuse.

"Perhaps I have something that I would offer willingly."

The wolf raised it's head at that. His eyes danced with amusement, and perhaps a touch of interest.

What do you have, woman-child, that an old wolf could want? What do you have to offer?

Nothing, Celia thought.

I should take you as my bride.

For the first time, Celia felt true panic at such a horrid, unnatural thought.

Yes. I could make you my bride. My lover. My whore. My bitch.

Celia opened her mouth to object, and was silenced with a look of command from the black wolf.

Perhaps you would enjoy it. Yes? I could mount you at my leisure, for my pleasure. You would resist and deny me, but you would enjoy it, would you not?

She felt a visible shiver course through her body, and was embarrassed that she did not know if it was a reaction of fear, or revulsion, or thrill, or some wicked mixture of all three.

I could fuck you sweetly. Would you scream and squeal and squirm, I wonder, clutching at my fur as I filled you?

"I could never marry a wolf, no matter how strong or kingly. My father would never allow it."

The wolf did not answer her then. Its expression was strange. It showed humor, but not mockery. His expression was one of a teacher who's student has finally come ever so close to grasping the point of the lesson.

A fawn quite unexpectedly and foolishly wandered into the clearing, oblivious to the danger that virtually surrounded it. The black wolf did not noticeably glance its way, yet Celia knew that it was well aware of everything.

Do you see the fawn?

"Yes."

So young, and innocent? Is it beautiful to you? Is it cute? And cuddly?

His voice dripped with disdain.

To me it is a meal. To me it is dinner. For me, it will be warm, gushing blood and sweet, steaming flesh being ripped from its bones with my teeth, and gulped and swallowed in large, gluttonous chunks.

Celia tried unsuccessfully to close her mind to the image his words formed there.

The bones themselves I will save for dessert, to crack with my jaws, to suck the marrow dry, and then to gnaw on to clean my teeth as some refined, lordly prince might do with an after dinner toothpick.

He glared meaningfully at her then, as if gauging her reaction to his evil if natural and innate lust for living blood and flesh. 

The fawn is young, and foolish. It stays near, wondering if I may or may not pounce. As long as I do not pounce, it doesn't run, and it ventures closer, thinking itself safe. It is too trusting. Trust is everything.

As the fawn nibbled on the leaves of a bush, Celia feared for it. She looked around for its mother, only to see the other wolves, their gray flanks barely visible, low to the ground amidst the forest. They moved now, to encircle the glade, trapping both Celia and the fawn together. She sensed the hunger in their posture and their patience.

Do you think it might enjoy being devoured? Do you think that is why it strays so close? Because as fearful as it may be of the outcome, there is something there to tempt it? Some sinful, deep, dark desire to indulge in what it knows would be a horrible, agonizing and very permanent fate?

Celia visibly shuddered at the thought. The wolf seemed to take notice. He sensed her fear, and revulsion, and looked perhaps like he knew he had struck a chord with her. And yet, in an unexpected turn, Celia thought she saw kindness and perhaps remorse behind his sage, old eyes.

The wolf nodded his head, almost imperceptibly. In a blink the gray wolves at the periphery had flashed into motion, in unison, as if they were a single, breathing creature. They darted into the glade from all sides. Celia stayed frozen, rooted to her spot, as the fawn ran and the wolves gave chase. As well as they'd cordoned it, it was more nimble and elusive than they had expected. With a great leap it mounted a log, then a low boulder, then bounded over one encircling wolves, as slavering jaws snapped at its trailing leg, only to come up empty.

The fawn ran, and the wolves gave chase. They disappeared quickly from her view amongst the dense tree trunks, boulders, saplings, ferns and other undergrowth. Celia hoped in her heart that the fawn escaped, and knew in her heart that it could not.

Through it all, the black wolf stood stock still, staring at her with those cold, blue eyes, watching her watch the tragic spectacle unfold. When the other wolves had gone she turned back to watch him, meeting his gaze, until without so much as a shrug he silently and nonchalantly moved off to follow its pack with the cool, stealthy ease of the master of the forest, as if he had never even noticed her.

* * *



Little Red, Riding Wood Ch. 02



Sinclaire didn't exactly worry, but he wondered. Celia was late, as happened so often. Really, there was so little to do in this village other than to read, he had no idea where she got to or how she spent her time. If she'd been any girl but his daughter, he'd know that she was dallying with a man, already wed or not, in any corner of the forest that she could find. That was what most of them did.

Yet she so vociferously and adamantly had refused them all, both in public and in private, that he found it hard to believe that that was how she spent her time.

He tasted the stew, then wrinkled his nose, choosing to add more salt, and fancying a touch of peppercorn as well. It was good, but not quite good enough.

Sinclaire rather enjoyed cooking, although he could never admit it to anyone other than Celia. It gave him a sense of creative accomplishment, and usefulness and action outside of the abstractions of his hyperactive mind.

And it tasted good, sometimes as good or better than Celia's cooking, or his own departed wife's.

As was his age old habit, he quickly and easily dismissed that last thought. It had been years and years since the coughing, sputtering, sapping disease had taken her. It had been an awful time in his life, losing his love and companion, while being left alone with a crying, young child to care for in a crowded, heartless, forbidding city, and with no idea how to go about it.

But for all of his ignorant failings and missteps as a father, that child had grown into something special, a woman to rival even his lost wife.

She wore a physical beauty that drew many eyes, but his most of all. He felt no shame in admitting that he privately admired her form. She wasn't the most beautiful girl in the village, although her bright red hair was certainly the most exotic.

But she had more than her mere physical charms, which were certainly ample for a man as unassuming as Monsiuer Couerduloup. She had more than the delightful curves of her breasts and hips and bottom, or her shapely, smooth legs and her quiet, clever laugh like a forest waterfall.

Even her mother had not had a mind as sharp and quick as hers. And even Sinclaire himself was not nearly so inventively imaginative. She was a treasure in this little village, wasted like a gem buried deep in a dark mine, unable to sparkle in the sunshine in all of its glory.

Now, Sinclaire thought to himself, what was he doing? He was letting the stew overcook, that's what he was doing. He quickly stirred it, and then lifted the pot a notch higher to reduce the temperature. There weren't enough mushrooms, he decided, grabbing a handful of leftover slices from the counter and tossing them in, before giving it another wide, slow series of stirs.

She was so wonderful to have around. He knew how old and run down he would feel, today and years ago, had he not had her to brighten his days and his mood. She would make such a fine wife for a worthy man, if any such man could be found.

So many had asked. Not all, but most, and many of them repeatedly. Gautier was particularly focused on her. There were other, greater beauties around, and it was his nature to claim the very best for himself. He certainly didn't appreciate Celia's finer points. Did he truly see her as the best of the bunch? What was his interest?

Perhaps it was her uniquely red hair. Perhaps it was simply because she'd said no, not merely to him, but to everyone.

That was probably it. Gautier wanted what he couldn't have.

Sinclaire sighed. He couldn't blame any of them, even if their motives and interests were more base and suspect. If he were a younger man, someone other than her own father, he would want her above and beyond anything else. He would try as hard as Gautier or any other man to court and win her.

He smiled to himself as he stroked his well-groomed, graying beard, thinking that, if he were young, he would win her. He was just the sort of man that would interest her, and even, he dared to think to himself, that she deserved.

If only he were younger, and if only it were proper. He smiled at the thought of coming home to her warm smile and conversation every night until the end of his days, then shook the image off, knowing anything such could never be, as a sin against man and nature, and more importantly would be unfair to her. She needed someone young and vibrant.

He loved having her here, with him, but she couldn't remain a spinster for her entire life and be happy, and he couldn't give her that one special component of marriage that every man and woman need to share.

If only he were younger, and if only it were proper, he thought to himself with a wry and very private smile, before returning to the tinker with and fiddle the stew towards perfection.

* * *

"There you are. I was worried sick."

"Pooh. You were not," Celia said, as she put a hand on his shoulder to pull herself up to plant a kiss on his soft, scrumptious, gray beard. After the kiss she let her hand slide up to lovingly stroke it, under the chin while their eyes exchanged pleasant smiles. His own hand reflexively came up to take hers in his, repeating a routine they'd fallen into for as long as she could remember. 

His hand was large and cool and strong, but also smooth and soft, not course like the other men's. Her slim fingers felt petite and delicate in his. 

She broke their routine by kissing him again, on the lips, and lingering there perhaps longer than was appropriate. She dropped back down to whisk herself away before he could raise his eyebrows in objection, smiling playfully to herself. She'd been indulging in this sinful game for several weeks now, feeling more emboldened every day that Father did not complain. By this point, she rather fancied that he liked it, even if his outward reactions were one of stone-cold, sober restraint.

"Royden stopped by while you were out," he said to her retreating form.

"Oh? And what did you tell him?"

"No, of course. Unless in his case I'm mistaken?"

She laughed at him, as he surely knew she would. The hunter was abrasive and unkind as any man in the village.

"And Hugues, too."

"Oh, Father, not Hugues!"

"What's wrong with Hugues?"

She laughed out loud at him and at the small, knowing smile he wore on his face at such an absurd question.

"Besides the fact that he's old, and fat, and already has six bratty, spoiled children?"

"Old? He's younger than I am."

"Not by much, but at least you're handsome. He never was."

Her father blushed a little at that, which in turn made Celia feel good. She continued.

"He's so fat, I'd surely be the third ex Madame Lefevre. I would die in childbirth, like the others before me, trying to expel a seventh oversized little Lefevre!" 

Father laughed at that. She realized she was chatting away and hadn't yet even removed her cloak. Falling back into their normal routine after hanging the cloak on its peg by the door, she whisked straight away into her own small, sparsely furnished room to freshen herself and to tuck the journal neatly and secretly away where it would stay until later, to either be read or expanded.

She emerged moments later, having changed from her dress into one of her father's overlarge shirts. As expected, he scowled at her in disapproval as she emerged. The cut was entirely wrong for her female shape and size, and it was too long, which was convenient because she wore nothing underneath. It exposed her shapely, bare legs quite inappropriately, up to the middles of her thighs, while her mildly generous bosom peeked out from between the folds of fabric where she should have, but hadn't, properly tied the shirt closed.

As always, however, despite his disapproving scowl he said nothing. He enjoyed seeing her dress that way, she was quite certain, as much as any other man might and no matter how improper it was. That he was the only man in the world who could or, she was equally certain, ever would see her dressed in that way made the entire experience that much more delightful for her.

She had never added this detail to her journal, she realized. She would have to rectify that this evening.

The meal passed uneventfully. The stew was beyond passing good tonight, a mix of rabbit and turkey and fresh vegetables. The conversation was wonderful, as Father told her stories for the umpteenth time of his days as a young man in the city. He spoke tonight of the great ships in the harbor, like river boats the size of floating buildings, with three great trees springing from their rooftops — decks, he called them — to hold their sails aloft like a woman's skirts hanging to drive, and propel them to even more wonderful, distant, marvelous places than the city of which Celia dreamt.

After their supper, she sat beside him on his overlarge chair, the one he had the wood smith specially craft for him. It was of a sort he'd seen often in the city, almost but not quite large enough for two, and padded with soft cushions of fabric stuffed with feathers and straw. Celia squeezed beside him on the chair, half on his lap, with her head resting on his familiar chest, listening to his breathing and the even, comforting thrum of his heart.

She listened, too, with rapt and dreamy attention, as he continued telling his stories into the late evening. She hung on his every word, occasionally looking up and losing herself in the kind, warm, excited glow of his eyes. He came so alive when he told her his old stories that the stories themselves came to life for her. That was what she wanted to do. She wanted to tell stories that way herself.

At her prodding, and she really didn't know why, he told her the tale, again, of how he'd met and courted her mother. She knew it front to back, but listened attentively as if it were the first time. She secretly, sinful, switched the characters in her head, replacing her mother with herself, privately fancying herself as an even better match and bride for her dear father at a younger age.

"You're such an old romantic," she said, when the story reached the point where he and her mother had first kissed.

She reached up to him then with her lips, to plant a long, lingering kiss there, taking her game to a new level. It wasn't entirely inappropriate. A daughter could kiss her father in just such a way, in a show of extreme affection and adoration for the man who had brought her into this world, having raised and guided and protected her on her journey to womanhood and who now carefully guarded the way forward towards her future happiness.

A girl could kiss her father that way, and it would have been acceptable, had her thoughts not been filled with the mildly inappropriate images that Celia's imagination conjured unbidden for her. She lingered there, feeling his warm if unresponsive lips on hers, as her one free hand played with the hairs of his beard under his chin and the other pressed ever more firmly into the warm, solid wall of his chest as a growing, unexpected passion swelled within her.

She honestly didn't know, in that moment, where that kiss might have shamefully and, she was certain, embarrassingly led her next actions, except that there was a noise outside of the near window that startled them both. They turned in unison to see only the evening shadows, but Father quickly rose, unceremoniously shifting Celia aside, to go to the window to close the shutters.

As he did returned from the window there was a firm double-rap on the door. Celia glanced that way, then pensively at her father, before moving to answer it. She pulled her red cloak from the peg by the door to cover her entirely inappropriate attire, donning it quickly before pulling the door inward.

Gautier stood, fist raised to knock a second time.

"Gautier. We were just discussing you. Father is ready to receive your proposal, if you wish."

She smiled haughtily at him, to be countered by a rather intrusively angry glare in return. He looked her up and down in a way that made her feel very uncomfortable.

"Going out?"

"I was, yes, just for some air. But that can wait. Father? I think Gautier is here to see you."

"Wearing slippers?"

She chewed her lower lip, wondering what sort of game he was playing, but gave him no reply. She turned her back on him to stare at her father with wide open eyes, fearfully pleading to him as her mouth widely and unambiguously mouthed the word "no." Gautier stood his ground at first, then could be heard striding confidently and authoritatively into their home behind him. Celia repeated that thought in her head. Their home. Theirs.

"Yes, Gautier. Welcome. Please, please, be seated."

Her father waved him towards a wooden chair by the wall, but he moved instead towards her father's special, large chair.

"Thank you, Monsieur Couerduloup, you are very gracious."

He said the appropriate words in the appropriate tone, but they rang hollow. There was no warmth whatsoever behind the polite exchange.

He didn't sit. He eyed the chair warily, as if it were a trap, or a bedbug ridden mattress, before turning to face her father with Celia clearly left out of his field of vision, and so out of the picture. Celia had to step forward, to the side, to be able to read Gautier's face, as well as see her father's.

"What may I do for you?" her father asked, quietly but not utterly without kindness. Father didn't care much for Gautier, anymore than Celia did.

"Monsieur Couerduloup. I'm sure that you're aware that your daughter is a very, very special woman."

The conversation was as they always were, Celia, thought, stilted and formal, as was their custom, and yet strained when played out by not entirely willing participants. Celia was quite sure that Gautier would have felt more comfortable making demands rather than a polite plea, while Father would rather just summarily dismiss him with polite words and an impolite tone.

"Of course," her father said, smilingly. "Who would know better than I?"

At this, Gautier tipped his head forward and to the side, looking up at him askance, through the corner of his eye.

"Yes, indeed, Monsieur. Who better?"

Gautier paused meaningfully.

"Go on," Sinclaire said, growing impatient.

"And you know that she is much sought after by the eligible men. That includes those who would make good providers, of sorts, but perhaps not good companions, or kind companions, but unreliable providers."

"Yes, of course. Each man must be weighed on his merits, not the least of which is Celia's own interest in them."

Gautier raised his eyebrows at this. Lip service was always given to a woman's desires in their village, but it was hardly strictly taken into account on even many, let alone all occasions. It was certainly never spoken aloud.

It was always presumed that the men, meaning the father and her proposed groom, would always know what was best for a girl. At best, a mother might have some influence in the girl's favor. Celia had no such champion, but thankfully her father was in his wisdom able to play both roles, more or less.

Celia chewed her lip pensively, nervous that somehow Gautier would sway her father, if not with charm and promises, with the simple logic that there were no better options.

Still, her father said no more, waiting for Gautier to continue.

"I can, I would certainly promise you, be both, and more. I am the strongest, hardest working and most productive logger in town. Soon I will have enough wages saved to employ and head a crew of my very own, and my fortunes will increase accordingly."

Her father raised his own eyebrow at this, as if he hadn't known or considered that fact.

"I can also be a kind and tender man, and generous to a woman in all of the ways she might ask."

Celia grinned. Gautier's own conceit had surely undone him. That thinly veiled innuendo of his sexual prowess, and Celias's inevitable satisfaction with him in bed, would surely earn him Father's rarely displayed but still formidable temper.

And yet her father was quietly patient, exposing no emotion to either of them. Celia shifted her stance from one foot to the other in agitated concern.

"Go on."

"I would also be a good father, and provide you with what are sure to be many, very strong and capable grandsons. Grandsons that will grow into men to be as masterful of the forest as I am myself."

Father had always wanted a son. He had never hidden that one, unfulfilled desire from Celia. He'd never said it in a way that would make Celia feel unwanted, or less than perfect, but it was a source of further loss to him that her mother had passed before giving him even a chance at another child, a boy.

Surely that had tipped the scales against her. Celia felt her heart welling up into her throat. The idea that she might soon be wed and sharing not just a bed but her own body with this pig-brain of a human forest bear left her fuming and almost sputtering out her own refusal. It took a concerted effort to bring her emotions and voice under control, but she did so as quickly as she could manage. She was on the verge of shouting out her own objections, and shouting down both of these foolish men, when her father tipped his own head forward and down, to take his turn at looking at Gautier from beneath a furrowed and clearly discontented brow.

Gautier's expression changed from one of cool confidence to shock as he sensed, as Celia did, that the scales had unexpectedly tipped the opposite way.

"I think not, Gautier. I think I will respect Celia's wishes in this regard, and in fact I think those wishes coincide with mine."

"But Monsieur Couerduloup, truly, can you not see that this would be the best possible future for your only daughter?"

Father laughed at him then. Celia settled into a comfortable smile as she watched Gautier begin to crumble and prepare to bluster the way she had almost done just moments before.

"No. No, I think not. I don't see any grandsons of mine becoming hulking masters of the forest like yourself, Gautier. No offense meant, you understand, but I've never put that sort of weight on the qualities of braun and sweat over intellect and education. No, I'm afraid that your last point settles the matter. I must politely refuse your request."

Gautier's demeanor quickly shifted from shock and panic to frustrated anger.

"I will have her hand, Monsieur."

To this, Father raised one inquiring and offended eyebrow, but refrained from any reply.

"I will. Something is wrong in this household. No woman would choose the life of a spinster over the men in this village."

Meaning over Gautier himself, Celia thought.

"We are done here, Gautier. You may show yourself out."

"We are done, for now, Monsieur Couerduloup," he said, letting the name drip from his mouth like the taste of a rotten mug of beer. "We are done, for now, but matters are not settled."

He turned to glare at Celia, looking her up and down as he had in the glades during the work day, appraising her as he might a tree to be felled, or a goose to be purchased for dinner, or more like he would appraise Giselle or Fleurette before choosing to which of the two he would present his log that night.

He turned on his heal and strode from the room, adding without turning, "Matters are not settled."

* * *

"Father, may I ask a question?"

"Certainly."

"You may not like it."

That went without saying. Whenever anyone asks if they can ask a question, it's because they know it won't be well received.

He put his book down on his lap. It had been rather dry, anyway, a treatise on different methods of counting beyond one hundred. It was knowledge that was of little value to him, and so he treasured it more than any other.

But it was still rather dry. He welcomed the distraction and the conversation, likable or not.




Little Red, Riding Wood Ch. 02



"What's on your mind?."

She smiled at him. She seemed at ease, so he suspected that the question wasn't nearly so terrible as she'd implied.

"Why have you never remarried, Father?"

Despite her fair warning, the question caught Sinclaire unawares. She'd hinted at this sort of question before, and he thought she'd grown tired of it. It was awkward, because he didn't really have a good reason. At least, none that he could easily put into words. He certainly had thought about it often enough for the past two decades, for very many reasons.

Really, though, it was surprising that it had taken her this long to come right out and ask.

In the most good humored and seemingly careless tone he could muster, belying his true feelings, he answered her in the most honest way that he could right now, by dodging it with another question.

"And why would I want to do such a thing?"

"Because you're a man?"

"So? I'm a father, and a teacher. Why do I need a wife?"

"I don't know," she asked, her voice trailing off uncomfortably with her gaze, wandering aimlessly into the wall behind him. The unspoken concept of sex hovered in the air like the overwhelming scent of lilacs in spring. Never comfortable discussing it with his own daughter, he looked to turn the conversation in another direction.

"There are no women about who would have been a fit mother for you, Celia. Haven't I done well enough on my own?"

Her gaze snapped back to his, with an apologetically fearful expression. His distraction had worked.

"Oh, no, Papa. That's not what I meant."

"But that's what I would have wanted in any wife, first and foremost."

She chewed her lip, in the attractive little way that she had. Her mother used to do that, and it used to drive him wild. It was the look she had used on him to get him to court her, and later to get him to propose to her, and before even that to get him to lay with her. But Celia did it even better than his late wife had, without even trying or realizing the effect that it had on men — even her own father.

"It's just... that I know that... men have needs."

Sinclaire raised his eyebrows while shifting in his chair in discomfort. He hadn't expected her to be so forward.

"Don't you have needs, Father?"

It was Sinclaire's turn to look off into the far wall, to avoid her gaze. This just wasn't a discussion he wanted to have with his own daughter. He knew that she had blossomed years ago,. That was far too obvious to him. He knew that her body had more than come alive, by the way that she looked at men, and spoke around them, even if they held no real interest for her.

That was why he'd had Madame Desirlabete have a talk with her. He wasn't about to do it himself. Yet here he was, being lured into the same perilous subject he'd so carefully avoided for many years now.

"Well..." he began.

It was better to just say it, he thought. She was a grown woman, now. He had to stop thinking of her like a child. It was a fair question, and it deserved a fair answer. He deserved a fair answer, himself, he realized. Why hadn't he remarried, or at least dallied with someone here and there?

He had certainly repressed his own needs for quite a long time. It had been easy enough when she was young, and in constant need of care. He felt back then like he spent every minute of every day in a state of nearly unconscious exhaustion. The idea of entertaining a woman in his bed, at the time, really only entered his thoughts in the dark of night, or when he awoke in the early morning darkness with his own wood erect and hard, itself painfully oblivious to the realities of his situation.

Certainly, having a wife to help him in his labors would have been good, but not worth the trouble, even if there had been someone whose company he could at least endure. But his sexual needs were quite minimal at that time, when all he could think of doing in a bed was sleeping, and would have paid any price for that luxury. Somehow, afterward, it had simply become a necessary if nagging hole in his life. It had bothered him, but he was able to keep his mind off of its absence.

As Celia herself blossomed into a woman, that had changed in startling ways.

"I don't know, Celia. There's really no one here to interest me."

"Not even the widow Manette? Or perhaps Leonelle?"

"Celia!"

His daughter was cowed by her own boldness, as well as his sharp response, but really, the suggestions were no surprise to him. That Manette offered herself to any man who visited, and that whittled down many a sturdy log, was common knowledge. And Leonelle, with her husband often away for days on end, hunting or trading furs, was also known to, at least more discreetly, indulge herself with a variety of companions, both male, and Sinclaire always suspected, female.

His meaningful glare dissolved into a sigh of resignation. He hated to see Celia ill at ease with him, even when he had every right.

"Manette is far too portly for my tastes. And as attractive as Leonelle might be for a woman of her years, the walls of matrimony are ones I will not scale for any reward. I have not even been tempted to try."

He hadn't been tempted to try with anyone at all, until Celia had blossomed. Her own womanhood and intense sexuality had come on so strong and so suddenly that it caught him completely unawares. She was a stunning beauty, at least to him, but more than that she exuded a certain air that simply brought men to life in her presence, and despite his particular standing as her father, he had not been immune.

Quite to the contrary, with her own wit and intelligence, it seemed to him to be a great joke that the one woman within a hundred miles who appealed to him, in heart, mind and body, should be the one woman that he could never have, no matter how great his admiration, love or, he had to admit, his private, secret lust.

Celia was chewing her lip once more, in that damnable, unknowingly seductive way. Sinclaire purposely looked again at the wall as he tried to redirect his thoughts.

"Father. I feel so sad for you. How can I possibly marry and find happiness, when I know that I am leaving you so alone, in so many ways?"

He looked at her. Her eyes were blue and wide and innocent. Whether she even realized the hidden implications behind her words, he could not tell. Certainly, despite her fawning, physical attentions to him, she was far too good and innocent to even be considering such a thing. It was just an unconscious expression of her natural urges, he knew, redirected towards the only man in her life that mattered to her. She didn't really want to or even consider taking things any further than that. That he himself considered it even momentarily was a source of unending, private shame and frustration for him.

In fact he had only recently come to a decision regarding all of this. He could not afford to allow Celia to remain unmarried, if only for his own sanity, as well as her happiness. He needed to find her a husband, and it had to be a worthy husband. If need be, that meant that he might have to sell this home. 

Jeofroll and Leroux were both to be married soon, and would be looking for a place to start their families. Their own families were well enough off to be able to afford this place. He could sell it to either of them, and with the money take Celia on an adventure down the river. Perhaps they needn't go as far as the city, with all of its dangers to her. Perhaps he could find a wealthy, educated merchant or other worthy man along one of the river towns. Surely they would see in Celia the same beauty and brilliance that he adored, and the sale of his home and things would also provide at least a small dowery, which might be a necessity for finding a suitable partner outside of their small village.

Then she would be married, and the sinful, growing temptation would be removed. He would return here, to live in his mother's old cottage out in the woods. It was almost ready. He'd been working harder on it, of late, exactly for this purpose. In fact, after a conversation like this one, it seemed that it would be finished not a day too soon.

* * *

Celia was half way to her grandmother's house. It was a cool, gray day. A light rain was falling, but here under the canopy of the dense leaves in the Wolf Wood she was mostly shielded from the drops. The forest had that damp, dusty smell to it in the rain, the one that hinted of rotting leaves and growing moss. She loved that smell.

Father almost had the house completely repaired. After Grandmother had died, no one had lived there for years. Things had first gotten dirty and dusty. The paint peeled while the roof developed some leaks. Some small animals moved in, knocking things over, building nests and adding to the general filth.

Eventually, Father had gotten it into his head to fix the place up, just for something to do and a reason to get away from the village on occasion. Celia helped some, too, when she could, and as the place had become closer and closer to habitable, she had begun to visit it herself, when she could, just for the privacy and freedom it offered.

It was her best and only escape. It was a place where she could read, and write. It was also a private place where she could explore and experiment to her heart's content with the wonders of her own, blossoming body.

She watched the ground as she walked, staring at the matted, wet, brown leaves passing by underfoot and completely lost in her thoughts. With each step she took, she carefully planted the walking stick she'd taken with her today, to avoid slipping and falling on the damp, slick moss and leaves on the uneven ground.

"Little Red."

Celia froze, jerking her head up at the sound, taken completely unawares.

"Royden. Hunting in the Wolf Wood today?"

"Aye. Hunting. Yes."

A twig snapped behind her. Celia glanced, she hoped not too abruptly, over her left shoulder to see his brother Ruffe behind her. She realized now that she was in a passage between two thickets of closely spaced saplings. The only ways out were forward, and backward, through Royden, or Ruffe.

She scolded herself for her foolishness. How could she let herself feel so safe here, in the Wolf Wood, of all places?

She tried to calm herself. It was only Royden and Ruffe. They were roguish, certainly. Of all of the hunters, they spent the least amount of time in the village, choosing instead to live often for nights at a time in the wild, and to travel to other towns to hunt and trade furs. They had unsavory reputations amongst the girls. But they wouldn't force themselves on her, she didn't think. 

They wouldn't actually hurt her.

"Aren't you afraid of the wolves, Little Red?"

She eyed him keenly, but quietly. She didn't reply.

"It seems not. You like it here, it seems."

"I don't mind it."

Ruffe laughed behind her. It was a singularly unpleasant laugh, not that she expected anything different from his sort.

"I think there's something else you may not mind."

The leer in Royden's voice was less plain than the evil glint in his eye. Ruffe's accompanying guffaw was closer now than it had been a moment before.

"I think I would. And Father would."

"Father isn't here, Little Red, only Ruffe and I. And sweet Little Red."

Yes, Celia, thought, only sweet, stupid Little Red. She could feel herself trembling. The other girls told stories about Royden, and Ruffe, and some of the others. They weren't very clear about what transpired, but it certainly didn't come out with the giggling, blushing pride with which they relayed their trysts with other men. In fact, they seemed embarrassed about the affairs, too embarrassed to speak openly about the details.

She'd seen the bruises, though, even if the girls didn't openly complain. She didn't see how it could have been pleasant, and she didn't intend to find out for herself. Behind her, Ruffe's footfall squished into a mixture of mud and leaves. He was a bare arms length away now.

It apparently never occurred to them that Celia could be quick, or that she would strike rather than attempt an impossible flight. Or maybe they simply hadn't noticed her walking stick.

She struck Ruffe first, because he would have expected it the least. She'd spun from right to left, counter clockwise, swinging the stick up and out like a woodsman's ax as she turned, just as she'd read in the tales of adventuring swordsmen. Ruffe probably didn't even realize that she had the stick until it was almost to his head and it was too late to duck. He did try, at the last moment, but he was much too slow. The hardened oak connected with his skull with a loud crack, and a sickening crunch that Celia had not expected.

He fell to the ground in a heap. Royden had frozen in that slow instant, but moved quickly now. She felt his hand just reach to touch her shoulder when she acted again, entirely without thinking. That thoughtless instinct saved her. Instead of trying to swing the stick again, which would have been useless, she kicked back with her heel into his shin. It must have hurt some, but not much through his high, leather hunting boots.

But that wasn't all Celia had. His mouth opened to growl something cruel at her, but the growl quickly turned to a wail of pain as she thrust straight backward with a stabbing motion with the stick, driving it behind her with both hands straight into his groin. He, like Ruffe, collapsed in a heap, but where his brother lay unmoving, Royden writhed in pain on the ground.

Celia leaped over his prostrate form, just dodging one grasping, outstretched hand. She dropped the walking stick in an effort to run faster. Panting and frantic, she bobbed and weaved through every almost impenetrable or unnavigable thicket or gully or crop of boulders and rocks that she spied, trying not so much to get away as to put impenetrable obstacles between her and her assailants. She ran as fast as she could, but always taking whatever path seemed to make it the most difficult for them to follow.

The strategy worked. Each time she looked back, Royden had fallen further behind. Ruffe had never even gotten up to join the pursuit. After a while, he faded completely from sight.

It was still some time before she felt at ease. She found three large boulders, arranged in a triangle. She squeezed between two of them to slump down in the center, hidden from sight, to catch her breath, before continuing on.

* * *

Lying on the old bed in Grandma's house, listening to the rain drip, drip, sloop through one of the holes in the roof, splashing every third beat onto a small puddle that was spreading beneath it, Celia tried to recover from her exertions.

She'd been so close this time. She could feel it. Her body had felt like it was ready to explode. The mattress beneath her was nearly soaked with her own excited juices, she'd been at it for so long, and so furiously.

As gruesome as those two vile thugs might be, the fantasy they'd inspired had brought her to the very, very edge of the summit that she'd been trying so desperately to reach for so long. The took her unawares, unable to resist her beauty. They forced themselves on her while she struggled futilely, even as her own body responded to their presence and their groping, invasive touches. Against her own nature and better judgment she shamelessly enjoyed being taken by them.

Royden impaled her burning, gushing pussy with his thick cock, as Ruffe forced his own smaller prick into her mouth, fucking her face as if it were a second pussy. They forced themselves on her. She resisted, feebly and half-heartedly, while loving every moment of it. By the end, whenever Ruffe took his cock from her mouth and rubbed it over her whorish face, she was begging them for more, as hard and fast and deep as they could give it to her.

Still, they could never give her the pleasure she wanted, she knew. She struggled and fought, always fearful of what her father would think if they were caught.

And he did catch them. Swooping in like the gallant hero in one of her books, he charged in with his heavy walking stick, fighting them off, both at once, and leaving them both unconscious in crumpled heaps on the floor.

He defeated them, and then he stood over her, as she trembled in fear at what he might think. She needn't have worried, though. He was her father. He loved her. He reached down with one strong, familiar hand to help her to her feet, and pulled her into his arms. She hugged him fiercely, never wishing to be set free of him, and he hugged her back tightly in turn.

She felt his own manhood pressed against him. She felt it, and she looked up into his eyes to see his own lust burning there. She looked at her father's lust, and knew that after all of these long years without a woman, she must reward him for his bravery and courage.

She looked into his eyes as she loosened the tie in front of her torn and muddied dress, letting it fall in a heap on the ground. She looked into his eyes as he drank in the beautiful sensuality of his own daughter's body. She could see him warring with himself, knowing that he could never have her, but desiring her anyway.

She was too beautiful, she knew. He looked at her and saw in her the most beautiful, desirable, sexual woman not just in the village, but in the world. Of all of the men, only he had seen the city. Only he had seen not just hundreds but thousands and thousands of beautiful women, and of all of them, she was the one he most desired.

He only had to admit it to himself, she thought. He only had to admit it to himself, and to take her, here and now, to be his lover. He just needed a little help. He just needed her to take that first step for him.

She looked up into his eyes, and with her hand under his soft beard tipped his chin up, lifting his eyes from her magnificent, bare bosom, heaving with excitement, to instead look into her own eyes. She lifted his gaze, then looked herself at his tempting lips set amidst the furry gray of his beard and mustache.

She raised her lips to his, then kissed him, not like a daughter, but like a woman, like a lover. She poured herself into her father as she felt the ropes and chains fall away from him. His embrace became more fierce. His lips fought with and marauded over hers. He kissed her with the ferocity of the most powerful hero lover a woman had ever known.

And then he lay her down, with the gentle hand of a loving father, and made love to her as only he ever could.

Celia grinned with delight. It had been wonderful, the way she had worked it out, just wonderful. She pulled out her stylus and journal, hurrying to get all of the words onto the page, just as she'd first conceived them, before the glorious memory of it faded. 

* * *

For several days, Celia was afraid to venture into the Wolf Wood alone. Royden and Ruffe were nowhere to be seen, in town or out of it, but Celia felt it better to keep to the more travelled routes, at least for a while. She also made a happy of carrying a walking stick, a new one Father had quickly made for her after hearing her story. He was livid, wanting to call a town meeting, but without evidence or even the presence of the brothers to prove they were even in the vicinity, he realized that his complaint would likely fall on deaf ears. The blame would be placed on Little Red herself for venturing alone in the Wolf Wood, and for what was no doubt provocative behavior on her part.

Ultimately, it was always the woman's fault. That was just the way it was, and always had been.

For now, instead, Celia moved quietly and attentively. She tried to stay with the other girls, or at least in ear shot of someone, so that a quick cry for help would draw attention to her. It was killing her, that she couldn't seek out spots to lie in privacy, to write, or to try to sate the screaming needs of her own body.




Little Red, Riding Wood Ch. 02



She passed near an old wickiup, a small shelter the loggers had built when Celia was a child, to let them escape the frequent rains that summer. This particular glade had long ago been cleared, so long ago that a thicket of new saplings now filled the area, and surrounded the wickiup. It made it difficult to get to, which was fine, because no on had any need of it anymore. The loggers had long since moved further out to more productive areas, with better, more valuable trees.

She heard a sharp squeak, followed by a loud shushing sound. Celia froze. After her own experience, she knew that what she should do was to run. A simmering anger took hold instead, deep down, that perhaps some other girl from the village was about to suffer the same fate.

She gripped her walking stick tightly as she approached the wickiup. Father had pointed out to her that he'd carved it to be useful for more than just walking, with a heavy, bulbous top with small, protruding knobs, not quite sharp spikes, but certainly an unpleasant detail for any skull that tried to withstand a blow. Club clutched tightly in both hands, with the business end raised and ready, she stealthily peered around the corner inside.

Madame Leonette Arceneaux stood before and against Harmonie, having backed her up against one of the support posts inside the wickiup. Leonette's rather firm, large busom pressed the younger girl back into the post. Harmonie kept her hands behind her, holding the post, but in defiance of her apparent attempt at retreat, her back was arched, pressing her own small forward breasts into Leonette's.

"Are you sure this is okay, Madame Arceneaux?"

Harmonie's voice was trembling. She had a hard time looking Leonette in the eye, her eyes instead finding the floor and walls and ceiling, but failing to notice Celia herself.

"Ssssh. Relax, Harmonie. You leave everything to Madame Arceneaux."

As she said this, she lowered her lips to Harmonie's neck. The younger girl gave a small chirp, followed by a sigh. Her chirps grew louder and more frequent as Leonette's mouth followed a path down the front of her chest. The older woman's hands peeled Harmonie's blouse down in front, revealing two small, firm, creamy breasts, each capped with an erect, red, pointing nipple.

Leonette took one of those nipples in her mouth, as Harmonie chirped even more loudly.

"Madame Arceneaux! Should you do this? Wouldn't your husband....?"

Madame Arceneaux hummed into the younger girl's breast, before releasing it to flick the nipple with her tongue, and to speak.

"He's away. And he doesn't mind. In fact, he likes you. We both like you."

"Madame Arceneaux!"

Leonette's face took on a sinister, accusing leer as she raised her eyes to stare into Harmonie's. The young girl tried to look away, but Leonette grasped her jaw roughly in her hand, like an admonishing mother ready to scold a recalcitrant child.

She appeared to be about to do just that, but instead used her hand to hold Harmonie's face still and steady as she leaned in to give what Celia could only describe as the most passionate kiss she'd ever seen. She felt her own body responding to the sight of it, as her pussy quickly became wet, and a warmth spread from there and her own excited breasts out to the rest of her body.

For her part, Harmonie did a wonderful job of pretending to resist, while doing nothing that would actually hinder Leonette's assault. She moaned loudly in recrimination, while doing nothing to stop the kiss. Her own hands pressed uselessly against the empty air to Leonette's sides, rather than pushing Leonette away.

Leonette halted the kiss, with her own nose and forehead pressed against Harmonie's, to stare directly into her eyes.

"If you're very, very good to me, Harmonie, I might share my husband with you."

Harmone whimpered in supposed fear.

"Would you like that? Perhaps you could have us both at once. A sort of lesson, to prepare you properly for your wedding night."

As she said this, Leonette squeezed and massaged Harmonie's breasts. With Madame Arceneaux staring into her eyes while fondling her small, pert breasts, the younger girl whimpered again, then closed her eyes while leaning her head back against the post.

Leonette's mouth fell on hers again, and this time Harmonie responded in kind, kissing Leonette back passionately while arching her back further, pushing her breasts more firmly into the older woman's rampaging hands. Her whimpers turned to moans muffled by their shared kiss, while her hands finally left the empty air to find purchase on Leonette's shoulders, not pushing her away, but instead pulling her close.

Celia watched to two for a long while, as they moved from the post to the ground, and from kissing and caressing to more invasive touches. More and more clothing was lifted or pushed aside. Madame Arceneaux was always in control, while Harmonie stayed placid and plaint under the Madame's authoritative commands.

Celia tried her best to stay silent as her own fingers reached into the same delicate spots where Madame Arceneaux's fingers and tongue eventually labored on Harmonie. The younger girl's screams and squeals and foolish giggles, combined with the older woman's gratified hums and moans, were more than enough to cover the little, excited noises that escaped Celia's mouth.

She watched in combined horror and jealousy as Harmonie first squealed and writhed, and then seemed to be possessed and wracked by a demon. Her screams suddenly halted, as her back arched and every muscle in her body tensed. She held herself like that, frozen solid like a block of ice, as Madame Arceneaux barked harsh encouragement at her, while asking her if she felt like a woman.

The Madame's hands moved frantically in and out of Harmonie's opening, as her mouth dove and rose from the same spot, like a bird swooping into a lake to catch fish. Harmonie eventually returned to writhing about, bucking her hips up into the Madame's face, who for her part acted like a rider struggling to maintain his position on his mount. The young girl begged and pleaded for something, but the words were incoherent.

Eventually, the two subsided. Harmonie finished with a smile wider than Celia had ever seen on her face, while the Madame laughed at her, asking if this was the first time she'd reached such heights.

Celia slipped away, then, while they cuddled and kissed and talked.

That was something she'd never imagined. Was that what her body was trying to do? What did she need to do herself? Did she need to visit Madame Arceneaux? Ask Father?

She didn't know. She only knew that she wanted to try it. For her part, she'd again gotten close to something, and apparently that something was where Harmonie had just arrived.

When she was far enough from the wickiup, Celia picked up her pace, but in a new direction. It was time to go back to Grandma's house, for some much needed privacy, to experiment with what she'd seen, as well as to make a new entry in her journal, about the time that Madame Arceneaux caught her and Harmonie kissing in the wickiup, before being joined by her husband, Monsieur Arceneaux, and all of the sordid, nasty interactions that transpired amongst the four of them on the wet, cold ground.

* * *

Sinclaire trudged through the dense woods. He should have taken a different path, today. This one was wearing too clearly, with his constant comings and goings from the house. But it was so close to finished that he grew excited, and careless.

What did it matter if others knew where the cottage lie? Why need it be kept so secret, anyway? Was it only habit, born from years and years of his mother's fears? Or something else? There was little reason for the secrecy.

He snorted in self derision. Life was complicated enough, without creating unnecessary obstacles, he thought. And so he took the easy route, plodding along on the same packed leaves and dirt that he had for a month now, making his way more easily to the little cottage that would be Celia's salvation.

He spied a motion far ahead, and smiled. The scarlet red could only be Celia's cloak. She could be seen for miles away in it. He sometimes found it amazing that the wolves never took advantage of it, and yet they seemed to have a natural wariness of people, so maybe the cloak itself was the best protection one could ask here in their territory.

What had she been doing out here? Coming back from grandmother's house, no doubt, but why? Not that it mattered. The girl was free to come and go as she pleased, at least until a husband bound her up in his own needs and desires, as well as the constant needs of the brood of grandchildren she'd someday give him.

Sinclaire froze.

He'd spied a subtle movement to Celia's left. If it hadn't passed through a flickering beam of sunlight, sneaking unexpectedly past a swaying branch of leaves above, then he would never have noticed. It was one of the hunters of the village, dressed as they did in a common gray brown that blended well with every aspect of the forest.

Something was amiss. The hunter was close enough to have hailed Celia. There was no reason for him to hide, unless perhaps he wished to play a prank on her and startle her as a foolish game. But the men of the village, and Celia herself, were beyond such childish games.

Standing still, scanning the panorama ahead of him, he spotted the other, to Celia's right. That one sat, unmoving, in shadow, with his back against a rock. It made him very difficult to see, unless one knew to look, and in any event completely invisible to Celia.

This wasn't right. The hairs stood up on the back of Sinclaire's neck. As Celia approached the spot between the two men, he suddenly burst into action, not really knowing why he did so. Who in the village could possibly want to harm his Celia, and why? 

He sprinted ahead as quickly as his aging body could take him. School master or not, half a century of years or not, Sinclaire was still a formidable man. He hadn't lived a life a mere books and pampered leisure. He was still a child of the forest, and a man of the forest, even if he didn't earn his daily wages beneath the branches and leaves themselves.

In fact, in his youth, he'd been quite the athlete, and to this day placed rather highly for a man his age in the contests at the summer festivals.

But this was no contest. He ran, not entirely knowing why, but with a growing dread in his heart. He ran, as the one hunter rose from behind his blind, with a drawn bow in hand. The other stepped out from behind a tree, where Celia could see him, and froze.

It was Royden and Ruffe, Sinclaire now realized, and his fear redoubled. There was evil in those two, evil and an ill-placed sense of entitlement. They acted as if, through their prowess and their nature, they were less a part of the village, and more a part of the forest, and as such that they were due more from both, in respect and reward.

Sinclaire had never liked either.

Celia started to run, and the arrow released from the bow. Sinclaire's heart leapt from his throat, stifling the shout of warning that he tried to bellow.

The arrow penetrated into the ground at Celia's feet, right in her path, and stayed there, quivering in warning, as she stumbled to a rapid halt and stood staring, wide eyed, at its implications.

She looked about her now, seeing the archer, Ruffe, then looked back to Royden, who approached her with the calm, unwary confidence of a hunter who has already mortally wounded his prey.

Celia pulled her large walking stick from beneath her cloak. Good girl! Good girl, Sinclaire thought, if she could just delay them and give him time. He was making some noise, he knew, but they didn't seem to hear him coming, they were both so focused on Celia.

But he could see the dread fear in his daughter's eyes, and it tore at Sinclaire's soul that she should be made to feel even that, let alone whatever physical pain or loss the brothers intended to inflict.

Certainly, this was no game.

"I already told you, as did my stick, that the answer is a firm no."

Her voice was meant to be defiant, but it trembled and halted, betraying her mortal fear. Ruffe and Royden both laughed loudly. They barked their disdain at her.

"There isn't any no to be had this time around, Little Red."

That was Ruffe, with her named spoken as one might speak the name of a reluctant but already paid for whore.

"We can do this easy, Red. You can give yourself to us, and then we'll only hurt you a little. You may even like it more that way."

That was Royden. They both laughed.

"I'd rather she tried to run, and fight. I'd rather enjoy her feeble resistance, knowing that with all of her might I was too much man for her, and that she still enjoyed everything I did to her."

Ruffe lowered his bow to rub his seemingly tender head as he said it, and to advance on her himself. They were almost within reach of her now.

Sinclaire, still some distance away, could no longer contain himself. He trumpeted a long, fierce wail of anger.

Both men, now suddenly alerted to their danger, turned to face him. Ruffe raised the bow, and Sinclaire knew he would be dead steps before he reached the man. The arrow was already notched. The bow was drawn. He saw in the tip of the arrow the end of his days and his plans for Celia.

Ruffe cried in pain as Celia's walking stick crashed with a crack across his extended arms. The arrow flew, but wildly, sputtering and flailing up into the leaves like an escaping, wounded bird. Ruffe cried in shock and pain, grasping his arm.

In the moment that Royden turned to see what had happened, Sinclaire lowered his shoulder and barreled into him, sending them both tumbling into the leaves and underbrush. They separated and rolled up apart, but Sinclaire was the quicker of the two to rise. With a swift kick, while Royden was still on hands and knees trying to focus on his assailant and to rise, Sinclaire's boot connected with his chin, sending two teeth flying as Royden's head snapped back in a sickening way.

It hadn't killed him, but stunned and in pain, he crawled feebly, with a sort of slow motion, frantic futility, already trying to escape. He was a skilled hunter, but that didn't make him a warrior, in nature or in heart. He lived by tracking, stalking and ambush. He lived by defeating unarmed, unwary creatures who never even knew they were in danger.

Sinclaire turned to Ruffe who, still grasping his injured arm, had was fumbling to pull a knife from his boot. He would have done so, by now, except that it seemed his arm might be broken, and Celia kept him off balance and at bay with the threat of her walking stick.

With more composure now, Sinclaire stooped to pick up a large, jagged rock. With that in hand, in complete control of himself but with the dangerous ferocity in his eyes of a parent who's child has been threatened, he advanced unwaveringly.

Ruffe's own eyes grew wide with fear. He was familiar with the animals of the forest, and how single-mindedly they protected their young. He knew in his heart how great his danger was. He knew it, and he turned and ran.

Sinclaire threw the rock, catching him squarely in the back. Ruffe yelped in pain, stumbling forward to land clumsily on his injured arm, which redoubled and magnified his agonized yell. He rolled and scrambled, fighting to regain his feet, too fearful to look back, before rising enough to stumble forward and accelerate away to safety.

Sinclaire turned on Royden, who had made his way only to his hands and knees, but stayed there, like the cur he was, holding his pained jaw and spitting blood on the ground. A swift, hard kick to his midsection sent him over, writhing in pain on his back. Another stomp on his gut doubled him over. A final kick to the head left him breathing, but still.

As quickly as he could, Sinclaire took his eyes away from the pitiable sight at his feet. The episode had disgusted him. It reminded him of the more terrible aspects of life in a big city crowded with the desperate, amoral and down right selfishly evil. It also reminded him of one reason that had caused him to leave the forest in the first place.

It reminded him of how his own mother's life had been turned upside down.

He took Celia's hand. It was trembling, and cold and damp with the sweat born of her raw fear. There was still a look of terror in her eyes, but it shared the space with that look of love and happiness and security that only passes from a daughter to her father.

Hand in hand he guided her back to the village with him. He held her up when, in a distraction born of the memory of the terror, she stumbled. He held her close when she shivered with a cold born of that same memory.

The cottage would have to wait, maybe for a few weeks, while he helped his brave daughter to recover from this unnecessary trial.

* * *

It had been two weeks. They'd told no one. Sinclaire wanted to. He felt it was there duty to at least warn the other girls, but Celia was strangely embarrassed by the whole incident, and preferred to keep it to themselves. She had argued, rightly, too, that they would probably have to admit that it had happened in the Wolf Wood, which would lead to inconvenient questions about what they were doing there.

They didn't know if anyone knew about Grandmother's cottage, and they took some care to be sure they weren't seen heading to or from the Wolf Wood too often. Too many people were like Royden and Ruffe, and might take advantage of the seclusion of the cottage to perpetrate their crimes. The safety it had offered his mother lay in part in its seclusion, and in part in the nature of the wood, but most of all in its secrecy.

Its location was probably best left unknown, even if there seemed to be no obvious reason to do so.

People certainly knew that Sinclaire and Celia, whom they considered to be an odd pair of beavers to begin with, did foolishly venture into the Wolf Wood from time to time. They all thought the schoolmaster and his daughter to be a touch mad.

That was fine with both of them. It suited them well, they thought. People always sneered at what they didn't understand, and far too many doltish villagers didn't understand learning or intelligence.

But Sinclaire had agreed, on the issue of Royden, Ruffe, and their shameless attack. There was no reason to draw further attention to his and Celia's "odd" behaviors. Their secret was best kept as it was. They'd keep an eye out for the brothers, and warn the villagers if the two were ever bold enough to return.

Thankfully, neither Royden nor Ruffe had been seen in or around the village in all of that time. They no doubt feared that the story had been told. Their sudden absense was no surprise to anyone in town, either. Nothing seemed amiss. The two brothers often went away for weeks at a time, hunting or trading or traveling.

Sinclaire kept a wary eye out for them, but grew more and more at ease with each passing day. Poor Celia was truly frightened, although she did her best to hide it. She was far more careful, now, and hesitated to go into the more private parts of the forest without him. She was even fearful, now, of most of the other men of the village. She clung to him in public, and had a difficult time making herself go out alone. She stuck to the well-worn paths, and tried to travel in the company of other girls, or the few men that she still seemed to trust.

She would never take a husband in this state, Sinclaire thought. Never.

But the cottage was almost complete. It frightened Celia to stay at home, alone, even in the house in the village, while Sinclaire went off to finish work. But he was driven now, both by the fact that the end was almost in sight, and the fact that the need for it was now more clear than ever. Events had impelled him forward. He worked tirelessly, now, trying to complete the last tasks he needed to make the small cottage at least habitable for them both.




Little Red, Riding Wood Ch. 03



Celia sat, feeling dejected. She'd barely even looked for the journal today. As she walked, she always kept her eyes down now, always trying to retrace her steps from that day, looking in new places that maybe she hadn't searched before or probably had many times.

As time wore on, she tried less and less. Instead of feeling anxiety, she felt sorrow at all of the marvelous words, ideas, memories and fantasies that she'd lost. The journal was irreplaceable.

She consoled herself with the thought that no one else had it, either. If they had, she would know about it by now, she was sure. They would have brought it to her attention, or much worse, to everyone's. Someone would have approached her, laughing at and mocking her. Even if they weren't so cruel, she would have seen it in their eyes, she was sure.

No one had, and that fact let her rest assured that she was safe. It was a terrible loss, but as soon as she could Father would buy her a new one, and perhaps this time she'd be a little more careful not only about where she put it, but also what she put into it.

* * *

They sat together, father and daughter, in their common room, each reading from a favorite book by lamp light. Hers was a book of fictional tales of adventure in vast cities and wide oceans and foreign lands. His was a rather dry but informative catalog of flowering forest plants and their various uses and dangers.

"Celia, darling, I have a favor to ask you."

"Yes, Papa?"

Sinclaire smiled at her. She didn't call him Papa often anymore, and it warmed his heart when she did. Calling him "Father" always reminded him that she'd grown into a wonderful, mature woman, while calling him "Papa" made him feel needed and loved.

"Your grandmother's house is almost ready. There are still two holes in the roof to fix, and some creaky floorboards that need nailing down. After that a fresh coat of paint, inside and out, will brighten everything up and make it almost as good as new."

"It sounds wonderful, Papa. I thought it would never be finished. You've been working at it for years, now. How can I help?"

She moved rose from her chair to come to him and sit on his lap. He had always loved when she did so, but it had become uncomfortable of late. It wasn't her fault, he knew. But she was so mature now, and so beautiful to him, no longer his little girl but instead an inviting woman.

And she was right, he had been insane to try to live for so many long years without the touch of a woman. He'd denied himself those pleasures for so long by pushing such desires deep down, to focus solely and completely on raising Celia. But she didn't need raising anymore. She needed love, from a man.

Without that distraction his mind wandered now where it maybe should not. Like her, he needed love, too, the physical, pleasurable love of a woman. Like her, there was no one here for him in this dreary forest village, but Celia was so close to what he himself desired, and so close in proximity to him, and so very young and beautiful, that it was becoming a horrid distraction.

He'd never, ever have considered it, but she just exuded a raw sexuality that he'd never experienced before. It was no surprise that every man in the village was clamoring and fighting for her hand. Even he had a hard time fighting back a growing desire. Her effect on him, especially of late, was becoming difficult to hide.

She sat now on his lap. She was so soft, and warm. The curve of her rounded breast was just visible, pushing out against her dress, while the other could be felt, firmly pressing into his own chest. She wore one of his damned shirts again, tied too loosely and too low, so that her bare, smooth skin peeked out offering glimpses in places where he could never allow his eyes to stray, even though they furtively did so seemingly on their own, when they could.

"Yes, Papa?" she asked, eyes wide and innocent, blinking like a flirtatious maiden.

He buried that thought. She had no interest in any man in this village, and certainly not her own father. She was a good girl, and he'd raised her to do the right things. Yet when she kissed him these days...

"Yes, well," he started, trying to gather himself and retreat from his other, improper thoughts. "I'm so close, that I want to finish it, all at once."

"Do think you you can in a day? Oh, Papa, that's marvelous!"

She hugged him tightly then, with warm, soft hands gripping his neck, and both of her bosoms pressing all too obviously into him. He let his hands hold her to him until she ceased the unexpected and quite unnecessary hug.

"No, Dear, no, not in a day. It will take at least three days, I think, but I want to get it done. The weekend is almost here. I'll head out tomorrow, then sleep overnight until the job is done."

"But who will teach school tomorrow?"

"I think you should give it a try."

"By myself this time?"

"Certainly. You're more than old enough. I should have thought of this long ago."

She chewed her lip in that sweet, sexy way she had. As he thought it, Sinclaire scowled at himself for that train of thought.

He needed a few days to fix up the cabin, and he needed a few days away from Celia, to regroup, and to think. His own feelings and desires were growing out of control, he felt, and they were wholly and completely inappropriate. Something was going to have to be done, before he found himself seriously considering something he shouldn't.

* * *

Her father was away in the south forest, the dangerous Wolf Forest. Her grandmother's cabin had been left unattended for so long after her passing that it had fallen into disrepair. He had been going there once each week for a year now to mend and patch it as best he could. He was close to finished and making it habitable, not that anyone was actually going to live there, but it would be nice to have a second home for them both to escape from all of the pressures of village life, and the nosy intrusions of the townspeople.

He meant to to spend the next few days sprucing the place up, as he put it. To save time he was going to sleep overnight there. It fell to Celia to take his place at the school, to try her hand at teaching for the day. She'd done so every now and then, and liked it.

So here she was. A sea of small, happy, expectant faces were gathered around her on the floor, all eager to be taught by pretty, kind Mademoiselle Celia for a change. Her red cloak hung at the door on a peg. She sat with them on the floor, her legs curled under her, together and to the side, with her skirts flowing around her like a small, patterned cloud. In her hands she held her favorite book of childhood stories, as she prepared to read to her eager and plaint audience her favorite story from that book.

"Once upon a time," she began, and told the tale.

Trolls are great villains. They're big, ugly, smelly, unlikeable, and they eat people. How can anyone go wrong with a troll?

Kids eat trolls for breakfast. Nothing stirs up a kid's imagination like a hungry, vomit green troll with a hairy-wart covered nose.

Celia loved this story, troll and all. It was a childhood favorite of hers, a parable about making moral and ethical decisions and taking action. Like so many fairy tales, some people get eaten, and some people don't, and just like real life it's not always the right people who get to see the inside of a troll's belly.

The title of this particular story was "Could, Should, Would." It didn't really bother with those who couldn't, because all in all those people aren't very interesting and there's little to be learned from them.

There were, however, four brothers who could, and they made up the heart of the story. Celia read to the children about how the troll lived in a cave in a mountain pass, and no one could get by him without being eaten, or else by gaining his favor by fulfilling some onerous task that he assigned to them.

"So the first brother approached the troll," Celia recited, not even needing to read the words from the book. "He needed to cross the mountains to find his fortune in the great, gleaming city beyond. Knowing that this would take courage as well as strength, he listened resolutely as the troll set out his assigned task."

The first brother would be asked to go back and bring the troll his younger brother's finger, with which the troll would season and flavor that evening's dinner.

"Do you think he should?" she asked the children.

They all clamored their replies, while Celia thought about fat, old Hugues. He didn't really need a wife at all, he just liked the idea. His wild brood would be a drain on her, and she knew that once they were married then Hugues would always go to her father for money and aid. Worst of all she'd never, ever get to write another word. 

She knew instinctively that she shouldn't even consider marrying him. To marry him, or the many other men in the village like him, would just be wrong.

"No, no, of course he shouldn't, and he wouldn't," she told the children, dragging her mind back to the story. "So the first brother immediately gave up and went back down the mountain, resigned to living a simple but good life in the forest, without ever even seeing the wealth and wonder the city might have brought to him."

Then she told of the second brother.

"For me, you worthless bag of mealy bones," the troll said, in Celia's gruffest, cruelest, gravelly troll voice, "you must find and kiss the oldest, foulest crone in your village. Bring her here, before me, and kiss her with all of the passion of a newlywed, and I will let you pass."

The children all squealed and pretended to wretch in disgust, some at the thought of kissing such an old woman, and others just at the thought of kissing anyone. They would have been mortified to know of the version of this tale that adults used when the children weren't present.

"Now, of course this brother knew that he should. It would be hard, but the riches and fame that awaited him, and all of the marvelous, beautiful women he might meet and court would more than make up for such a horrible but brief experience."

The children continued to rowdily express their displeasure and horror. That was what marrying Gautier would be like, she thought. The other women thought him handsome, but she saw through to what he really was. KIssing a foul old crone would be preferable to a kiss with Gautier, let alone a lifetime in his bed, subject to his repulsive demands.

He had money, and an eminent standing in the town. He'd be a good, solid provider. She'd never want for anything but affection. Everyone thought he'd make a wonderful catch, and Father would be freed of the burden of caring for her. Celia should marry Gautier, but she never would.

"Well, children, you and the second brother were of like minds, because while he knew that he should, just like you, he never, ever would. So like the first brother before him, he turned and went back down the mountain, with the troll cackling loudly and derisively behind him, to live a simple but poor life in the village with a beautiful girl he met there and with the many, many, many children she bore for him."

Celia surveyed their faces, all showing relief that he hadn't kissed an ugly hag, but now wondering apprehensively what disgusting task the troll held in store for the next brother.

"The third brother had far less compunction — moral restraint — than any of his brothers. He was a go-getter, and not a man to be trifled with. He strode right on up to the troll's lair and bellowed for the troll to come out and deal with him.

"The troll was more than ready for him. He told that brother that he must go to the orphanage in the village to find the fattest, dumbest, most angry bully of a child there was. He was to find this child, and steal him, and tie him up and bring him to the troll to be his breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert.

The children sat, with eyes wide in wonder and fear, at what this might mean. She could see that they, like all children before them, secretly hoped that the brother would do as he was ordered. Everyone, deep down, got a sinful thrill from doing something they shouldn't, or at least from hearing about someone else who had.

"Now," she continued, "even this brother, as arrogant and greedy and ambitious as he was, was taken aback by the prospect of such a heinous deed. But he did go down to the orphanage, and there he watched the children. He spied one roly-poly child in particular, a truly nasty bully who picked on all of the smaller, younger children, beating them and stealing their food, which was how he became so fat even while living in an orphanage. All in all, he behaved in the most frightful manner with everyone, even the headmistress herself, Miss Farmoth, whom he called old Miss Fart-mouth, especially when she could hear him."

The children laughed aloud, and now were completely engaged. One could always trust the horrific, impending and just fate of an evil, fat, deserving bully to grab their attention. Sure, it would be wrong, but it would be wrong in such a right and deserving way that one had difficulty separating the two.

"This bully, in fact, was very much like the brother himself when he was young, even though he never noticed the resemblance. The brother knew in his heart that this was something he never, ever should even consider, but he did. He knew the boy had no parents or siblings to miss him. He knew, in fact, that the rest of the children would be better off without him. And who knew what sort of criminal the boy might become, or what terrible, hurtful crimes he might commit, after growing up fatherless and motherless with a lifelong habit of tormenting the weak and innocent?"

The children all sat frozen, wanting to nod in agreement, she could tell, but afraid to express their deepest, darkest ill-wishes for the bully or, more likely, for whom ever they viewed right now as a great torment in their own lives.

Celia herself thought of the things that she knew she shouldn't do, but wanted to. She wanted to convince herself that it wasn't wrong, and that she should, even though she knew better. She fought back the burn of a rising blush as she succumbed to an image of herself with her father in a most inappropriate of circumstances.

She fought away the too enticing thought by continuing the story.

"Of course, this brother convinced himself that what he was doing was for the best. He shouldn't have, but he would, and he did. He kidnapped the boy, and tied him up like a Winter Feast hog and gave him, although with some hesitation, to the troll. And so this brother was the first to be allowed to cross the mountains to find his fortune."

Celia surveyed their faces, each a little gleeful at the justice served to the bully, but mostly horrified at the truth of the matter, and the fact that any grown man might do such a thing to any child.

"It did him little good, however. He did earn some wealth, but he could never be happy, because for the rest of his life his dreams were haunted by the screams of the little boy as the troll drooled all over his arm before crunching his bones to powder with his teeth."

Celia hated that part. Certainly the little boy did not deserve to pay any price for the brother's ambitions, but it wasn't always as simple as that. Stories always made things so obvious and clear when most of the time they just weren't.

"Finally, the last, youngest brother came to take his turn. This brother wasn't the strongest or the fastest, or the most ambitious, but he was both the bravest and the wisest. He didn't even wait to hear the troll's demands. He knew that what he should do was to fight the troll, and to defeat him if he could. And he had the courage to try just that. He knew what he should do, and that he would, even if he couldn't succeed."

The children looked at her, eyes wide, awaiting that wonderful part of the tale where the brother would do noisy, bloody battle with the troll. Through courage and ingenuity the evil troll would be defeated and from that time forward everyone could travel to and fro through the pass without any need to kiss old crones or kidnap fat orphans as a terrible price for a simple journey.

"The end," Celia announced, with a wry grin.

The children broke into a raucous clamor.

"That's not the end!"

"But what happened to the last brother?"

"You have to tell how the troll died!"

"Did the troll die? Or did the brother die?"

"Children! Children! Hush!"

It took a while, and in the end, the only thing that silenced them was the fact that Celia sealed her own mouth shut, refusing to speak or even move until they had all settled down, and some of the older children among them, having heard the story before, actually started working to hush the younger ones up so they could all hear what Celia had to say.

When they were finally quiet, she surveyed the sea of faces again, from left to right, and back again, looking meaningfully into each of their eyes.

"No one knows what happened to the last brother or to the troll, because when you are willing to do what you should do, it still doesn't always turn out for the best. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. The best that you can hope for is to know that you tried, and to know that in the end you did the right thing. It doesn't matter if he killed the troll or not. What matters is that of all of the brothers, he could, he should, and he would. It doesn't really matter what he actually did."

Of course, this was wholly unacceptable to the children. They were still erupting in a violent cacophony, like a chickens with a fox in the coop, when she reached the front of the room and bellowed out for them to take out their numbers sheets and to be ready to recite. They didn't quiet down until she began to call on them, while telling them meaningfully that Monsieur Couerduloup had been spending his evenings carving a new and very flexible switch, which was a silly lie, because her father could and sometimes maybe should, but never, ever would.

* * *

Sinclaire worked on his hands and knees, hammering extra nails into the loose floor boards. A few would need to be replaced. He pulled the nails up, to inspect both sides of the planks, hoping to perhaps simply turn them over and nail them down again, but they were hopeless. The leaks and dampness had rotted them to the point of near uselessness. He left them in place, but knew he'd need to go back to town to get more wood, and cut it to fit.

He thought idly about replacing the entire floor, and might some day, but it wasn't necessary. This was good enough. He left the loose boards in place, putting two small chairs atop them, so he wouldn't forget and take an unfortunate misstep. 

The two chairs, and two others that matched, had ornately carved arms sculpted like wolf heads, and legs that ended with carved wolf paws. The four posts at the corners of the bed were also carved, but like howling wolf heads baying up at the moon, while a large, wide relief depicting a pack of wolves on the hunt was engraved into the headboard. There were assorted vases and pictures and such scattered about as well, all decorated with wolves. Mother had amassed quite a collection of wolfish decorations over the long years there. Living peacefully hear among them, it had become something of a hobby for her.

Sinclaire returned to his chore, soon losing himself in other thoughts, as he worked on the rather mindless task of testing boards, and occasionally hammering in more nails. Among other things, he replayed a nagging conversation with Gautier in his head. Some if it had rankled him, perhaps mostly because too much of it struck him as true, at least in part.

"You just want her to cook and clean for you, that's all Couerduloup. Monsieur Couerduloup."




Little Red, Riding Wood Ch. 03



He added that correction to his impropriety quite purposefully, more to accent his own intransigence than to correct it.

"I'm sure it's nice having a pretty little thing around to pamper you as you age, but it isn't right. You're being selfish, and it's not in her best interests."

He'd argued with Gautier that it had to be her choice, or that she needed to at least be amenable to the arrangement, and Gautier had laughed at him. It wasn't unheard of, particularly for more doting parents, to give a girl some say in her future, or to hope that she could marry for love instead of convenience or necessity.

"She has no future with you, Sinclaire. She needs a future, and there is none here, with you."

But he was right about a few things, as coarse as his presentation might have been. He did want her to cook and clean for him, some, and to pamper him, and to light up his days. He didn't mind the cooking and cleaning. He was good enough at it himself, it wasn't beneath him, and unlike the other men in the village, he was sure that he did more than his share.

He loved the way she pampered him, just as he pampered her. He loved the way her eyes lit up the room, and he loved adding depth to her days with his reading and his insights, in stark contrast to the vulgar simplicity of the men like Gautier.

But was he being selfish? Had he perhaps exaggerated all of the issues and obstacles, just to keep her close, even if only for a while longer? Was his plan to take her on a long, improbably journey to find a suitor really necessary, or just a grandiose plan that was really motivated by nothing more than a deep seeded need to delay the inevitable day when she left him?

He glared at the next nail he set, striking it with added ferocity. He didn't know if he felt he was striking Gautier, or himself, or his own weaknesses or his own conscience, for pointing them out.

He was lonely. He hid the fact, even from himself, for year after year, but he was lonely. She was beautiful, and her rapid, recent march into womanhood had rekindled both those memories and those desires. She reminded him that he was a man, just by her own nature and presence and intense sexuality. He'd denied that part of his own nature for far too long, except that his problem was the same as hers.

There was no one in the village for him, and he found it hard to believe, that even with years of searching, that he would ever find anyone so suited to him as his own, beloved Celia, anywhere else in the wide, dangerous world.

Gautier was right. He did love and need Celia. He did love and need her presence, her kindness, her affection, and everything he brought into his life. Without it, he was finished.

She was everything to him. To lose his darling daughter would be to lose his very last foothold in life, the only thing left that kept his days from stringing endlessly from one to the next in an empty parade of dispassionate boredom.

Sinclaire needed to be honest with himself, he decided. Gautier was right, in some ways. Sinclaire had to admit to himself what he truly wanted, as well as what she wanted truly wanted, and what had to be done to make Celia as happy as she could be. He had to do the right thing, even if it might seem wrong to others, or to her. Even if it wasn't what she thought or knew that she desired, or admitted to desiring.

But first he had to figure out what the right thing was. It seemed to hover there, exactly what he should do, hanging just back in the deepest recesses of his mind, in the shadows, where he couldn't yet make it out.

He had to do the right thing, and in a moment of clarity, he knew that he would recognize it when the time came. That was the sort of man that he was, and always had been. He'd recognize right from wrong when he saw it. He'd do what was best for them both.

He was certain of it.

* * *

Tomorrow was the day of rest, so there would be no school to teach. There'd be no need to awaken too early to get back into town too soon if she spent the night with Papa out at grandma's house. She locked the house up tightly, closing all of the shutters and latching them from the inside, and checking to be sure that no food had been left where the mice could get at it. She as she stood at the main door, before pulling it closed behind her, she looked around at their little home.

It was the most familiar place in the world to her. There were a few small, mismatched wooden chairs, and some kerosene lamps on small, wooden tables and hanging from the ceiling. There was the two person table that she and her father had eaten dinner at for twenty years. There were various, clever decorations on the walls that he and she had made over the years. And in the middle of it all was Father's special, comfortable chair for one that could and often did fit two in a pinch.

She sighed once, feeling odd leaving the place empty of both of their presences for several nights in a row. She hesitated a moment for closing and locking the little wooden door that led to the private world of Little Red and her father.

She took little more than she would on a normal journey, only her red cloak and hood, her basket with some bread for them both, some fresh baked sweet pastries for breakfast, and her walking stick, not for support but instead for protection this time.

She could wear one of Father's own shirts to bed, as she so often did.

Celia took greater care this time. She started off by walking into the Riding Wood, towards the river. When she knew that no one could see her, after a sharp bend in the road to the left around a great mound, she instead turned right, off the road and into the woods.

A less clever girl might easily have gotten lost, even one raised in the woods as they all had been, but Celia was not a less clever girl. She found her way easily south, around the town, where she could enter the Wolf Wood from an unusual direction. From there it would be more difficult and dangerous to try to pick up the path to her grandmother's house, but Celia was certain that she could do it.

The thought of spending another night alone in town frightened her. She wanted to spend it with Papa, with her father. In fact, spending a night alone with her father in her grandmother's cottage made her heart race. Who knew what might happen there, tonight, she thought to herself, with her and her father left completely alone, and no one around for miles and miles to hear whatever might transpire? And with the wolves prowling outside, safely locked out but by the mere threat of their presence keeping intruders away as well, she would feel more safe than anywhere else in the world, especially after her trying ordeal with Royden and Ruffe.

Towards the river, then through the woods to Grandmother's house she went, hoping to be kept safe from all manner of wolves, and to spend a night alone with her beloved father.

* * *

From within the woods beside the north road where it entered the village, Gautier watched her leave with a sinister, calculating glare. He followed her discreetly for a ways. He had no need to stay too close. He had no doubt where she was going, and why, despite the subterfuge of heading to the east. That was absurd. What business could she possibly have down the Riding Wood Road? He knew where she was really headed.

To Grandmother's house. The thought it with a mental sneer, and sense of disgust. He knew she was headed there, but no one had ever known how to find the place, even when she was alive. Quite honestly, no one had cared to. Gautier didn't know the way, but he had other means at his disposal.

With a nod to Royden and Ruffe, they set off on her trail. With the damning evidence against them in her journal of their intransigence — no, he hadn't let them actually see it, because he needed to keep certain parts of that encounter to himself — they had no choice but to do as he bid.

She might outwit many, with her clever smarts, Gautier thought, but she'd never be able to hid her fresh trail from skilled hunter-trackers like Royden and Ruffe. They would find her trail, and he would track her all the way to their lair of disgusting, unheard of sin where he would deal with Sinclaire himself. He would make his demands of the evil, pathetic old man, to then return home a smiling, happy man himself, with his newly betrothed very properly, affectionately and most of all subordinately hanging on his arm.

He'd even move in with her into their home, larger and cleaner and better kept than his own. The school master himself could stay in that cottage and rot away, or suffer the consequences of shame and punishment over which Gautier now held sway.

Gautier set off himself down the Riding Wood Road, confidently and openly and care free, to catch up to Royden and Ruffe and to go with them to Grandmother's house with the heart of a hungry wolf beating in his chest.

* * *

Sinclaire rummaged around, accomplishing nothing, lost in serious thought as Celia, finally here after her long and unusually meandering trek through the forest, had asked to be given a moment to change in the small room to the side. He hugged her, warned her of the loose floorboards, then let her go to freshen up.

The room where she now changed had been his own room, growing up as a boy, but was really too small for more than a small cot, without even a table for a lantern, which instead hung from the rafters. It was too small, really, for anyone but a small child, and even then it was a stiflingly tight place to sleep and live.

That was, in fact, a reason why he had left his mother when he did. The cottage was far too small for a grown man and his mother to share in discretion. Celia herself hadn't realized this, or guessed that the cottage would ultimately be his alone, as it was for his mother, once she'd been properly and safely married to a good, worthy man.

He grimaced at that thought. He had begun to doubt — actually to know — that no such man existed for her. She was too different, too special, and too perfect. Gautier and Royden and Ruffe and the rest had shown him that maybe his dream of finding the right man for her was, in fact, only a dream. The wealthy merchants cared not for knowledge and books and imagination, but only for money and profit. Men of all different sorts and bents didn't care for a woman of charm and intelligence and insight. They only wanted a cook, and a housekeeper, a nursemaid for their brats and a whore in their beds.

He shook his head. None of this related to his immediate problem, which was how he and Celia could share the next few nights, let alone future weeks and months before his mission was accomplished, in this too close, too intimate space, with so little privacy to separate a father from his young, sensual, beautiful daughter.

She was beautiful, he thought. If he had been another man she could and would have made him so happy, and he would have returned that gift to her a thousand fold. The pleasures that could only be shared by a loving man and woman would have cascaded into a sparkling fountain for a couple such as they would be, multiplying their joy in a never ending waterfall of delights.

Was it really so wrong, he asked himself? It was, he knew. It was nothing that could ever be seriously considered. But the fantasy was an evening's delight of a thoughtful dream.

They were so alike, and so perfect for each other. His age was really no factor. Many men his age took another wife for comfort, having lost their first or even more to the dangers of childbirth, or sickness. He himself was healthy enough. He was getting on in years, as the gray in his beard betrayed, but he was hardly old.

She was so very perfect, and so brilliant! His own departed wife, while more worldly and educated than most, had never possessed the sheer intellect that Celia wielded. She was so quick to grasp something new, and added such wonderful insights of her own. Conversations with her were a marvel and challenge. No other woman in his life had every challenged him as she did. She forced him to be better, to try to keep up.

She was a true soulmate, in so many ways, and so very, alluringly beautiful to him.

He could satisfy her, he was sure, and then tried to banish the thought with an angry surge of guilt at the sinful thought. But it was too pleasing a thought to relinquish.

He could please her, more than he ever had any other woman, he thought, even his wife. They would be magic together, he was sure, just as they were in spirit and mind. As easily as their conversations and light hearted laughter flowed from one moment to the next, almost as if they were of one mind, so their touches and caresses would easily flow, he was sure, until they became one body.

He shook his head to clear the thoughts, and the growing warmth he felt inside. The growing bulge in his trousers was an embarrassment he'd have difficulty hiding from the dear girl here in this cramped cottage. He do well to undo that particular evidence of his line of thought.

Yet he continued. He'd been down this road before, during many a cold, lonely night of late, even if he hid and even regretted the images in the bright light of day, faced with his responsibility to her as a man and her father.

She was so beautiful. The pale, smooth skin of her breasts that she so freely and ill-advisedly exposed to him was such a sore temptation. Her every hug pressed those fine breasts into his chest, making her womanly femininity that much more obvious to him.

He had no idea how beautiful her form truly was, as it was so often, so appropriately veiled by her flowing skirts and so often that inseparable red cloak which almost seemed to be a part of her.

Her red lips, on that small, sweet mouth, were beautiful. Her eyes, the eyes that looked at him with adoration and respect and love and joy and laughter, were too beautiful to describe, as was the gorgeous hair that flowed around that familiar, young face.

Her shoulders, her neck, her ankles, her arms, those flowing calves and cute knees and creamy lower thighs, every inch of her skin that he'd ever seen was beautiful and exciting and tempting to him in a way he could never admit to anyone, often not even to himself, and certainly never, ever to her.

But it was how he felt. It was an ache that he felt in his heart and, he had to admit with some degree of self loathing, his body, an ache that was growing more difficult to deny with every passing day. He wondered how he could survive sharing this cabin for even two days, let alone long enough to carry out his plan of sending her, with agonizing pain to him, away from him to live a happy, secure life where the temptations of her perfect flesh and spirit would no longer haunt his dreams, night or day.

* * *

Celia stepped hesitantly from the small room, trembling with fear, knowing that what she was doing was wrong. He'd scold her. He'd glance at her, then look quickly away, perhaps embarrassed, but probably worse with a growing look of shocked, disapproving anger in his face.

He'd look away, and order her to dress properly, or perhaps cancel the entire weekend plan and drag her home, in inconsolable, shameful tears.

He glanced down at her body. The hem of his shirt reached down on her to mid thigh, exposing far too much of her leg for any man to see. It was nothing that he hadn't seen before when she wore his shirts as, at first, as her bedclothes and then, in her ever more bold advances, around the house as her evening wear.

She had tied one, single tie below her waist, at her hip, to mask the secret, red garden that so many men had offered to visit, but none had been allowed.

Above that, to her undying but subdued shame, she had tied nothing. The shirt hung open, exposing her smooth belly, her navel, her collar bone, and the insides of naked, round, pale breasts. The shirt hid, but only just, the wide, round, pink circles of her hard, excited nipples.

Her breasts literally heaved, just as the more naughty books she'd found described. Her breathing was uncontrollably heavy and fast, quickened and deepened by this intoxicating brew of intense fear, anticipation and lust.

But it was done. She'd stepped into view. She'd made her choice, to show him as openly as she ever might how she felt, and what she desired. It was his choice now, to accept her and to love her as the woman she wished to be for him, or to send her in tears and eternal shame, back to change, back home, or off to a life with some miserable, gruesome lout of a man.

* * *

She was stunning. She stood before him as if she'd watched his dreams, and stepped right out of one of them to stand before him. If he'd been a more foolish man, he would have pinched himself, to be sure the opposite weren't true, and that he wasn't even now, lying on his bed, snoring away as he still awaited her impending visit.

He stared for far too long, feeling the raging battle of emotions clashing within him, even as he held himself outwardly, utterly frozen. 

* * *

He strode towards her with the same confident, purposeful advance of a wolf, just like the large black wolf. His expression was strange. It frightened her.

There was ferocity there, certainly, but she couldn't tell if it was anger, or something else, something with deeper, even more feral roots. There was a coldness, the sort of coldness one shows when they are covering the smoldering feelings that burn even hotter underneath. And there was a hint of fear in his eyes, too. She rarely saw fear in her father's eyes. That was, perhaps, the most unsettling thing of all.

Celia felt her own trembling body increase its terror ten fold. Her heart thundered in her chest like tree after mighty tree being felled to the ground in a row. Her palms were coated with sweat. She felt dizzy and light headed. Her body seemed to sway, and she feared that she would faint to the ground.

As all of these thoughts race through her head, he approached. One long, endless moment, the man was striding across the room towards her, bearing with him the most terrible threat she could imagine, not just one of cruel if just punishment, but also the more cruel and unbearable threat of rejection.

And then he was there, before her. His chest, broad and strong, to her, was inches from her own. His eyes, piercing and stern, glared down into hers, unreadable before the sea of conflicting emotions she saw, or imagined she saw there.

His strong hands reached up towards her, clamping powerfully on her arms. The squeezed her tightly, as if she were a book that he were trying not only to slam shut, but to compact so that it might never be opened again. He squeezed her, and...

... He draw her towards him. His wide hands, grasping her irresistibly, pulled her forward and up, against his chest, and lifting her onto her toes, lifting her face to within an inch of his. 

He stopped her there. She hovered, completely lost and frightened and out of control, imprisoned in her father's strong hands and arms, unable to move even if she'd had an ounce of strength or will. He held her there, staring deeply into her eyes. The ferocity hadn't left them. He looked as angry and intense and driven as before.

But the kindness was there. She hadn't seen it, but it had always been there and it still was, the warmth and kindness he always felt and showed for her. She saw it. She recognized it. She melted into it.

His lips pressed against hers.

* * *

The feel of her in his arms, like this, like a woman, felt more sinful than anything he'd ever allowed himself to imagine. This wasn't the sort of man he was, or wanted to be.

He forcefully held her frame against his, feeling the soft flesh of her arms squeezed in his hands, and the soft press of her breasts and thighs against his. He pressed his lips against hers, but even as he did so, he fought the urge to move them as he wished, to give her the sort of sensuous, lovers kiss that he'd intended.




Little Red, Riding Wood Ch. 03



What sort of man was he? Was sort of man did he want to be?

What sort of man did she need him to be?

She needed him to be strong for both of them.

As he held her there, caught between himself, at war with himself, his darling, beloved daughter inched him forward, tipping the scales ever so slightly. She trembled in his arms, so afraid, and yet in spite of her fear, her delicate hands moved, sliding their way up his chest to encircle his neck.

As those fingers moved over him, tracing a dainty, teasing path along the skin of his neck, his will crumbled. Her lips moved ever so slightly against his, naively, timidly, even fearfully, but they moved. With that motion his own lips exploded with pleasure. Her slight hands moved on as the flesh of her arms slipped up his neck, to embrace him completely and pull herself upward to him.

She was beyond unresisting. As he pulled her to him, she not only yielded, but moved herself to join with him. This wonderful, precious woman that he'd created and raised was no longer a child. She was no mindless trifle to be bought and sold by men.

She was a woman, a passionate, feeling and sensual woman. She was in his arms, and it was where she wanted to be. She'd made it terribly clear what she wanted, after so many months of saying no to so many men. She knew what she wanted, even if it was something neither of them thought she could ever have, or should.

She needed him to be strong. She made her wishes clear. She offered herself to him, openly and without reservation, knowing that he might refuse her. It would crush her if he'd refused her, but she'd had the courage to put herself out there for him anyway.

He was the only man that she wanted, and in his heart he knew he was the only man that could make her happy.

She needed him to be strong for her.

In a moment of final resolve, he released his grip on her arms. She clung to him as tightly as she could, holding her marvelous, soft, warm, beautiful lips against his, her own father's. She clung to him and kissed him as he released her.

He released her, to move his hands behind her. One hand splayed over her back, pulling her more tightly into him. The other drifted down over the smooth curve of her soft, full ass. With that hand he squeezed, and pulled, drawing her hips against his, and allowing her to feel how solid and large he had become under her image, and kiss, and touch.

She moaned as he did so. He kissed her then. He truly and fully kissed her, not as a daughter, but as a lover. His lips moved over hers in ceaseless, powerful, meandering ways, trying to give her every moment of pleasure that he could, and that he himself enjoyed from the touch.

His mouth opened for her. His tongue came out to pry itself between her lips, hinting to her what she needed to do. Her mouth opened for him, willingly and eagerly, letting his tongue pass to find her own, to tangle with it in a frantic, circling race, like two forest squirrels chasing each other around and through the trees.

They kissed, and in that moment they became true lovers, how ever illicit and immoral it might have been.

* * *

The feel of his hands on her ass, and her back, was like nothing she had dared to imagine. Her body came to life in his grip.

The feel of his strong, firm chest crushing her breasts against his sent warm, wonderful shocks through them, feelings like those she'd been able to give herself, but different in an inexplicably joyous way.

The feel of his lips on hers, moving hungrily in a marvelously skillful fashion, with his soft beard and mustache tickling the skin around her mouth, sent thrills from where they touched down to her toes, which felt like they had no solid ground beneath them. His tongue was a joy! She'd never known that kissing could use tongues! It played with hers, invading her and making her feel that she belonged to him, and became a part of him, even as she tried to do as he did, to give him the same pleasures that she was feeling.

The feel of his hard, enlarged wood pressed against her. His wood. His cock! The man's hard, hungry cock fought against the fabric that had dared to exist between them. It strained, as her body strained, to break through and join with her in the most natural and perfect union imaginable between a handsome man and a beautiful woman, and the most sinful union imaginable between a father and his daughter.

He released her suddenly, again. As with the first time, she was terrified that he'd come to his senses, and sought to end their shameful behavior. She needn't have worried. As quick as a lunging wolf, he bent down to sweep her up off of her feet and into his arms. He stared at her with those warm, kind brown eyes, framed by that close cropped, gray hair and beard, with a small, contented, closed mouthed smile to boot.

He stared at her with love and affection as he carried her in his arms to the bed.

* * *

He lowered her onto the four-poster bed as gently as he could, as gently as he had the night that she'd fallen asleep in his chair, trying not to wake her. She kept her eyes, wide and innocent and full of love, on his the entire time. She kept her eyes on his as he sat beside her. She kept her eyes on his as he arranged her curls on her shoulders, feeling the soft locks slipping through his fingers, then curling back into shape as he released them.

He felt her keep her eyes on his as his own eyes wandered inexorably down to the opening in her shirt, his shirt, and the soft, rounded mounds of the inner halves of her breasts. They rose and fell, evenly but mightily, with each deeply excited breath that she took.

He smiled at that. It humored him that she should be so excited by this old man's touch, or by the prospect of finally, after all of these years, showing him the body that had slept untouched beyond a thin wall in the very next room.

His hand slipped on a course from her locks of hair, down between her breasts. He felt her breathing ceases as she held it. He looked at her eyes, to see them closed now, closed and tensely awaiting that next, special moment. With eyes locked on her beautiful face, he slid his hand forward, and in, under the cool cotton of the shirt, under and up and over the finest, most perfect breast that any man had ever cupped in one, grateful, joy filled hand.

She breathed. As he cupped that soft, perfect breast she inhaled deeply. Her chest expanded, pushing an enticingly hard, pointed bud of a nipple up into his palm. The breast seemed to grow in his grip, and a small smile played over her lips.

He squeezed her, gently at first, and the smile widened. He squeeze more tightly, kneading her breasts with an easy rhythm, and from that smile escaped a long, low, pleasured moan.

At last he allowed himself to do what he had ached to do for so many months. Lifting his hand, he guided the fold of the shirt aside, exposing to his eyes the full, miraculous beauty of that one, perfect breast. Without hesitating, without thinking, he lowered his mouth to it, sucking in that pale, pink, erect nipple with the wet warmth of his lips, playing over it with his tongue, and delighting in the giggling squeal of pleasure it elicited from his dear Celia.

"Oh, oh. Oh!"

He smiled as he took the nipple gently in his teeth. When he did so, her back arched, thrusting her breast full into him, squashing it flat against his beard. His hands joined in then, holding and kneading both of her breasts while pushing her back into the bed. As he did so, he played over their skin with the soft hair of his beard.

"Oh, F..."

He knew what she had started to say, and why she was afraid to say it. That didn't stop him. They were past stopping. If he were going to stop, he would have done so. Nothing could stop him now.

"Yes, my Little Red?"

"Oh."

He sucked on her nipple again, then moved to the other.

"Oh, Father."

"Do you like that, my darling?"

He kissed his way around her breasts, as his hands continued to work.

"Yes, Father. Yes."

He smiled joyously into her breast.

"Show me more, Father. Do more to me. With me. Do more with me. Do everything with me."

The words came out eager and frantic and breathless, as if they couldn't keep up with everything she was thinking, and feeling. She was such a joy in so many ways, and no less so here and now, where her eagerness so thrilled and enthralled him, despite or perhaps in addition to her innocence.

Sinclaire shifted the folds of her shirt aside, fully exposing her so feminine beauty to him. He drank her in with his eyes before rising from the bed. He looked down on her, lying there before him, naked, beautiful, and desirable. She looked up at him with those crystal blue eyes, filled with an excited, heated wonder that he'd never seen or imagined there.

With as much restraint as he could manage, trying hard not to appear as eager as he felt, he loosened the ties on his own shirt and let it slide to the ground. She looked him up and down, he thought appreciatively, even though he knew his own, aging physique was no match for the muscles and brawn of the woodsmen she served bread to each work day.

When his own fingers fell to the tie above his crotch, where his own bulging excitement was too plainly obvious, her expression changed from one of appreciation to pure, illicit lust and anticipation. Although she didn't move, he could feel her craning forward, stretching to see the most secret, private object that had given her life, and struggled now with the unconquerable need to bring her pleasure.

* * *

Celia swallowed, deeply, as the sight of it filled her vision. It wasn't the size, which for what little she knew was healthy. Up close, the shape of it was far more interesting, and alluring, than she'd expected. From a distance, and in cold, cooly scientific or even playful observation, a man's cock had seemed strangely shaped and constructed. There seemed no rhyme or reason to the various parts, lumps, bulges, bumps, ridges and overall structure.

A cock, to Celia, had always seemed to be the strangest of contraptions.

But here, now, in this predicament, with her body brought to life by her father's kisses and caresses, faced now with this... lovely, wonderful, desirable object before her, she found new beauty in a man's cock. Her father's cock.

She ached to reach out and touch it, and to hold it. She wanted to wrap her fingers around its shaft, exploring the double sack that hung beneath it, and the domed, purple helmet that capped the top. She wanted to press her lips to it, to kiss it, lick it, taste it. She wanted to take it into her mouth, as some of the girls claimed to have done, and to hear his expressions of pleasure as she hunted for just the way to make her father moan the way she had just done so for him.

She wanted to, but she couldn't. She lay there, frozen, even after all her father had done, unable to move and to take control of events. Her desire for him, to do things with and to him, to pleasure him in any way that a woman can, felt and should have been overpowering.

And yet she lay here, paralyzed, fearful and frozen before him. She wanted to be everything for him, to do everything with and to him, but instead she lay in an oddly languorous panic, unable to move and act, yet desperate to be taken, in an almost dreamlike, half-waking way.

As she hesitated, he moved. He kneeled briefly beside her, to delicately kiss each of her breasts. They exploded with pleasure as he did so, a pleasure that was only intensified by how whisper soft his kisses were. His lips then moved, planting a row of kisses like a gardener seeding a row of flowers, working his way down her belly, past her navel, and further still.

Celia closed her eyes under the nearly painful feel of such ghostly, warm kisses. She felt his hands untie the one knot in the shirt. She next felt a single, long, warm breath, like a summer wind, blow across the petals of her most private flower. She felt the juices churning inside her in her excitement, and knew that he must seem the leaking out for him, exposing her embarrassed, excited eagerness to him.

His lips touched her there, and her brain nearly exploded with a calm, flooding rapture.

"Celia, my treasure, your curls here are red."

He said it with a sense of calmly surprised wonder in his voice. Of course they were red, she thought, not quite the wine red of her hair, a little darker, but never the less a fine, intoxicating red.

His tongue moved about her then. He explored her for what seemed like hours, with lips, fingers and a marvelous, searching, reaching, stretching, teasing, twisting, wet tongue. She had never imagined the feel of a tongue there. Some of the girls whispered about it, with snickers and giggles, hinting that they'd done so with each other.

Celia had always been willing to try, but too timid and shy to broach the subject.

Now she knew. My goodness, now she knew.

"Oh, Father!"

The words came out before she could halt him, as his tongue found that spot that she'd long ago discovered herself, the slight bump at the top of her pussy that brought her so tantalizing close to something that she could never grasp. His tongue and lips worked on her there, as she began to writhe and buck and squeal under his artful efforts.

"Oh, yes, Father. Yes, yes. Yes, Papa, yes!"

* * *

Her pleas and cries were heavenly to him, that she should receive such pleasure from him. He had longed for so long for her to know this sort of union, even as he had cringed at the thought.

He had longed for it, and now, with every excited breath and cry, he was moved to take the final step. He tried to give her as much gentle, teasing pleasure as he could, stalling, putting off that final, momentous act that once engaged could never be repealed.

He hesitated and waited, yet with each high-pitched cry of pleasure from the beautiful girl, his resolve weakened. He listened, and tasted, and teased, and listened, until at least he could wait no longer. He moved his body up along hers, brushing his engorged, enflamed, enamored cock along the smooth, cool flesh of her leg. He let his cock press against her inner thigh, as he again kissed that marvelous belly, the insides of her full breasts, the deliciously pink candy of her nipples, and at last the warm, expansive flesh of her neck.

With his cock poised before her, he kissed her, long and hard, on the lips, drinking her in as he pressed the head of his cock just past the outermost folds of his daughter's ready pussy. She moaned loudly into his mouth as he did, while he for his part felt a triumphant, glorious pleasure at the hot, wet feel of her just around the head of his cock.

He held himself there, just short of entering her fully, as he prepared her and him both for the next, difficult step.

* * *

"This is going to hurt, my darling. I'm so very sorry, and I promise that the pain will pass, but it will hurt, for a short while."

Celia held him tightly then. It felt so good, she could not imagine that it would hurt, but it did hurt, intensely, as he pressed himself past that resistance. There was a horrible, tearing feeling, with a pain as if she'd been stabbed. The pain stayed with her, filling her body and mind as she clung to him. She could hear herself crying out in a terrible, pitiable whimper of a wail.

"Hush, my darling. Sssh. Sssh. It will pass. Papa is here. It will pass."

She heard the words, in a way, and they helped, but they were meaningless things beyond the pain. The sound of his voice was what really helped her. The tender, familiar, thrumming sound of his voice helped.

It hurt. The pain was searing for a while. It hurt, but he was right. It did pass. The pain faded, slowly at first, and then more so, until she was left only with the feeling of his cock inside of her.

And how wonderful that felt now! How amazing and joyous the feel of it was. Her hands moved gently over his strong back, feeling his bulk and his warm skin. He seemed to sense, then that she was ready. He moved more deeply into her, reaching so very much farther than her own fingers ever had.

It felt so good. She cried out, not in pain this time, but in pleasured, searing, magical joy. It felt so good, so very good, as he filled her. She was being stretched inside, her entire body was penetrated, filled and stretched, like a wine sack filled to bursting.

It felt so very good. She clung to him. Her legs instinctively wrapped around him, holding him inside her, as her hands scrabbled across his back, digging into him, trying to merge not only their loins but their entire bodies into one. She felt like she was a part of him, a physical part of him, and she wanted more.

No matter how deeply inside of her she went, it wasn't enough. She wanted more, down there, up here, everywhere.

He kissed her then, pressing his tongue into her mouth, fucking her there just as he fucked her tight, loving pussy. They were joined in so many ways, cock, pussy, arms, legs, mouths, tongues. Hearts, minds, lineage.

They were one now, in a way that Celia had always imagined, yet in truth in a way that she could never, ever have imagined.

* * *

She was past the pain now, he could tell. She held him tightly, but by her sounds and movement he could tell that she was filled with pleasure now. It had been so hard for him to do, but the deed was done. It was done, and he could not have held himself back for a moment longer.

He moved inside of her. He withdrew his cock from the tight, clutching walls of her magnificent pussy, only to thrust himself deeply inside of her again. She rewarded him with the most delightful, high-pitched, trailing moan of pleasure he'd ever heard. 

As quickly as he could, he withdrew, then thrust himself into her again, to be rewarded yet again.

"Papa, that's so nice. Oh, Papa, that's nice."

She felt so very good. He'd forgotten, after all of these years, how truly glorious it felt to be with, and inside of, a woman. It astounded him that he'd denied himself this pleasure for so many years, just for her. It astounded him, but he made up now for lost time and opportunity.

"Papa will make you feel good, my treasure. Leave everything to Papa."

"Show me how, Papa. Teach me how."

"Shh, my little girl. Papa will do everything. Papa is here for you."

He fucked her with a frenzied lust that could not have been matched by any man in the village. He moved inside of her, in and out of her, holding her tightly, almost brutally in his arms as she flailed and screamed in his grasp, plainly loving the feel of him upon her and inside of her.

"Papa will show you how, my darling. Papa will show you everything."

"Oh, Papa! My darling Papa!"

He felt her come alive in his arms. She began to move with him, lifting her hips from the mattress to help drive him more deeply inside of her. She instinctively pulled her knees up to his shoulders, resting her ankles on the small of his back, and opening herself to him as completely as she could.

"Yes, Papa. Yes, yes, yes, Papa. Yes!"

For his part, he growled like an animal into her neck, so overcome with desire, lust, passion and pleasure that he was unable to speak further. 

She was so gloriously tight, and her body responded to his presence by gripping and clasping his cock with her muscles, literally fighting to hold him inside of her. She clenched his cock, milking it like a goat, hugging it with a pulsing, pumping strength that refused to yield.

"Papa, yes... yes... yes..."

Her words trailed off into whimpers, now, as she lost her ability to speak, as if turning into an animal herself. She ceased to speak, and instead reverted to an ever growing euphony of moans and wails and squeals, and finally outright screams.

With each penetrating stab of his cock, she lifted her hips to his, and screamed. Her passionate sounds formed a charming, magnificent song in his ears, urging him on, begging him to make her sing louder, and longer, and higher.




Little Red, Riding Wood Ch. 04



Even standing out front, before the porch of the small house, Celia could hear her father snoring inside. He must have been working hard, for hours, to be so exhausted.

He should have slept late, she thought. She had awakened first, slipping quietly out of bed to start his breakfast, wearing once again only his long, soft, cotton shirt. Shortly after he awoke as well, moving to her side to help. She demanded that he sit, to let her cook for him like a proper wife. 

When he refused, insisting that as lovers — her heart melted when he used that word with her — they must share everything, from pain to joy to the most mundane, she'd pouted. She wanted to be a proper wife, if only for that one day, but he was adamant and unyielding. He took her into his strong arms, pulling her body against his, to kiss her until the pout melted away and she reneged, thinking instead of getting through breakfast as quickly as possible to get back into the bed with him.

Even that he refused, saying that unlike her he was no longer in his double-twos, or even close. He was well past his double double-twos, he'd laughed. An old man like him must be allowed some time to recharge. So she had spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon helping to clean and make minor repairs, until he urged her to go out to explore while he finished some loud, hard, manly labor on his own, without her underfoot, as he'd said. He kissed her fondly, before slapping her bottom in a randy fashion to send her on her way to spend the remainder of the day wandering the forest, discovering glades and streams and stands of boulders around their new home, places that she had never known existed.

Trying not to wake him now, she stepped gingerly onto the wooden planks of the porch, hearing the slight echo of each of her own light footfalls. She eased the door of the cabin open, cringing as it creaked ever so slightly.

She peered in. Outside, the sun was setting. In the hilly forests of their home, this meant that the light simply dropped, like a penny tumbling into a well, falling, falling, before it finally plopped into complete darkness in the water at the bottom. The sun set, the light dimmed, and the world existed in a twilight state for a while longer, with everything still visible like shadows with all of the color drained from the world, until finally all went black.

Within the house Father had left a single lamp burning on the nightstand beside the bed. It's flickering, orange-yellow glow cast it's insufficient light throughout the single room of the cabin. The most light was shed on her father's peacefully sleeping form, lying atop her passed grandmother's old, wide, wooden four-poster bed.

He'd fallen asleep without his shirt. She watched as his smooth chest rose and fell with each peaceful breath. He didn't have the sprawling hair there of some of the men, or the rippling, taut muscles of the woodsmen. His chest was strong, but in a more subtle, tender way. He sported some hairs, here and there, many of them having grayed with his age.

She liked his chest. It was familiar, and warm. She'd rested her head against it, comfortable and at ease, so many times before, for so very many years of her life.

"Oh my, Father, what a very fine chest you have," Celia whispered to herself. "What a very, very fine chest you have. Wonderful. What better place for a loving daughter to rest her head?"

Seeing his form lying there, half naked, spent from a day of manly exertions, filled Celia with a spreading warmth, both in her heart and in her loins. She felt the first hint of wetness between her legs as she gazed at him.

Perhaps you would enjoy it. Yes?

The words of the black wolf came back to her, as clear as day. She enjoyed a small, private smile. 

Yes. Yes, she would enjoy it.

She didn't want it to be wrong. She told herself it didn't have to be. The wolf had said it. One finds trust only where one expects to find it, not wherever one looks. If there is any doubt at all, there is no trust, and it is a delusion.

But where one finds trust, one can also find love.

And why shouldn't Celia find the sort of love she desired in the only man that she trusted? Who were they to declare whom she could or could not love, or how much, or how she could show her affections?

Celia remembered some of the harsher words of the wolf, words that had stung her at the time.

What do you have, woman-child, that an old wolf could want? What do you have to offer?

She looked at her father, lying there, temptingly handsome in his own, familiar way, and so wise to Celia, and so much more experienced in the ways of the world.

What did she have to offer him? She felt inadequate. She was unready for this. She was so young and so inexperienced. She was naive. She was pretty, maybe even beautiful he had always said, but not so beautiful as some, she knew. She had her brains, but did men really value intellect in a woman? Even for her father, when it came time to lay with a woman and share his body with and within hers, did a woman's brains matter one bit?

He said it did. He said she was beautiful. Father said a lot of things. He paid her many compliments.

He had to, she thought, he was her father.

He was also her soulmate. She knew it. She knew it in her heart. What did she have to offer? She made up her mind to be whatever he might want or need. Let him just wait and see.

Celia inched over to the bed, tensing at every creaking floorboard or clumsy scuffle she made. She moved slowly until she stood over her father's sleeping, restful form. She hovered, looking, and then lowered herself, ever so gracefully and gently, onto the bed to sit beside him.

What do you have to offer?

"I can be wicked," she said softly to herself. "Just watch, wolf. I can be so very wicked."

One hand reached out, trembling and hesitant. She was afraid. But in her soul she wanted, and knew better than to follow anything other than her heart. She wanted and needed. Her hand reached out to gently trace the lines of the muscles on his chest and abdomen.

It was harmless, she told herself. She hadn't done anything yet. He was only her father. She was only exploring him. He was asleep.

It was harmless.

Her fingers coasted over his body, skimming along the ridges and smooth flesh of his muscles. She explored his pects and his arms and his belly as he slept. She explored him, while staring at his kind, familiar, gray bearded face as she did so, studing the wrinkles around his eyes and the gray hairs mixed in among the younger, darker shades of his eyebrows.

"Oh my, Father... Monsieur Couerduloup, what very strong arms you have," she whispered, almost wishing he would hear her and awaken. "So strong. The better to hold me with, my darling father. They are so much better to hold me with than anyone else could offer."

She wasn't sure if she wanted him to awaken to stop her, or to take her and hold her. She only knew that now she couldn't stop herself.

Her hand drifted down to the tie that cinched his baggy, almost colorless beige pants closed. Her delicate fingers slowly, sensuously and irrepressibly pulled on the draw string, freeing the knot and then slowly disentangling it to free him from its constraint. As soon as the string fell free, his pants easily and pleasingly fell open.

Celia smiled in wicked delight. She saw the bare flesh of her father's groin, covered with a dense, black forest of curling hairs. She knew that just inches below that spot, hidden by the fabric of his trousers, lay a marvelous, hidden log. She glanced at his face, watching his half parted lips inhale and exhale even breaths from between the short, gray hairs of his soft beard. His snoring had stopped.

When she was sure that his sleep was still deep, and peaceful, she looked back to his crotch. One sinful hand, the wicked and irrepressible one, drifted down to grasp the fold of his trouser front between two careful fingers. It was as if doing this with only two fingertips made it less of a sin.

She peeled the fold of the linen trousers aside, as if she were turning a page in one of their beloved books. The page turned, and revealed to her the log of her dreams. 

"Oh my, Father! What a big log you have," she whispered. "So big. The better to fill me with, my darling father."

She both wanted him to awaken now, and didn't. She knew now that she wanted to continue. She never wanted him to stop her. She wanted him to awaken, and come to life, and to take her. But for fear that he might stop her, she wanted him to sleep, so that she could continue to explore.

Now that she'd come this far, she didn't want to be forced to stop. She had more to do. Her fingers reached for the other fold, to peel that away in turn, exposing all of her father's manhood to her hungry, ravenous eyes.

"What a big log you have," she repeated, as her face drifted down towards it. She didn't really know if it was big. It wasn't excited yet. It was flaccid, like the cocks of the men as they went to pee. She wanted to make it hard. She wanted to see it in all of its excited glory, expanded to its full size and girth, brimming with the power of love and lust that was its nature.

Her face eased down, where she blew a warm, teasing breath across it. Her lips pursed, then moved the length of his shaft, breathing a tempting breeze of lust across the sensitive skin of his sleeping cock. She could smell an odd, musky odor, not at all unpleasant, like sweat, but different. There was no way to describe it. She looked cross-eyed down at his cock, her own father's cock, lying just a fraction of an inch from her warm, breathing lips.

"Wake up, Father," she whispered to his cock. "Wake up, Monsieur Couerduloup, and show your loving daughter how much you love her, too."

Do you think it might enjoy being devoured?

More words from the damned black wolf.

Yes, she answered in her mind. A thousand times, yes. She would make him enjoy it. She would enjoy it. She wanted to devour it and, like the ravenous wolf, make it a part of her forever. She would show the black wolf that she could be an evil, predatory wolf herself.

She breathed on her father's cock, moving from the delightful head, down to the swell of his balls, disappointingly still mostly hidden beneath his trousers. Her lips drifted ever more closely to his skin. She hovered there, hesitating before crossing that final threshold. She hesitated, and then she kissed him.

Her lips touched her fathers cock in the most gentle, loving way she could envision. She was rewarded with an electric thrill that arced through her body, starting at her nipples. She immediately moved one hand there, reaching under her cloak to grab and squeeze her left breast. With that act the feeling intensified ten fold. Her breast was suddenly aflame, as both nipples quickly hardened.

His cock twitched under her lips.

Celia's eyes grew wide. She jerked back, inches away, to stare at it to see if she could see what she knew she had felt. It lay still, but it was growing. Before her eyes, it seemed larger than before.

Now she fell on it more eagerly. Still gentle, still afraid of awakening her father, she lowered her mouth to the head, lips parted, not to kiss it, but the taste it, and devour it. Like the wolf and the poor, doomed fawn, with her own gaping maw she took the head of her father's cock into her mouth.

Her eyes were now closed in complete rapture as she relished this one, perfect, sinful moment. Her tongue reached out to taste the tip of his cock. Her lips enveloped it in warm love.

It grew within her mouth. She was consumed in pleasure as she consumed him. Her body flooded with a blazing warmth at the thought of the act that she was finally, after all of her sinfully imagined tales, was indulging. She filled with warmth, as her body exploded into flame.

His cock continued to grow. Celia took more of it into her mouth, eager now to consume as much of it as she could. At first, while it was smaller, she was able to take it all, with her lips touching the hard bone of his pubis at its base. His pubic hairs tickled her nose and cheeks, as she dared to voice a delighted hum at the experience.

But as it grew, it filled her mouth. She was forced to ease back, unable to keep the entire thing in her mouth. Her lips slid down along its silky smooth, hardening sides, and still it grew further. It grew and grew, until she finally released it to admire it in it's hardened, completely erect glory.

"Oh, Father. Father, what a beautiful, wonderful log you have!"

This clarity of her own voice startled her. She'd forgotten to hold herself to a whisper in her excitement. A furtive, frightened glance showed her that he still slept, but less restfully. His breathing was less even, and faster.

She wished that he would awaken.

She wrapped her fingers around the shaft before her to stroke it gently, as if petting a favorite goose. Like the neck of a goose, it felt both soft and smooth, but hard and muscled. It was an odd thing, but it gave her great pleasure to touch and hold it. A wet dampness grew between her thighs.

She stroked her father's cock for a fair while, enjoying the sight of her hand moving along its length. From time to time she bent down to kiss it, or to run her lips, wetted with her tongue, up and down the sides of the shaft, or to take it fully into her mouth.

She dearly wished her father were awake to enjoy this as much as she.

At last she could take no more. This wasn't enough. She stood, quickly but gracefully, so as not to shake the bed, or startle her father. She stood to let the bright red cloak fall from her shoulders to the floor. As quickly as she could, her cotton dress was untied behind her neck, and at the front. It slipped smoothly down her flanks, hesitating briefly as it brushed along her excited breasts, and again as it fell across the pleasing, feminine spread of her hips and ass.

But it fell. It fell all the way to the floor, leaving her standing naked, beside and over her father's own sleeping, naked and excited form. She reached to hold and squeeze both of her breasts in her hands. Her pussy dripped with her own excitement. She had never felt so wet there in her life. Her nipples exploded with blazing pleasure as she first squeezed the meat of her breasts, and then pinched both nipples at once, each held and pulled between two delicate fingers.

She lifted a knee onto the mattress, reaching out to steady herself, to make as little impression on the soft bed as she could. With a careful but quick motion, like a rider mounting a horse, she swung the other leg over and across her father, until she kneeled above him, straddling him, with his glorious, fatherly cock erect and waiting just beneath that aching, burning, dripping and most forbidden and secret part of her body.

I would take whatever I want, and you could never refuse.

Little Red, like the wolf, would take what she wanted. Her father could never refuse her. Since she was young, he didn't have it in him to refuse her anything she truly wanted. And this was something, more than anything in her life, that she truly, truly wanted.

Perhaps you would enjoy it. Yes?

"Yes. Yes. Become my lover, Papa. Become your Little Red's only, truly fated lover," she whispered.

Little Red hovered there, above her father's cock, daring herself to take that last, fateful step. She hovered, like a hummingbird, giddy and excited and hungry for the sweet, delectable nectar of a forbidden flower, except the flower was her own. Could she do this? Could she do this with him?

 The fawn is young, and foolish, the wolf had said. It is too trusting. Trust is everything.

She was a fool, she thought, young, and foolish, and naive. Too naive to carry through with her deepest, darkest, but most cherished and sought after desires.

Trust, she thought. Trust is everything. She knew this, now. She trusted him, more than she could ever trust anyone else, ever. She trusted him, and she knew that for the rest of her days he, her beloved father, would look after her, and care for her, and pleasure her, and love her, like a daughter, a person, and most of all a woman, a grown, loving, caring woman with feelings and desires and needs.

She would never, ever trust another man the way she trusted him. She would never, ever allow another man inside of her body.

Her hand reached down to finger the soft, smooth curls of red pubic hair around her pussy. One finger slipped, very gently, not daring to enter, along the slit of her womanhood, ascertaining what she already knew, which was how very, very wet she was at this moment for her loving father. He could and would enter her so easily right now, like this. He would slip into her as easily as she imagined his thick, manly tongue could slip into her precious little circle of a mouth.

Content and wholly at ease with that unshakeable truth in her mind, she lowered herself, taking him, taking Papa inside of herself slowly and teasingly, with the same rapt attention and languorous, consuming pleasure with which one might taste a rare delicacy for the very first time.

As she lowered herself remembered the pain. It was no longer present, but Celia remembered it. She imagined it now as if this were again her first time. She wanted this to be just as real and true to life, another way that it could have happened. She imagined the searing, gripping pain that would have forced her to hold herself still here, wondering for countless moments if it would ever end, and why it felt so cruelly torturous, and why any woman would ever subject herself to such agony.

She imagined it, and then she imagined that it was gone. With the welcome relief of the passing of the pain, she finished her decent, taking her father's cock wholly and completely within her, impaling herself on him until she felt like his cock was a mighty sword, righteously stabbing up into her soul.

She stayed atop him, cock driven into her to the hilt, with eyes closed and her body blazing with joyous rapture. The feel and knowledge of it was exquisite, to be so stretched and filled, perfectly coupled with a loving, trusted man. She felt one with him in an amazing, indescribable way. She felt as if she were finally whole, as if an emptiness inside of her, a missing part, were finally in place.

"I trust you, Papa," she said, more as an exhaled breath than as spoken words. "I trust you, and I love you, and I trust because I know in my heart that you love me more than anything."

She remained like this, still and unmoving, savoring the feel of him inside of her until her body cried out for more. Then she moved, not lifting herself, but instead grinding her hips, gyrating to keep maintain her all consuming embrace of his cock, and yet to give herself pleasure, touching and pressing the tender, sensitive flesh inside of her that responded so healthily and greedily to the feel of his thick, stiff cock.

She moved on him. She moved on him like a whore, she thought to herself, or at least as she imagined a whore might behave. She grinned in delight at the image in her mind, and the dirty, filthy feeling of being not a polite, naive, loving daughter, but instead a wanton whore for her own father.

She laughed a wicked laugh.

"Yes, no, and yes."

The words were spoken softly, in quiet but rebellious shame. Once upon a time she would have said no, no and yes. For too long that had been the answer. As her passion for him had grown, or rather, as her awareness of her illicit passion for him had grown, the answer had changed. She'd suffered for so long with that burning ache and the torture of wanting what one couldn't or shouldn't have. She never could, but she had convinced herself that she should, and that some day she must.




Little Red, Riding Wood Ch. 04



She lay in her bed night after night, thinking it over and over again. No, no, and yes. But no longer.

She continued to gyrate, feeling her father's cock moving so gloriously inside of her. Her fingers reached out to scratch gently across the muscles of his abdomen as she rode his wood, rocking to and fro as a rider might rock on a horse on the bumpy, meandering trail through the Riding Wood.

"I can, Papa. I shouldn't, but I can and I am. I am Papa. I'm loving you."

Little Red reached forward to grasp his hands. They were very, very warm, and so large in her own, hinting of a physical strength she did not possess. Hands like these could do whatever they wanted. They could roam where ever they wished. They could forcibly take whatever they desired. She wanted him to desire her.

She lifted them to place them, palms down, on her thighs, as if he were holding her in place while she continued to move her wet, hot, greedy pussy around on his hard, thrilling cock. With his hands in place, Little Red leaned forward. Balancing on the heels of her hands she first brushed the nipples of her hanging breasts across his chest. It was still sweaty and slippery from his day's labors and the day's heat. She closed her eyes, relishing the feel of it, his wet, manly flesh brushing her young, excited, nubile nipples.

She pushed herself down, letting the soft meat of her breasts be pressed flat against his body, while feeling a pleasurable, burning sensation arc from there throughout her body.

"Oh, Papa, it's wonderful. You're wonderful," she whispered, before finally lowering her face to just barely touch his lips with hers. She gently brushed her cheeks back and forth across his beard, stopping occasionally to plant a short, loving, paradoxically almost chaste kiss on his lips, even as she continuously moved her hips to whorishly maneuver his cock within her. She arched her back then pushed her hips forward, arched, and pushed, creating a gentle rocking motion that moved her father's cock in and out of her pussy like the swing of a pendulum.

Despite her attempts at self-control, her motions grew more intense. They quickened in pace, and strength. The full length of his cock was moving now, in and out of his daughter's loving body. She thought about the man beneath her, the man unknowingly making love to his daughter. He as a wise, powerful man. Her father, yes, but also a man, a man whom she loved, and trusted, and who above all she knew loved her.

Celia wanted to be everything for him. She wanted to make him happy, and she wanted him to make her happy, not chained by the bonds of fatherhood, but as a man, free to please and pleasure her the way she wanted and needed. 

She kissed him harder then. Her kiss was no longer a feigned pantomime of chastity. Her lips lingered, moving passionately over his much in the same way that her wet, tight, clutching pussy moved mercilessly over his cock. As she kissed him she clenched and unclenched the muscles of her womb, grabbing at her father's cock and milking it for all of his forbidden love.

She kissed him, then pushed herself up to be able to drive his cock as deeply inside of her as she could, while she frantically grabbed and held and squeezed both of her breasts, one in each hand.

"Celia. My Celia."

She startled at the unexpected sound his words, but only for a moment. The pleasure was too great for anything to unsettle her. She'd never in her life felt as powerfully as she did now, feeling and knowing that this was where she belonged, that this was where she was fated to be. She needed to be here, with him, and with him inside of her.

His eyes remained closed as he spoke. His face had an odd expression, one that mixed a look of tortured conscience with that of a greatly pleasured body and a strangely calm and peaceful, if reluctant, submission.

"My Celia, my beautiful Little Red. I've wanted you for so long, so very much for so long, but... this isn't right. We can't."

"It's not wrong, Father. It's not. I love you. I trust you, and you love me, and I love loving you."

"Oh, my Celia, I love you, too. I do, so very much, but this is so wrong. We can't. We shouldn't."

To add emphasis to her words, she increased her gyrations, forcing him to feel how tightly her pussy clung to his cock.

"We can, Father. We can, and we shouldn't, but we are." 

With those words Celia further increased her motions, no longer restrained by his seeming sleep, although she wondered now how long he'd been awake, knowing what was happening, but not stopping her as he relished the feel of her young body embracing his old, hard, loving cock.

"Hush, Papa. Hush. Let little Celia help you this time. Let Little Red please her Papa."

His eyes opened, finally, to gaze at her in a dazed, dreamy fog. She watched him with pride as he drank her in. In a moment of erotic, base desire she writhed and postured atop him, arching her back, thrusting out her youthful breasts, squeezing them together, tossing her red curls about, doing anything and everything she could to show him how beautiful and sexy he made her feel.

He groaned as he watched her, with the sound of a man tormented by his own conscience and the irresistible draw of the most alluring, ravishing woman he'd ever seen. He groaned in seeming anguish, even as his own body started to move beneath her. His hands, no longer passive, gripped her thighs tightly. She felt the power in those hands now, holding her in place, holding down her on his cock as she took him, and he began to take her.

Celia laughed then. Her laugh sounded to her own ears like pure, musical joy. She laughed, then gazed down at her father glowing with all of the love that she felt for him. In a moment of uncontrollable lust she fell on him, forcing her lips against his in a passionate, wet, hungry kiss. He was reluctantly impassive at first, but quickly lost himself in her attack, and returned it in kind.

When the kiss ended, she stroked his beard with her hands and chin, even as her breasts squashed themselves again into his hard, flat chest.

"Your beard is so soft, Papa"

"You're so soft, Little Red. So soft inside..."

She rose again at those words to sit atop him. She took his hands in each of hers, moving them up to her breasts. Eyes locked on his, she watched his own gaze stray to her bosom where his hands so gently and tenderly explored her every curve. With fingertips barely touching her flesh, they traced the curve of the undersides of her rounded globes, then wandered to the sides, and finally drew teasing circles around her nipples.

Celia watched him admire and explore her until she couldn't take it anymore. She leaned forward, using her hands over his to urge him to squeeze her breasts more tightly, forcing him to use his strength to add to her pleasure. The resulting feelings exploded throughout her as his cock continued moving inside of her, touching her in places she'd never been able to reach, while his strong hands squeezed the flesh of her pale breasts and his eyes, his warm, kind, loving eyes, filled with desire for his own beautiful, sexy, insatiable daughter.

"I love you so, Father."

"I do love you, Celia, but I mustn't. I can't."

Yet even as he said the words, his hands fondled and squeezed her, unable and unwilling to actually stop.

"Hush, Father. Ssh. Just be with me."

"I do love you, so, Celia. I do. I love you. I mustn't, but I can't stop. I love you too dearly. You're so beautiful, and I'm so weak. You're beautiful, and I love you, and I do need you. I need you. Like this, I need you. I want you and need you."

To silence him she fell on him again, covering his mouth with hers, this time with a frantic barrage of kisses, like a woodsman frantically chopping at a tree that is so very close to losing its balance and falling with a thunderous crash. She kissed him hurriedly, as if trying to make up for all of the lost time and years when they'd both wanted to do this, but subdued their desires. Moist lips and tongues wandered and invaded without rhyme or reason, hunting about like starving wolves in winter. He drank her, and she drank him, taking far more pleasure from each other's mouths than they might have from some sweet, fermented glass of gooseberry wine.

At last the final chains fell away from him. He pushed her upright to view her again with lusty admiration. Once there his hands reached out to fondle her breasts as his hips began to frantically, powerfully lift her up, driving his cock far up into her. He snarled loudly, with his lips curled back and his teeth bared as he finally, ruthlessly fucked her the way she so desired.

"Yes, yes, yes. Oh, Father. Oh, Papa! Yes, yes, yes!"

"Yes, Celia, my love. Yes."

"Pick me up, Father. Lift me up and hold me there. Lift me to the sky with your wondrous, marvelous, wooden cock!"

"My treasure, my dear Little Red...."

I could make you my bride. My lover. My whore.

The wolf was right. He could. He always could, father or no. She could be a bride and a wife and a whore for her own father. She wanted to be a whore for him. She would be a whore for him, forever, just as she was right now.

"I want to be dirty, Father. I want to be your little whore."

"No, my treasure. No."

Some sinful, deep, dark desire to indulge...

The wolf knew. He had looked into her soul, and there he had clearly seen all of the things that she was, in part or in whole, or wanted to be.

"I can be, Papa. With you. Forever with you. I want to be a dirty, filthy, loving whore for you, Papa, only for you."

"No, Baby. No, no. You're my sweet treasure, my sweet, perfect, beautiful Little Red."

I could fuck you sweetly. Would you scream and squeal and squirm...?

She moved more eagerly on him, grinding herself with unrestrained passion, as she glared at him with ferocity and lust. She tossed her hair about, loudly squealing her unveiled delight at the feel of his cock inside of her, all the while broadcasting her desires with an intense, scurrilous look.

"Like a whore, Papa. Fuck me like the whore I want to be for you."

Her words drove him wild. He bucked ever harder, lifting her in the air with his strength, driving his cock hard into her like a hunter driving his knife into a wolf. As he did so, she preened and postured for him, arching her back, showing him her full breasts, pinching her own nipples, all while whipping her red curls about in an impassioned frenzy while screaming her wicked, most secret desires to him.

"Fuck your little whore, Papa. Fuck your cock loving, dirty little whore! Fuck me like a whore, Papa."

He snarled at her with a look of intense, carnal greed on his face.

"Your father has fucked whores, Little Red. In the city, before I met your mother, I fucked cheap, dirty whores. But none were like you, so sexy and beautiful and so fucking, perfectly tight!"

He lifted her into the air again with that last word, penetrating more deeply into her this time than she felt any man could ever have managed. With his back arched up off of the mattress, with his muscles tensed, struggling with all of his might, he held her aloft with his mighty, powerful, fatherly cock spearing his lover-whore with all of its glorious length.

She grinned her joy at him, tossing her hair about like a cornered buck, flailing about with its antlers to fend off a pack of wolves. He lowered himself briefly to the bed, only to lift her again, once more spearing her deeply.

"Ride Papa's cock, my little whore. Be a good little whore for Papa and grab his cock with that tight, virginal slut-pussy that you've been saving only for your father. Papa will pay his favorite little whore for the joy of filling her with his cock and his seed."

He threw her about then, acting himself like a whole pack of wolves, moving in to rend her in a wild, chaotic, animal frenzy.

I have no price. I am a wolf.

But Little Red was not a wolf. She had a price. She was a whore. Her price was trust, and love, and pleasure. She was a whore for her father's cock, paid for by the amazing, fulfilling, searing pleasure that she took from his cock.

The thrill of it was overpowering. The feeling of wanton, criminal, incestuous, dirty lust, coupled with an intense feeling of love, of being taken, of complete and total giving, and of almost dangerous, feral penetration all combined to send Celia's body into a staggeringly powerful wave of convulsions. Pleasure racked her body like the crack of a hundred whips, torturing her into writhing contortions and agonized screams that belied the intense, searing ecstasy that coursed through her nerves and her soul.

She lost herself then. She existed nowhere. She was nothing, or rather, she was pure, orgasmic joy. Throughout that timeless non-existence she existed in a void where she had no body, no soul, no thoughts, and no senses apart from extreme, unrelenting rapture. She was aware only of the pleasure and the lover who gave it to her. That was her universe.

She had no idea how long she teetered on that pinnacle. It seemed like more than she could bear, even though she never wanted to come down. When the sensations finally faded enough to free her body from its tight bonds, holding her upright with tensed, straining muscles, she collapsed upon her father's chest, panting and whimpering with his cock still buried and moving inside of her.

He continued to move beneath her as she subsided, thrusting frantically with his own still burning passion as Celia peppered him with loving kisses for the joy he'd given her.

"Oh, Papa, Papa, Papa. I love you, I love you, I love you."

He snarled again. As if she made him come with those words, he himself tensed and convulsed. Celia knew that he was experiencing and that she had brought to him, if in briefer measure, the same joy that he had just given her.

"That's it, Papa. Come inside your little whore. Show me what a good whore I am by filling me up with your loving seed, Papa. Come inside me, Papa. Come hard inside of me."

* * *

He felt her breathing as she lay in his arms nestled into his chest, just as she had so many times before under completely different circumstances and exactly as she had last night under these new, wonderful conditions. Here she was again, but today even more had changed.

While she couldn't see it Sinclaire allowed himself a wicked grin. His wife had been almost such a lover as his darling daughter. She'd had a wicked, wild streak in her with a penchant for bawdy games and ribald talk during sex. Sinclaire had been sure, when he'd lost her, that he would never find her equal in bed.

Celia was not only her equal, she was her better. Sinclaire didn't feel it shamed her memory to think such thoughts.

Celia truly was such a treasure, a delight for a man such as he or for any man, he was sure, such that Sinclaire felt he was the luckiest man on earth. He could have searched through three debauched, sin-filled cities without finding a lover or a talented, skillful whore such as his Little Red.

She quietly traced figure eights on his chest, clearly lost in her own thoughts, as he recovered from what could only be described as an amazing, memorable trial of earthly pleasures, an ordeal that he felt he may have only barely just survived.

She abruptly lifted herself to look into his eyes with hers, where Sinclaire was shocked to find a shy fear.

"What's wrong, darling?"

Her lower lip quivered as she tried to speak. Sinclaire could see tears forming. Had she regrets? Had he, in his own, selfish need, hurt her by yielding to her own desires? Had he made a terrible mistake?

"Please, my treasure, tell me. Tell me what's wrong."

"Papa... Papa, do you hate me?"

Sinclaire narrowed his eyes on her own, trying to show stern but consoling, obvious love for her.

"Darling, never, never in a million summers could I do such a thing. Why do you even ask?"

"I behaved so... You must think I'm a horrid, wicked girl."

Her voice cracked as she spoke. The tears seemed ready to not merely flow, but to flood the bed if they ever burst free. She buried her head in his neck, hiding her blushing face from him. 

He kissed the top of her head, letting his lips linger there even as he spoke.

"My darling, I loved it. Loved it! You were magnificent."

Her fear turned then into a glimmer of hope. She looked up at him again, her eyes searching his, darting back and forth for any hint that he was lying to her. A small smile broke onto her face, like the sun just trying to peek through thick, dark clouds.

"Really?"

Her moment of acceptance dulled as doubt plainly crossed her face again.

"But I... what I said... what I asked... how I... I'm a whore, Father. I acted like a whore. A dirty whore. I am a dirty whore."

"My love, my treasure, no, no, you are my precious, innocent Little Red. You always have been and you always will be."

"But I..."

"How you behave here with me, and what you are, are two different things, my darling. You are every man's dream. I promise you, I only love you all the more for it. What we do and how we behave together stays here with us, in complete privacy and secrecy. As it must, not only because of how we choose to behave, but because of who we are."

He hesitated for a moment, before saying it out loud.

"Father and daughter. In love. No one else ever could or would accept it. But I loved it! Most any man would love it, but I probably more than any."

"Really, Papa?"

"Really," he said, as he lowered his lips to hers to kiss her gently and warmly. The kiss grew in passion as she pressed her lips more firmly to his, and he returned her actions in kind. Their tongues had just begun to touch when she suddenly withdrew, eyes wide and smiling.

"So I can... behave that way again?"

"Yes. Please."

"I can be Papa's little whore?"

"Whenever you wish," Sinclaire grinned back, growing excited at the thought.

"Now?"

Without giving him a chance to reply she fell on him then with a kiss as passionate as that they shared when they were interlocked together, a man and woman joined as one. She broke it as suddenly to speak again.

"Can I still be sweet and innocent, sometimes?"

As she asked this, she had the widest, bluest, most disarmingly coquettish eyes that Sinclaire thought he had ever seen, on her or anyone. He was powerless in the face of them to do any more than nod.

"And sometimes, can you be the black wolf?"

Sinclaire found that request inventively strange, but somehow intriguing. The girl could be so peculiar at times. He nodded again, this time with a smile. In reward, she fell on him with another consuming kiss. If he were a younger man, he was certain that his body would have come to life in that instant. As it was, it was enough for him to merely return her passion with his mouth, while holding her soft, smooth, young body firmly against his own.

In the midst of their pleasures Sinclaire was startled by a loud crash and animal bellow from the direction of the door. He jerked upright in the bed, instinctively pulling Celia tightly and protectively against him as he looked in the direction of the threat.

There stood Gautier, feet spread in a balanced, combative half-crouch, with his ax held ahead of him in both hands and his face red and seething with anger. He panted heavily with obvious rage.

"You! Filthy, disgusting, lascivious old crone! And his dirty, revolting tart of a daughter. Whore! Incestuous whore!"

He sneered and growled threateningly as Sinclaire, finally freed from his shock, rose from the bed to stand protectively before Celia, who rose to her knees on the bed to him from behind, peering around his frame at the madman in their threshold.

Sinclaire was silent, not knowing what to say or do, but thinking frantically. His eyes locked on the menacingly deadly ax, sharp and large, held out before Gautier, who looked more like an executioner than a woodsman. Sinclaire glanced quickly about, seeking anything he could use as a weapon, but finding nothing. Most of his attention he kept on Gautier, who thankfully had paused as he seemed to regain at least some semblance of human reason.




Little Red, Riding Wood Ch. 04



Gautier reached into his satchel to pull forth a book, Celia's journal, which he flung, fluttering like a wounded bird, through the air to land on the floor between them.

"Whore! Dirty, fucking, tart. Who in the village haven't you spread your cock-hungry legs for? Who hasn't filled that vile, disgusting hole of yours?"

Sinclaire felt Celia tense even further, if such a thing were possible. Her fingers dug into the muscles of his arm and shoulder as she clung more tightly to him. She moved to stand on the floor herself, shielding her naked form behind him for both modesty and protection.

"I haven't. Father, I haven't. I never have, or would."

"Liar! It's all here. Every sordid encounter."

"They're just stories, Gautier," Sinclaire told him, keeping his voice as calm and authoritative as he could. "Just private, made up tales, I'm sure."

"Oh? Oh? Even the ones involving you?"

Sinclaire's eyes went wide. He half glanced back to see Celia's reaction, but kept his main focus on the danger before him. Stories about him, he thought. Sinful stories.

"Tell me they aren't true! You stand here before me, both of you naked and reeking of sex. As I peered through the door you lay in each others arms, kissing, and not at all in the polite, familiar way of a respectful father and his obedient daughter."

Sinclair moved with slow care, guiding Celia with him. She shuffled along behind him as he moved, continuing to hide her form and use him as a shield. He slipped slowly to the side, to position the two chairs in the midst of the room, the ones covering the loose floorboards, between them and Gautier.

"Whore! I will tell you now how your life will be. You will marry me, and never again lay with another, ever. That will be the price for my silence about your crimes. I told you that you would be my wife, and now you will. My wife, the whore! Your father will give his permission, and even support my efforts to hire my own team."

He gave them an evil smile. Celia tried briefly to dart out for the book, but one quick heft of the ax frightened her back into place behind her father. Sinclaire then eased towards the book himself.

"No!" Gautier bellowed, taking a threatening, stomping step towards him.

Sinclaire backed away again, trying to think. The book was the key, if it contained what Gautier claimed. Without it, the woodsman was just a madman making up stories about his neighbors.

Sinclaire considered his options. With two firm hands, he half turned to hold Celia as he gently pushed back towards the bed, while he stepped the other way in a blatant effort to circle the room towards the door. If he could split Gautier's attention, perhaps Celia could grab the book, while he and the woodsman wrestled.

"Father!"

"Cover up, dear."

Gautier seemed to sense his dilemma immediately. He'd been a fool to toss it so theatrically. But now, with his initial rage subsiding, he was thinking more clearly. Sinclaire couldn't afford that.

"You're just hurt, Gautier, because she's more woman than you can handle, and she'd even prefer sharing a bed with her own father to sharing one with you."

It had the desired effect. Sinclaire could see the animal fury instantly return to his eyes.

"Papa!"

Celia had reached the bed, pulling the sheet up as soon as she could to serve as a modest cover.

"Look at her, Gautier. Look how beautiful my daughter is. I just finished making love to her, Gautier. She took her father's log inside of her, clung to me like a little girl and screamed her love for me out to the forest. She's not your whore, Guatier, she's mine. She's Papa's little whore."

Gautier's face grew redder and redder. It even seemed to expand as it reddened, almost turning purple, like a swelling cock. Sinclaire teased him further with an evil smile.

"She knows how flaccid you would be, Gautier. Only her own father could ever please a woman as sensual and erotic as she." 

From there, everything happened almost more quickly than Sinclaire could think.

Gautier charged him.

Celia screamed.

Sinclaire, on instinct alone and probably doing the most foolish thing he could, charged as well. As Gautier raised the ax, it struck a low beam in the ceiling, pushing him off balance. That was just the opening Sinclaire needed to dodge to the side, towards the door, hoping to draw Gautier out after him, away from Celia.

Sinclaire had moved too soon, and too eagerly. Gautier moved too quickly to intervene. But with him between Sinclaire and the door, Celia could now reach the book. She dove for it, almost tangling her legs in the sheets she used for modesty.

Gautier lunged next at her, this time pulling the ax back crosswise, to swing it horizontally, like a scythe. It sped through the air before Celia, driving her back away from the book.

Now it was Sinclaire's turn to feel fury. He bellowed his own animal cry as he lunged at Gautier's back. Gautier continued to spin his own body in the direction of his ax swing, then pulled the ax around with him, completing a full circle while barely missing Sinclaire's chest with the blade. He had pulled himself up short just in time.

"You know what, Sinclaire? You're far to clever, and too much trouble to leave be. I have all the proof I need, in the book. I'm going to kill you, and marry and fuck your daughter whenever I please, until I grow bored of her and one of the younger, prettier girls comes of age. I'm going to have it all, and you're going to die knowing it."

Sinclaire looked yet again around the room, searching for anything he could use as a weapon. There was nothing here. Gautier moved carefully towards him, again controlling his own anger while backing him away from the door, while casting quick glances Celia's way, to be sure she stayed away from the book.

Sinclaire moved to put the chairs and the loose floor boards again between him and Gautier.

""She'll lie in your arms, Gautier, and imagine that she is with me. Even with me dead, you'll never have her. You're not nearly man enough for her."

Gautier growled again in bestial anger while swinging his ax back again for a hefty swipe. He brutally and forcefully kicked aside the chairs between he and Sinclaire, only to plant one heavy foot on a loose board. He crashed through the floor, gashing his leg and catching it there.

In that moment, one of the chairs clattered forward at Sinclaire's feet. Without thinking he grasped it, raised it over his head like an ax, lunged forward and swung downward as hard as he could. Gautier looked up with eyes wide in shock but still laced with rage as the edge of the arm of the chair, with its carved wolf head, crashed into the top of his skull.

There was a sickening crack. Sinclaire had not meant to hit him so hard, but really had swung the heavy chair with all of his might in fear and with an instinctive need to protect his daughter. Gautier collapsed backwards in a heap, sprawled awkwardly with that one bleeding leg still pinned within the floor almost to the knee.

In the next moment, Celia was again in Sinclaires arms, crying and hugging him, while looking at first at Gautier's still form, and then looking away by burying her face in Sinclaire's chest. Sinclaire held her close and tight for a long while, until eventually he felt compelled to move. He pushed her gently away as he stepped towards Guatier's still form.

For her part, Celia moved quickly to her book, to grasp it and hold it to her breast with both hands, almost as if she were a sorceress, and her soul had been imprisoned there within its pages, and she needed to protect it to secure her own life.

The gash on Gautier's head was deep. His skull was cracked clean through. Sinclaire knelt behind him to confirm his worst fears. There was no breath coming from his lips. Gautier was dead.

He tried to feel some remorse. As despised as Gautier was in his eyes, he was just a man. He'd thought him to be arrogant, selfish and self absorbed, but not evil, at least not until today. Thinking things through he couldn't exactly say he had regrets, but killing a man, even an evil man intent on harming Celia and himself, made him feel like retching.

He fought the bile out of his throat and back into his stomach, for Celia's sake. Now was not the time for remorse. His first thought was to get the cursed body out of his home, their new home. It took some struggling, as Celia watched from the corner of the room on the verge of tears herself, clearly overcome with all that had transpired.

Once he'd freed the body's leg from the floor, he grabbed Gautier under the shoulders and hauled him backwards, out of the house, down the steps, out onto the leaves and moss before the house, intending to drag him some distance from the house to bury him.

* * *

Royden watched in shock as Sinclaire appeared, dragging Gautier behind him. How had the old coot possibly overpowered Gautier? He must have caught him unawares, Royden decided, just as he had with he and his brother. The tricky old bastard didn't fight fair. He won only through guile and deceit, and sheer luck.

Ruffe and Royden exchanged a smug, knowing, smiling glance, as Royden pulled an arrow from his quiver, then notched it and took aim. If Sinclaire wouldn't fight fair, then neither would he and Ruffe. And with Gautier unconscious at best, he now couldn't keep Royden and his brother from their preferred prize. In a few short minutes, Sinclaire would be dead, and his lovely, red haired daughter would learn how thick and hard Royden could be for a woman.

* * *

Celia watched her father drag the body away. The horror she felt had faded, although her heart would not stop racing. For a moment she had felt guilt, as if this all had been her fault. She'd written the entries in the journal. She'd tempted her father. She'd spurned every man's advances. She'd failed to prevent Gautier from following her here.

She'd seduced her own father.

If Gautier was dead, she'd thought instinctively, his blood was as much on her hands as anyone else's.

But no, she thought. He was a grown man. He was responsible for his actions. She had no idea how he'd gotten her book, but it was hers. It was his moral duty to return it. If he was foolish enough to read it, and then to even more foolishly believe every word he found there, then that was his stupidity at work. If his anger led him out here, to righteously but unjustly punish her kindly father and herself, and at the same time to profit from the situation and use it to sate his own base desires, then how did that make him in any way a victim?

No, Celia thought, as she quickly arrived in a place where his deeds were his, and he owned his own demise. Father had had no choice. It was self defense, and even then they had only survived by the greatest of luck.

It was as if fate had declared that the two lovers must be together, she decided.

She watched as her father, struggling and panting, hauled Gautier's huge form away. She watched, when the woods burst into a cacophony of snarls and growls. An arrow flew through the air from that spot, straight at Papa.

Celia's heart felt like it froze as the arrow flew for what seemed like an eternity, straight at her father's back. Her mouth opened wide to let out a scream that could never form in time, let alone reach him in time for him to act.

The arrow flew nearly true, reached Sinclaire, and nicked his side as it just missed and instead buried itself in Gautiers limp body. Her father quickly yelped in pain, crouched and turned in one motion, looking for the source of the arrow and belatedly responding himself to the sudden noises coming from the same direction. 

Celia saw them now, as she was stricken with a new wave of panic. The entire pack of wolves, lead by the black wolf itself, wrestled and tore at something just beyond the nearest thicket of brush. Celia ran, oddly aware in a detached thought that she was still naked, to stand beside her father, who crouched frozen in shock, gripping his side. A small pool of blood formed on his shirt there.

There were screams from the shrubs. Ruffe burst from behind a boulder, his eyes wide in panic and blood covering his torn leather breeches, as two wolves bounded after him and pounced. He fell to the ground, eyes looking straight at Celia and her father, with a horrible look of panicked plea for aid on his face.

The two wolves fell on him with maws gaping wide, full of teeth, as more appeared looking just as fierce and charging into the fray. Ruffe's bloody body was mostly hidden under a seething mass of fur and teeth. Celia hid her face in her father's chest, never seeing the remainder of what transpired, but hearing every snarl and scream.

She felt herself being lifted to her feet by her father. She kept her eyes shut and head buried in his chest, shielded by one arm, as he guided her away from the noise and back toward the cabin. 

After they'd gone a distance, she felt her father stop, and she herself dared to look. The wolves were not pursing them. One group ripped at what was left of Ruffe, while another did the same to someone or something hidden in a thicket. Celia had no doubt that was Ruffe's brother Royden. The two were never apart, and that was exactly where the arrow had come from. 

The black wolf separated himself from the pack. He looked their way, straight into Celia's eyes, she felt, before loping easily but menacingly towards them.

Once again her father pushed her behind him. She clung to his bulk as she peered around him at the approaching black terror. Sinclaire inched backwards, pushing her with him, as the wolf approached.

The wolf loped easily and calmly towards them, but when the black wolf stood beside Guatier, it halted to rest one paw on the body's unmoving chest. The wolf tipped its head back to let out a mix of a howl with a series of yelps. As if on cue, following his orders, a number of the gray wolves from the nearest pack broke free, leaving their meal, to come to join their leader.

She and Sinclaire continued to slowly and warily retreat to the cottage, but the wolves advanced no further than Gautier's body. The gray wolves grasped the limp form in their maws, dragging it away in fits and starts, as the black wolf stood, blue eyes locked on Celia's.

He watched them withdraw, displaying no interest at all in following. When they were almost to their porch and Gautier's body had by then disappeared behind the thicket from whence the arrow had sped, the wolf bowed its head once, still never taking its piercing blue eyes from Celia's, then turned and sauntered, exuding its power all the way. It loped into the thicket and was gone.

You are in my wood, woman child, the wolf had said to her, once.

She wondered if they would now be allowed to remain.

You may, if that is my wish, he had said then.

* * *

No one ever came into the Wolf Wood to look for Gautier, and no one looked at all for Royden and Ruffe. Their ax and bows and such were buried by Sinclaire even deeper into the wood. The arm of the chair and the floor of the cottage were repaired and cleaned.

Sinclaire and Celia took some weeks to recover from the trauma. They did not sleep well for some time, but they had each other, and a love that was too great to be dislodged by evil men and sorrowful events. With time and patience and the comfort of each other's love they came to terms with what had transpired and moved beyond it.

Monsieur Couerduloup and his daughter soon sold their home in the village to move permanently together into the woods. The suitors never completely gave up with their pursuits, but they were always politely if firmly refused. 

To quicken their journeys to and from the school where Sinclaire and Celia taught together, they used the same path day after day, making it more and more clear and easy to traverse. They did so without fear of discovery or invasion. The woods itself and the wolves within it were protection enough. Monsieur and Mademoiselle Couerduloup lived there by the pardon of the black wolf itself.

Sinclaire took Celia with him, from time to time, through the Riding Wood and down the river for brief periods to explore the world. When Celia discovered that she was with child they virtually had to go. They lived for a short time in the big city where Celia studied at the university and Sinclaire worked again as a book smith. While there she sold a book she had written to the master book smith. It became rather popular within the city, being a heroic and adventurous tale about a wise and sinister yet strangely kind black wolf that lived far to the south in a deep, forbidding wood, and the way he met and saved a young girl who was lost.

After their son was born they returned to their cottage, telling the villagers that she had been wed, but that her husband had died in the city of the plague. They all chittered and commiserated, and said that that sort of misery was what city life always brought.

It would be fun to say that Sinclaire and Celia lived happily ever after, but no one lives ever after, happily or otherwise. It is enough to say that they lived and loved happily for very many years, always finding ways to hide their forbidden affection for each other from the world but to share it with each other, and to sleep in peace in each other's arms knowing that, for them, they had made all of the right choices. They could, and some might say that they shouldn't, but they would and they did.

So all that remains for the reader to do, at this point, is to ask themselves:

"Could you? Should you? Would you?"

And what would the black wolf have to say about you and your answers?