Nuit Rambles On

For Heart of Slash

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:09:20 GMT

Well, not sure if this is what you wanted really... hardly hot porn.

For those of you who may have missed it, Heart of Slash's fucking brilliant Pirate Way site was zapped. Illegitimate content? Right. Will rant about that at length if necessary. Looking forward to the relaunch. Anyway she asked for people to write something to cheer her up from a menu of suggestions of which Orlando/Ewan Magregor Hair porn was one. I am not a slash writer of course, and rather than embarass myself entirely, I kept it that way. Though Ewan is more of a visual aid really... Will stop with the caveats now and just post it.

Author: Nuit
Title: Sticky Saturday
Type: RPF- Orlando and Ewan Macgregor type.
Summary: AU kind of thoughts about Orlando at the barbers. No offence nor implication intended.

He had always liked these sort of mornings, quiet on the streets Saturday mornings, when the last nights rubbish was still blowing or rolling around the gutters and no one quite cared yet, too intent on getting to the bread shop for a warm bag of croissants or the corner shop for a pint of milk. Or, like him, doing one of those Saturday morning things that had to be squashed into the weekend. He let his legs fall into a natural rhythm along the pock marked pavements and smiled as he nodded his head. A proper haircut, that was what he needed, none of those fancy ‘stylists’ with expensive sticky gel fingers. A cut like he used to have, done by an impeccably smart man called Luigi, or Antonio, whose family had come from Sicily or Venice generations ago. A barber who took men’s hair seriously. Fuck the health spas and the pampering. In these old fashioned places you could feel the weight of maleness, no nonsense, no highlights, just a sanctuary from the world, and your follicles in the hands of a man who knew how to make you look ‘turned out proper’. A light flush coloured his cheeks at what Luigi or Tony might make of a bloke who had worn little clips in his hair, Trojan or not, it had been altogether embarrassing frankly. I will go hunting and fishing…yeah right…first though, if you could see your way to a swap Helen, I rather like that shiny one you have at the back there, would suit me just perfect.

Too late now to worry about that, the cold door handle was in his hand, the bell above the door tinkling to signal his arrival. The air held a scent of splashed eau de cologne, not too much you understand, just enough to close the pores and because the ladies like it, strong black coffee and brylcrem, sharp dressed testosterone and fresh newspaper print. He beamed a cheery good morning at the man holding the scissors and sat down on a leather covered bench to wait his turn.

The low hum of the clippers, like a summer bee around its very favourite flower, covered the occasional low conversation between two men engaged in an established familiarity. One was intent on his work, the other, Orlando observed in the mirror, had his eyes closed in what might be described as focussed attentive enjoyment. Trust, that was the thing. One only had to see that Sweeny Todd to understand that things could of course go horribly wrong, but perhaps that was not so likely on a Saturday morning in 21st century London. In any case, far from worrying about being a pie filling the object of his scrutiny looked to be in a state of relaxed surrender to ministrations of another man.

Christ, let that go. Orlando shifted a little on the leather and straightened his back, picking up the paper on the seat next to him he averted his gaze. North London Advertiser, now there was a dull few pages, Kilburn Autos and the Kashmiri Balti on the High Street all mixed up with a campaign for better rubbish collections. Anyway his eyes seemed to be wandering back to the mirror. The barber had one hand on the bloke’s neck now, holding it steady while the other pressed the blades of the clipper along the curve of his skull, long smooth stokes that left hardly a quarter inch of blond hair, a shimmer really of new cut bristle. Expert hands moved around ears and the dip of the back of his neck, manipulating the steel teeth just close enough. Inches of curls gathered on the floor, forlorn and discarded, and for one horrible moment Orlando had a thought to reach over and pick one up, just to feel its softness in his fingers.

Stop that right now. But that wasn’t so easy as he had hoped. In the increasing heat of the barber shop he found himself wishing that another customer might arrive, opening the door for a gust of cooler air. No such luck, instead he watched as the long silver scissors tidied and trimmed and slid over skin, the sound of steel slicing hair curiously attractive, intimate, engaging, mesmerising.

A pale wood brush appeared now flicking over the bloke’s neck and his face “How is that for you?” soft Italian already anticipated the answer, and the barber warmed the light wax between his palms massaging a little into the stubble of the man’s remaining hair. Strong hands, ones that were used to touching and Orlando wondered for a second if a career change might just work out.

As the barber stepped away the bloke finally opened his eyes. Bleary. As if he had forgotten precisely where he was, he opened them to catch the reflection of the back of his own head in the little mirror being held behind him. Well the back of his own head and of course the brown eyes that were staring right at him from the waiting chairs.

Fuck. Orlandos hands instinctively reached for something to hide behind but The North London Advertiser was not going to save him. And maybe he didn’t want to be saved. The craggy face grinned back from the mirror as heavy fingers reached up to run over the smooth downy skin of exposed scalp. Orlando hoped that he hadn’t made the noise that was in his throat.

Italian promise seeped into his head “Are you ready Sir? What would you like today?”

He shook his head a little to clear it and drew breath before pulling himself up to his full height “I will have what he has got”

Good Night Irene- Balian Fic

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:57:08 GMT

Story being posted in Kingdom of Heaven fan fic community

Title: Good Night Irene
Author: Nuit
Category: movie fan fic- KOH
Type: Dreams, sex, tongues in cheeks
Rating: R
Characters: A couple of OFC's and Balian, sort of
Summary: Two women on a film set in Northern Africa admire the view.
Warnings: Sex and foul language (imagine..) The French I am sure is substandard, but at least is fairly obvious to non speakers. All corrections taken in good heart- should it be Vien or Venez at the end there?? ;P

Good Night Irene

“Do you think he ever keeps that costume on…while he…you know…?”

Across the trestle table her lunch companion coughed a bit on a mouthful of couscous and lamb “While he...you knows?”

“Alright, while he” her voice lowered just a little as she leaned forwards “has sex. Just for a change…to make things more interesting” Two pairs of eyes squinted out from under the billowing canvas into the near distance at the man sitting astride a handsome proud horse. His body encased in chain metal despite the heat, sweltering as the bright light reflection from his helmet half blinded his appreciative observers. His tall frame cast barely a shadow in the midday sun, whilst around him the flags of competing cultures billowed in what passed for a breeze. It was hard to imagine that he wasn’t some kind of vision from the past as the air shimmered and wavered around him

The woman sitting across the twentieth century Formica grinned in the here and now and shook her head “MORE interesting? Jeez Irene what sort of men do you date back home, and more to the point how about you introduce me to some of them?”

“I think you might be disappointed” Irene smiled back and put a hand on her lunch mate’s forearm in a gesture of friendship that said all this might be new but it had already sunk down deep “anyhow, I just meant, you know, that he might consider it, to add a bit of fun”

“No I don’t know as it happens! Never been much of a one for bedroom games truth be told, just a straight…Anyway yeah, lets think it though, since you brought it up and we still got 15 minutes left of lunch hour. Hmmm well that armour might make access a bit of an issue, and the neighbours might be alarmed by the clanking, especially in this here tent city. Any particular reason you ask?”

“Just wondering”

A snort came from the other side of the table “Right Irene! Having nothing better to entertain yourself other than tech assistance to the whole bloody film crew, scraping sand out of every crevice 24/7, and I don’t mean the camera lens, and you are wondering about whether he might consider shagging you in chain metal, just by way of passing some time?”

“SSSH!” a giggle however undercut the seriousness of the reprimand “…Maybe...There’s something about the gravity of the task you know? The helmet hiding the face, all that manly warring honour thing, not to mention needing a compliant young maiden to ease the aching muscles and the sore heart of course. Takes undressing on to a whole different plane right?”

“I should fucking say! CLUNK! “Hey mind my toe with that bloody thing!’ springs to mind”

“Sheena!” Irene was holding her hand to her mouth to try to contain the mirth “Alright alright. But take this Balian fella. You read the script? He brings peace to the Middle East because of his own tortured soul in a way, he is the only man who can because he is out on his own, an outcast from the traditional knight. OK he does all that holding the sword up against his face and killing indiscriminately at the behest of a imperialist war and all that, but all the while wrestling with THE right thing, the moral thing for him as a individual”

“Well except for the fact that he shags someone else’s wife…that aside. Hang on one moment...I see a pattern emerging in these Knights of yours” a wink accompanied the emphasis “what about that Lancelot? You think it mentions that in the Code of the Brethren Knights (Shining) Subsection 3a) If at all possible have tryst with Kings wife leading to much soul searching and self flagellation before thinking ‘Ah Fuck it’?”

“Picky picky…it is not all about lust. He is an honourable man- someone who acts for the greater good and yet his own soul is up for grabs. AND he rides around in chain mail, his hips swaying with the horses movement while his sword is dangerously and portentously sheathed, just waiting for the opportune moment.”

Sheena laughed and tapped the end of her cigarette into the tin ashtray “Thought you said it wasn’t all about lust?! Ah well fair enough, but since you mention opportune moments have you considered other variations? What about asking him to get his shirt all salty wet, donning a large hoop earring, a moody downcast expression and maybe a parrot on the shoulder for extra authenticity?” Sheena leaned forward to add and extra “arrrgghh” for emphasis before her eyes sparkled again “Hey now! Hold on a minute, I got a better one! Get him to dig out that buttoned waistcoat and his pistol, scabby old hat and a smouldering glance before he gives you one of those larrikin winks “Take a ride into the Bush with me Lass” and you reply “Talk to me like an Aussie Irish outlaw, Babe, and I am yours”

It was Irene’s turn to almost choke on the tagine as she laughed out loud as she tried her hand at the desired accent “Well darlin’ that’s not without it’s merits as a plan fer sure, fer sure”

“No shit” There was another spoonful of couscous and a slurp of a little too warm water before Sheena sat back into her chair and reached for the pouch of tobacco on the table, shoving it back into her pocket without her eyes leaving the outline of the man outside “You thinking of asking him then?”

Irene took a sharp intake of breath “You are joking! He wouldn’t even look at me, never mind accede to my demands for fancy dress”

“Well you never know! Might be a bit lonely out here in the desert”

“Oh thanks! That makes me feel a lot better” Both women however were still giggling as they stood, and having negotiated the maze of tables and chairs laid out like some mad hatters English tea party in the middle of the desert, scraped the remainder of lunch into the plastic trays provided by the catering staff. With renewed vigour brought on by a shared belief in their own ability to make the best of a bad job they braced themselves to step out once more into the blaze of the Moroccan sun.

Truth was she always had had a thing for Knights in shining armour, metaphorically at least. They didn’t need to have polished it with the elbow grease of tradition, didn’t need to be Daz squeaky clean, well hardly clean at all frankly. But they had to be honourable in a way that went beyond slavish duty to Queen and country, or King and religion. Oh alright so that was negotiable as well. Some of them were excused from anything very much and allowed just to be dashing. Blame Robert Plant and his flowing locks galloping across the ocean’s dunes on a white charger, climbing the large tower and vanquishing the baddie with a swing of his not insubstantial knife…blade…hell HUGE sword all in pursuit of a fair maiden in a nightdress, conveniently, and a shag on a deer skin in front of a roaring log fire

But in general they had to have a valiant purpose in life and a passion to match. It was all a little embarrassing to be frank. Irene was not one for a wistful gaze as her love sailed off to vanquish the so called politically incorrect enemy. She was more usually cast in her dreams as the full figured scullery maid, bidding a last friendly, and very enthusiastic, 'Goodbye' from the homeland, rather than the chaste virgin lamenting lost love while strolling around the windy turrets, looking so thin as to be practically translucent. But even if she didn’t see herself needing smelling salts and a someone to catch her in a full damselly swoon, nevertheless a man with a mission, preferably requiring a horse, a large weapon and not inconsequential facial hair was a hit every time.

So it was with some delight that her afternoon passed, with frequent and lip licking daydreams padded out, as it were, by the very real vision in front of her eyes. To all intents and purposes, if she ignored the southern counties accent between takes, a most perfect Middle Ages Knight. Christ, this was one hell of a job, technical assistant to a film crew.

Though in fact there was never much to stay up for in the evenings- they were too far from the nearest town, too far from anywhere in fact, there was no alcohol and the actors kept themselves to themselves- and since she was pretty much exhausted after a day in that heat, she often retired after supper in the catering tent. Tonight was no exception, apart from that, after a meal spent elaborating on some of her less embarrassing fantasies with Sheena, she found herself hurrying a little more than usual to the welcome cool of a night under canvas

Mostly she retired to her tent to read or to write scribbled notes in a journal or to just lie there amid the gradually rising cacophony of sounds from the desert animals. Who knew such a place could hold such life? But tonight she found herself curling down into her sleeping bag with something of a grin, glad at last to have some peace to let her mind expand into dreams and some privacy to explore the thought

“Excuse the roughness of my hands, they are those of a blacksmith and a knight” At least that was what it sounded like in her head, in fact the words from his mouth so close to hers were whispering “Excusez la rugosité de mes mains, ils sont ceux d'un forgeron et d'un chevalier, ah mademoiselle…” the warm of his breath entering her own gasp, he was swaying with suppressed desire to abandon himself, still surprised, reminded, reliving a gentleness softness of white skin beneath his fingers and raising his eyes momentarily from the nipples that tickled against his palms to look into her face, he focused on a question she did not yet know.

“Ca va…” her own hands in his unruly hair and pulling his mouth to hers in answer to whatever it was, stoking his fire, a tinderbox of promised flame that she would have ignite her own. Under her own hands the muscles of his body moved with ease, smooth with the efforts of warfare and hard riding, and naked but for rough cotton. A stab of her own words in some other place jolted her; here there was no chain mail, no hard iron, just rough cotton which was damp from the desert and his exertions. Damp like his skin. Her hands slid up inside the white shirt to find his body, a broad hairless chest and shivering at her touch, held from pressing down onto her only by the reserve in his arms. His head dropped, the strands of his hair covering the dark in his eyes

“Mademoiselle…petite... J’ai besoin…”

“Oui, mon Chevalier de la France” She didn’t need to touch to know his need, she could breath it, hear it, feel it in her own belly and in the glance of his cock over her hips, though perhaps he had desire for something else too. A dream of his own to ride out into the desert for. “J'ai tous les deux aussi”

His hand pulled at the material that lingered around her legs, allowing his hips to sink against hers as his mouth did not kiss but a made a demand to open for him, to make him imagine, remember, loose it all. The softer hide of his breeches slid down over perfect thighs in the seconds that he moved from her, no clanging metal nor unwelcoming steel, just warm silk limbs and insistent desire, hands struggling to let him free before the caustic heat of penetration burst through into the blissful soft welcome of her body. “Mon Dieu!” he moved steadily and persistently, her body indenting the sand beneath her, his hips rocking against accepting curves and her fevered cries. Outside the whinnying of horses and the soft murmur of the guards patrol passing the tent had them hold still for a moment, his cock deep inside her and his eyes shut tight to not let go there and then, until the silence of the noisy desert returned in the dark. He took a breath of steadfast resolve, the suggestion of his painful withdrawal making her grab at the tensed ass between her legs

“Ma petite…it will be too late to stop”

“Balian of Ibelin, C'est un rêve...a dream…n'est-ce pas? Venez avec moi!” In one corner of her mind a voice winced at ordering around a Knight, but his smile almost took her right then and he nodded in an acquiescent hope that she was either right, or perhaps his duty to a fair maiden overrode other considerations, before he slipped deep and true into her body and into the sounds of her ecstasy.

Irene stirred in the necessary amount of thick brown syrup into her coffee to make it drinkable while she looked over the other side of the canteen tent to where the actors were doing just the same, wincing at the way that their teeth were melting in unison. She could just see him, and for a moment she felt her stomach clench, not unlike being 15 again in the school hall, spotting the boy of that weeks romantic imaginings. A distant memory of the unfounded, but nonetheless terrified, panic that perhaps he might know all of those things one had written in the back of ones exercise books, seen the love hearts or somehow viewed the half denied longing that overwhelmed one while cudding a pillow and sighing to the immature tones of a tinny boy band. 'If he had an inkling he seems pretty damn nonchalant' she mused, But then perhaps he was just used to being wrapped up in the garb of someone elses fantasy. Or the chain mail as it happens.

“Hey, what’s up?” Sheena plonked herself down on the opposite chair and grinned “ You look like you’ve been up all night, don’t tell me he turned up all clanking and rusty and asking you to oil his rivets?”

Irene may have spat out her coffee but she tried to compose herself "Nah, but I am working on it..."

Celebration Part Three- Curtain Call

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:22:08 GMT

Part Three
Author: Nuit and Fourleaf Clover
Rating: Adult
Disclaimer: I certainly didn’t invent Steven Shaw or Joe Byrne of course. These are pure wild imaginings for which no one would pay me, even if I asked them. Apologies to David Storey for borrowing his difficult and emotionally restrained character. Joe I think is used to me taking liberties (ha!)
Warnings: Only sex and complete confusion
Summary: An opium dream takes Joe Byrne to places he couldn't have dreamed about. This idea was conceived by Four Leaf Clover who has written 2 parts of it- the Introduction and the third part where Joe finds himself as Orlando at the stage door. Mine is where he finds himself in 1960’s Britain and the life of Steven Shaw, a character from David Storey’s In Celebration.
It is a weird premise for sure, but inspired by an overwhelming flood of feeling and gratitude at seeing flashes of ‘Joe’ walking around on that London stage, live and in person. Truly a gift.

Curtain Call

His eyes opened reluctantly, slowly focussing on dull, flat flowers just inches from his face. A papered wall, he decided after a moment, and under him a poor, hard bed. Still, a step or two up from the ground or the haystack by his mother’s place. He closed his eyes again, chasing sleep, but it was receding too rapidly and he opened his eyes again. Something was not quite right, a tension in the air around him, a sensation of being watched. Well Christ, he’d felt that a few times. Glimpsing movement through the trees; waking up suddenly afraid for no reason he could put his finger on; telling himself over and over like prayers in church that it’s only paranoia.

Cautiously, he rolled over and sat up. Sure enough he was in a room with a bed in it, but the curious cold red light trapping the dust and illuminating his surroundings was not coming from any window. Instead, where the far wall should have been there was simply…nothing. Well, perhaps it wasn’t exactly nothing. A void certainly, but the empty darkness beyond the light was somehow pregnant with expectation as if something waited there, holding its breath to see what he would do next. Traces of voices – human, warm, reassuringly dull and un-frightened – reached him from below. There was a door in the corner of the room. He pulled it open and found himself on a small platform at the crest of a rickety set of stairs, hewn from new un-planed timber and roughly assembled with a rudimentary banister so as to be little more than a step ladder. Despite the unfinished state of the stairs, someone had taken the trouble to carpet them. Nothing around him resembled the style or homeliness of the room he had just left. What he hadn’t noticed in there was that the walls rose on either side to a height just above his head, and above that they had been cut away; Joe could see the lath and plaster work and the splintery saw work as they jagged down the stairs beneath him. Way above them, in a ceiling higher than anything he had seen indoors before, he glimpsed long shining rails and pulleys and looping ropes and huge white lamps. At the far sides, beyond and behind him, were walls of black painted brickwork. Joe counted to ten without being entirely sure why and then carefully descended the stairs.

As he reached the bottom, the voices he had heard grew louder. He could tell that the men talking together were just on the other side of the wall from him, quite close to each other, and although he could not make out the words, their tone did not suggest any argument. Nevertheless they were, well, not shouting exactly, but speaking far more loudly than normal conversation demanded. He rounded the corner and found himself in another room – similar to the bedroom upstairs but more heavily furnished and with the same bright lights and tense, empty darkness beyond. There was a cushioned couch in the centre, and in absence of a better idea, he went across, sat down and waited a little fearfully to see what would happen next.

A heavy, older man, not fully dressed, and presumably one of the speakers, was standing nearby. He turned to Joe. His face, a mask of exaggerated concern, was covered thickly in garish hues of pink and red paint that a Melbourne whore would think twice before trying. In the same overly loud voice he asked, You alright Steve?

Steve. Well. Alright. Steve then.

“Aye,” he ventured.

This seemed to be acceptable because the man nodded, the vigour of his nod at odds with his solemn expression, and added, “I mean, nay lad…if there’s anything the matter.”

“Er, No.”

His own voice, equally loud, sounded heavy and foreign, treacly slow in comparison to how he normally spoke.

“It’s not Sheila is it?”

“No, no.” Well, that was true at least. Whatever was happening here, he didn’t know Sheila, so she could hardly be blamed for his confusion. Joe wondered how long this questioning might last, how long monosyllables would serve him before they discovered he was not Steve after all. Would they be angry? What would happen if the real Steve appeared? What was their connection with the strange, living darkness before them that they were all so fixedly ignoring? Another man, taller and younger, his own age perhaps, added cheefully,

“Sirloin…If we’d all had steak tartare like Colin. Trust him to have all the luck”.

“Nay,” interrupted the older man, who seemed determined to understand the source of Joe’s hesitancy and confusion, “Look I don’t know. Your mother’d be that unhappy to see you upset.”

She would? Joe looked at him in some surprise. Whoever this Steve was, he was a lucky fella to have so many people concerned about his well-being. Even the young man – who also had a painted face, he noticed – was regarding him with almost fraternal interest.

“She would,” he affirmed.

“You’re not ill?” enquired the fatherly man.

“No…” said Joe, shaking his head again. He in the hope that they would leave him alone. To his relief, they took no notice but carried on their loud conversation, a third man who had been standing some way away now joining in.

Left to his own devices, Joe took a closer look at his surroundings. He was nearer to the void now, and as his eyes became more accustomed to the strange lighting, he started to make out blurry shapes beyond. Shapes like human faces. Then it struck him. He was on a stage. The darkness beyond him, those shapes - that was the audience, the sensation of having his every move studied. That was why the house was real only from certain angles, cut away and unfinished, that was why the three men spoke so loudly, and, he supposed, drawing on his sketchy knowledge of theatricals, why they wore make up.

Now that he realised, there was nothing either alarming or challenging about finding himself taking part in a play in this way – alarm and challenge were emotions that played a part in his waking life, not in this, his dream state. He simply moved where he felt like moving, said what came into his head and it seemed to be what the other actors and the audience expected. Emotions flowed across his lucid thoughts like cold water over stones in the creek. Overwhelmed by sadness, he curled up at one point and wept silently, wept for the unhappiness and frustration that was Steve and for the loneliness and desperation that was Joe as the others never saw him. And as he did this he sensed outpourings of empathy, love even, rushing towards him from the audience as if to see him cry broke their collective heart.

Finally, it ended, and returning to the stage, he confronted them properly for the first time. Women. Sure nearly every last one of them was female, and they stood and applauded and cheered and watched his every movement, every wave and smile and bow. Of course they were watching the other actors in the same way, he supposed, but the overwhelming impression was that they clapped and smiled for him alone, as if he was the most important person, not only on the stage, but in the room. It was a pleasant illusion – for illusion it almost certainly was – and he was rather sorry when the cast eventually left the stage and it ended. He realised that whoever Steve was, he was laid aside now, and he wondered what kind of life an actor, this actor, led. Travelling probably, scratching a living, despised by ‘decent’ people but fascinating to them nonetheless. Joe smiled wryly to himself. Well, he could do that just fine. And judging by what he’d seen of the audience, not so many of them seemed to be looking down their noses at him neither.

The feeling of warmth and adoration persisted as he was led up endless flights of narrow stairs to a small dressing room. The room was barely enough furnished although there was a carpet and a faded blue couch as well as an indoor toilet and shower area in one corner. A gleaming, rather over-fed, black dog which had been dozing on the couch shook itself and ambled over to him. As it drew near, however, it stopped abruptly, flinching as if troubled by a fly, and whining disconsolately. With a remarkable burst of energy, which it had barely seemed capable of, it fled to a corner of the room where it cowered, shivering and watching him suspiciously.

The most noteworthy thing about the room however was that all over it, heaped on the counter and piled on the chairs, were brightly wrapped gifts, postal packets and letters and also, more strangely, many vases of fresh flowers. It had not occurred to Joe before that a man might receive bouquets, although a young girl he’d met on the road in the Woolshed a few months before had given him a small posy of flowers. He’d thanked her with a wink and tucked it safely into the breast pocket of his jacket and then promptly forgotten about it until he’d pulled out the brown, shrivelled mess a week or so later. This actor though – his name, certainly theatrical enough to Joe’s way of thinking, seemed to be Orlando – well there were great bunches of roses, towering lilies and many others kinds he did not know the name of, all for him. Orlando, it appeared, struck quite a note with the ladies. Joe regarded his reflection in the mirror and considered this point. It was certainly his own face gazing back at him, gaunter than it once was, but unmistakeably his. No beard but a neatly trimmed moustache. Not a bad face – not strong and full like Ned’s and maybe too fine to be regarded as handsome by many - but regular all the same, and pleasing enough to the girls he courted. Apparently all the more pleasing, he reflected, since he’d been on the run with Ned and the boys and achieved some notoriety. He wondered how much of Orlando’s success rested on similar claims to renown.

Standing under the blessed force of the hot shower, he examined his body carefully. There weren’t so many differences here either. Smoother and more cared for certainly, but the same long-waisted torso with its hairless chest and jutting hipbones. Same scars on the legs, same wide, flat nipples and sparse black body hair trailing down faintly to a low, neat bush and something particularly familiar below that. Near his belly button, Orlando had seen fit, what with his artistic leanings and all, to decorate himself with a small but intensely-hued tattoo of a sun. There was also a design of some other outlandish characters Joe did not recognise on the inside of his forearm. All in all he concluded, here in this other place and time he was looking pretty good. He dried himself on a towel of quite remarkable fluffiness and dressed himself in Orlando’s clothes. Strange clothes to be sure, but this fella was not stinting himself on the quality. Beautifully cut and laundered trousers and a sweater, soft as mist, draped themselves over him so that he could hardly feel what he wore. Even the leather shoes, as far as a body could get from his riding boots with their harsh worn uppers and uneven larrikin heels, were a luxury beyond his usual daydreams. Joe revised his opinion of an itinerant performer, desperate for a shilling and a bed for the night. There was a good living to be had here, masquerading as sad Steven with his concerned family and comfy bed.

Leaving the building, however, Joe discovered, was not the simple matter he’d supposed. It appeared, in fact, to be a complex operation that overshadowed even his painstakingly arranged nocturnal visits to Beechworth. For a man who dressed so fine and was so much admired, this Orlando had remarkably little control over his own movements.

“Bigger crowd than usual tonight,” said the towering black fella who stood at the foot of the stairs by a heavy-looking door. There was something large and black in his ear with what appeared to be some kind of wire trailing from it. “If that’s possible,” he added with a friendly laugh. “Mind you, mate, we’ve the police out in St Martin’s Lane already, so shouldn’t be too much trouble. Your car’s ready when you are.”

“Thank you,” said Joe politely, retreating behind good manners to conceal the fact that although he understood all the words the man used, the sum of them made not the slightest sense to him. The mention of police made him particularly uneasy, but they’d been evoked in a tone that suggested this was something he should find comforting rather than concerning. . The man pushed open the heavy door and leaned into it, holding it back for Joe with one arm. He took a hesitant step into the dark street beyond and was instantly engulfed in a great crescendo of yelling, shouting and screaming. To his left, light, whiter and brighter than midday sun catching on glass, lit the scene. He shrank back against the door. What was this?

“You’re alright,” the man said to him cheerfully. “You want the car now?” He began to mutter rapidly into his hand.

“Uh no,” said Joe. The people standing around just outside the door seemed neither surprised nor afraid. Indeed, several of them were walking towards the noise and light with smiles on their faces. He ventured another glance, screwing up his eyes against the blinding whiteness. .

The narrow dark passage stretched away for maybe fifty yards. At the end there was what looked like a city street, but brighter, with vivid signs everywhere - and women. Hundreds and hundreds of women it seemed, penned in by orange fencing, pressing against it and waving to him, shouting to him, holding their arms forth. A great many of them held little boxes before them that seemed to explode regularly in a gunfire-like volley of white light. It was the constancy of these miniature explosions that were lighting the entire scene, for he could see above the crowd and the buildings the night sky, dark and distant and timeless. Instinctively he raised his arms to shield his eyes from the glare, but then he heard a clear, shrill voice,

"Orlando! Over here! We want a photograph!"

Joe paused and lowered his arms. A photograph? Was it possible that all these tiny flashing boxes were really some kind of personal, portable cameras? He had very little experience of photography - just the once his mother had persuaded him to have his likeness taken for her, and he'd hated every moment. And yet now his mind had conjured a place where hundreds, maybe thousands of images of him were being captured every second, without him having even to pause in his movements. Why did each person need so many? What would they do with them? He noticed that the women nearest the fences did not stop and walk away after taking their pictures. They continued to click and laugh and wave and shout in a continuous frenzy as if there could never be enough likenesses of him.

He moved forward again and somebody pushed a pen into his hand. Many of the girls were reaching forward, offering him more flowers, wrapped gifts and shiny pamphlets. He took one of the pamphlets and turned it over curiously..

"Will you sign it for me?" said a clear voice, and he looked up.

The girl who spoke regarded him steadily with sharp, blue eyes. She was instantly noticeable, not only for the firm calmness in her voice but because she was not even holding one of the little flashing boxes. He met her gaze and held it, letting her see him take in her tight little clothes and the promise of her curves. It was gratifying to notice a flush spreading down her neck, licking like flame on paper to the very swell of her breasts. In a world of confusing possibilities - it was obvious that Orlando could take his pick from this crowd, but Joe had no idea how he went about arranging it - it was good to know that some of his own charm and skills were still useful.

He studied the pamphlet again.

"Here?" he asked, playing for time. Clearly, however Orlando went about this adoring crowd, he knew enough to write his name in the right place.

"Yes." She was laughing at him, he could tell. It didn’t seem very likely that many of the crowd would mock him to his face and he liked her the more for that. He wrote in his careful script, each letter formed as he'd been taught at school , Joseph Byrne, and returned it to her. She studied it carefully, and then looked at him searchingly. Deep and long into his eyes, then scanning his face as if for confirmation. He was just about to sign another pamphlet that was thrust into his hand when she spoke.

"You’re Joe!" she said, and this time her voice was low, softer and wondering. “You’re Joe, aren’t you?”

He stepped back, shocked at her certainty, then he recovered and winked at her.

"Aye," he said, “Maybe I am. Would you like to come along with me and check that out for sure now?”

"OK. This is getting a bit heavy," said a male voice in his year. "They’ll have that barrier down in a minute. Come on, we've got to get you out of here." A low door opened in front of him and the heavy hand resting on his shoulder intimated with the greatest respect that he should stoop to pass through it. He looked back at the girl and she was staring at him, pale with shock in the sickly light. He reached out towards her and then he was being pushed a little more firmly and felt himself move forward under the pressure..

“Come on, I said. Time to go. It’s morning. Ah Joe, wake yourself and be gone.”

He looked once more at the bright lights, yellower now like the morning sun, and it was morning and the hand on his shoulder was the Chinaman shaking him awake.

Celebration Part Two - Gold Top Mornings

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:51:00 GMT

Part Two..
Author: Nuit and Fourleaf Clover
Rating: Adult
Disclaimer: I certainly didn’t invent Steven Shaw or Joe Byrne of course. These are pure wild imaginings for which no one would pay me, even if I asked them. Apologies to David Storey for borrowing his difficult and emotionally restrained character. Joe I think is used to me taking liberties (ha!)
Warnings: Only sex and complete confusion
Summary: An opium dream takes Joe Byrne to places he couldn't have dreamed about. This idea was conceived by Four Leaf Clover who has written 2 parts of it- the introduction and the third part where Joe finds himself as Orlando at the stage door. Mine is where he finds himself in 1960’s Britain and the life of Steven Shaw, a character from David Storey’s In Celebration.
It is a weird premise for sure, but inspired by an overwhelming flood of feeling and gratitude at seeing flashes of ‘Joe’ walking around on that London stage, live and in person. Truly a gift.

Gold Top Mornings
The black smoke had hardly ceased stroking his mind before he jumped at the caustic voice in his ears “Steven! Are yer coming down?” Without moving his head, his eyes scoured left and right to find some clue as to how he should respond, covering flock wallpaper that wasn’t a million miles from the Commercial, taking in an ancestral familiarity too, perhaps not of Ireland but one belonging to a common thread of middle classes, of aspirations and the pulpit. The aspirations of his mother’s eye. A dark wood cabinet stood in the corner, filled to overflowing with paper. How did he come by so much paper? He hardly dared look down, squinting at fingers that hovered at an unnatural angle over keys suspended in the air by metal rods, each one with a different letter and forming words in his mind before he could stop them

Dear Sir,
I wish to acquaint you with some of the occurrences of the present past and future. In or about the spring of 1870 the ground was very soft a hawker named Mr Gould got his waggon bogged between Greta and my mother's house on the eleven mile creek…

But it didn’t say that. He closed his eyes again to see black, swirling sick black that offered neither comfort nor clarity. A stomach churning lurch opened his eyes to focus on the white paper emerging from the roller.

Chapter 7: Ad Nauseum
Trudging the cobbled streets before dawn his footsteps echoed around the lines of red brick prisons that flanked his isolation. Tin box in hand and the lamp rattling on the single screw attached to his regulation helmet, the black colliery wheel loomed from the pit like a maniacal Ferris ride mocking his very existence, as if happy smiling faces of childhood were turned back on themselves into the grimace of disappointment and emasculation

What in the name of Christ was that? The evidence would seem to suggest that he had written these heavy words, why else would he be sitting in this spot, but a frown creased between his brows as he read again. This was hardly the daring flair and passion of the Jerilderie Letter, the rust in the wheat replaced by extravagant introspection. “Steven! Yer dinner is getting cold!” the voice made him jump a second time. Steven, right then. Slightly anxious hands reached into his hair, noting its combed shortness as he remembered he could look at himself, that his own body might tell him a secret or two, and curious eyes examined the wool mix brown cardigan, a sort of loose waistcoat with sleeves that enveloped his body, the sharp lines of creases in the trousers and the neatly tied brown leather shoes. No larrikin heels here. The shirt button at his neck pulled at his skin as he stretched across the table to pick up a bundle of typed sheets; there were pages of it, crossings out, scrawling handwriting between neat lines- the lack of satisfaction however evident in the frustrated lines that covered the page. His intense consideration however was broken by the alarming sound of light footsteps on the stairs “Tell your father his dinner will be in the bin unless he comes down this minute” echoing in a threat behind them

“Da’! Mum says that you’re to come down and have yer dinner. It’s a roast but Mum said she was sick of waiting for you to come carve it, that we’d be biting the meat off like cavemen if it were up to you” and as he sat there looking at the scrawny curly haired young boy in short trousers and miniature shirt who was grinning round the edge of the door, he wondered if in fact any sound would come out of his mouth in answer.

“Did she?” an unfamiliar voice took him by surprise, thick and warm like mud from the bottom of the creek

“Yeah and Jimmy has already eaten the parson’s nose, Mum said he didn’t know any better and it’d do no harm, so are yer coming? She’s made jam sponge for afters too”

Just how many people were there around a table waiting for him to descend the transitory comfort of this room? Despite it being home for less than 20 minutes, if he went by the big round clock on the wall, he was reluctant to leave, unsure of what was in store for him, but his mouth answered ‘Aye’. Pushing back the heavy wooden chair he stood a little unsteadily and peered at the boy, a vague recognition of self flickering at the edges “Lead on then, we wouldn’t want to miss out on yer mothers’ jam sponge now would we?” it seemed that any alliance at this stage would be better than nothing.

The carpeted stairs led steeply down to a hallway and he watched ‘his son’ scamper into the room to the left, a sharp question greeting him “Is he coming?” which must have been answered by a nod given the quieter response “’bout bloody time an’ all” which barely made the doorway. With a little trepidation he stepped through it and into the gaze of five pairs of eyes which appeared to be expecting something from him. ‘Are they ALL mine?’ he intuitively guessed, not being exactly the thing to say.

“Well don’t just stand there! Boys, move round so your father can sit hisself down”

It was hard to swallow food so he pushed rehydrated peas, tatties and the chunks of chicken around the patterns of the plate while he listened to ‘his wife’ tell the children in turn to eat this or that, to mind their manners and use forks not fingers, and not talk with their mouths full, with his eyes half raised to take her in. He couldn’t remember her name but every now and then a look full of anger and frustration, despair and regret, pity and love flashed across the table. He would have to find out what he was to call her. Her hands moved fast guiding the children through the meal, clipping one lightly on the head in a moment, cutting up meat the next second, pouring more gravy the next. “Do what your mother told you!” he wanted her to like him more.

“Oh you do speak then!” She was just smiling a bit, but her speech had edges all the same “so what have you been doing up there all this time Steven? Get any more written?”

His stomach clenched at her questioning eyes, fearful that she might ask what exactly he had typed “No not much”

“That’s what I thought” and her mouth tightened again into a thin line. He wanted to tell her he was sorry for whatever it was that he hadn’t done to make her look at him like that.

His expected intervention in the dinner apparently over, he sank back into silence and let the family move around him. His presence was evidently not required in order for lively loud conversations or the clearing of the dishes; he followed the cues to sit in ‘your chair’ with the paper and a cup of tea. From behind the curtain of the Times he could let his eyes and his senses roam with out fear of being observed and, despite the limited view, the print on the page spun him off into a whole new world of Moon landings, men and women dancing naked in somewhere called Woodstock and British troops deployed in Northern Ireland. His brow furrowed he struggled to understand, to picture the baffling events and to contain himself, pulling only at the tie tight around his neck so that he breathe in the unfamiliar air as he read every last word that sprawled across the enormous folds of paper. At last it occurred to him that the room was now quiet and so dim that he could hardly see.

“What on earth are you doing sitting there in the dark? We can afford a bulb or two even on your wages. The little un’s are all tucked up safe and sound, sleeping already I shouldn’t wonder, would you like some tea? Stay there I will get it.” He wanted to say ‘you sit down, I will make it’, establish some purpose to his presence even if it was to get her to take the weight off her feet for a few minutes, but a flood of anxiety about sort of appliance he might find in the kitchen with which to heat the water kept him seated in the gloom and waiting as the clocked ticked loud in the silence. “Steven, for the love of God you are a useless bugger!” she was back with a tray and balancing it on one hand flicking a switch in the corner of the room so that in the second that he blinked it was illuminated like as if someone turned on the sun again “There that’s better, now what was I saying?”

“I don’t know...” He couldn’t stand this, left wanting in a different world by the unfamiliarity, unable to speak for fear of saying the wrong thing, of upsetting some balance he could feel teetering and at the same time feeling her frustration. Feeling his own inability to act. Who said ‘Joe Byrne could do anything?’ He looked at her, head bent over as she poured the tea, at the strong features that would have made her distinctive when she was younger, or at least less worn out, but that were now hardened a little, her tired skin drawn into the early hints of lines

“Aye well nothing new there then, talk to me self half the time anyhow. Your mother was right “Sheila’ she said ‘if you get an ‘I Do’ out of him in the church you will be doing better well”. I got that at least eh? For better or worse”. Well that was it then, her name; he may as well try that out. Reaching over the space between them his long fingers touched hers as they cradled the tea cup in her lap, nestled as it was in the nylon housecoat she wore over her clothes to keep them nice for some occasion that he couldn’t quite imagine.

“I am sorry Sheila, I am not feeling myself”

She had just begun to say something with a barb when she stopped, put the cup back down on the starched embroidered table cloth and looked at him with a foreboding “Are yer unwell? Only we can’t afford for you to get in trouble at work again, you know, missing lessons and all that. The headmaster he was good about it all though wasn’t he? Last time? You being out of sorts and under the doctor with it” The panic in her voice was barely masked by the concern and he reached to touch her again, unsure of the cause but at least wanting to calm her, to give her something

“No nothing like that, I am fine, don’t you worry, just not me self”

The physical sigh she made as her shoulders sunk down again indicated a sense of relief that was palpable and allowed a softer glow to her face “Right you are, well I am turning in love, been a long day. Those kids run me ragged and well…you’ve not been…Oh never mind. Monday tomorrow and back to school eh? Are you coming up or shall I leave the fire?” He couldn’t help himself staring at her. Jesus! Of course! She was expecting him to sleep with her; he was her husband after all.

A moment or two passed while he considered the conflicting notions in his head- evidently she believed he was her husband, although for sure he might need to look at the photos to check it was him that had been at the altar, check whether the eyes looking into the flash of the camera were his, but he did not know this woman. To share her bed it seemed would be taking advantage somehow, misleading her, tricking her into intimacy that she perhaps wouldn’t chose. He was still looking at her when a voice full of one two many disappointments cut through his thoughts

“You don’t have to make excuses. Stay down here if yer like, I’ll not worry me self.” But as she turned to go, his hand shot out to catch her arm, to turn her back around to face him

“I will be up in a minute, you go on ahead, let me just bank the fire so’s that it’s warm for the kiddies in the morning”. As he piled coal high on the embers acrid wafts of thick black coal steam and smoke seeped into his mouth and he considered the next few minutes in this place. He could open the door, walk out into some undiscovered world, like them explorers he read about, live by his wits and his sharp mind, be an observer of another stranger circumstance, or he could go upstairs. His stomach pulled tight at the thought of her face as she had said “Right-o Love, well make sure you lock up then, don’t want anyone making off wi’ the family silver now eh?” and her thankful smile that at last she had done for the day before her slippered feet padded off into silence. She didn’t deserve this, Christ she certainly didn’t deserve her husband disappearing out into the night, and this Steven fella didn’t deserve the roasting he would get when he came back neither. Oh you are so magnanimous Joe Byrne, never a thought fer yourself. Aye…upstairs it was then.

Placing the fireguard back in front of the hearth he wiped his hands on his trousers, the palms a little damp and now smeared with coal dust. Dissatisfied he rubbed them again, something in his mind about at least being presentable to go up to this woman’s room. The bolts all pushed across, he glanced up the stairs and, with a sudden spurt of resolve, took them two at a time. He was standing on the landing as a dawning realisation hit him, he had no idea which door he was expected behind. Ignoring the room he had first found himself in, a tentative turn of the handle brought the door on his right open and he bent to peer inside, half hoping that wherever she was, she couldn’t sense his trepidation; all her worst fears come true as her husband appeared to have lost his way around their own house and decided to sleep in a cupboard or something. As the gloom cleared he took a breath at the sight, four tousled heads in the gloom, thin limbs tangled in amongst mountains of blankets. His urge to stand and watch the fall of their chests, to get lost in a swell of innocence he could barely remember, only pulled up short by the knowledge that Sheila was then definitely across the hall.

She put down her magazine and smiled as he entered the bedroom, her hair loose now and her facer barer somehow. His eyes averted from hers to look around ‘their room’, lit by the bright street light outside the window that shone through the nylon curtains with a pallid yellowness and a small bedside lamp with fringes that looked like it came from another era, it was a mile and twenty from home. Surely people had no need for so much? So much what? Decoration, patterns, colours, cushions and things. There were things everywhere, arranged and displayed as like in those fancy shops in Beechworth enticing his fingers.

Sheila shook her head a little at him as he examined a pink powder puff from the dressing table and spoke softly “Did you look in on the boys?”

“Aye sleeping like babes they are!” He was pleased to see her smile for the moment and replaced the delicate fluff exactly where it had been on the lace covered dresser, turning to hear her reply and feeling himself wince at it

“They have worn themselves out today. Steven, perhaps next week we could go on a trip somewhere, in the car. Into Nottingham for the day, they would like that, and well…they need their Da’. Mrs Scott down road said that there’s new findings to say that it doesn’t do boys any good, you know, to be with women all the while, said it was in a magazine”

“I don’t know, if you like”

She flashed with barely disguised anger “Oh don’t be too enthusiastic will yer? Seems to me that sometimes you take so little notice of them that I’d be surprised that you remembered their names, honestly Steven…” The hollow in his jaw deepened as he clenched his teeth. Well a fine time this was turning out to be. He could have gone home to Byrne’s gully and spent the afternoon with his mother railing at him for this and that as be here, but he couldn’t help himself being drawn in to her when she sighed “I am sorry love…Take no notice I am just plain tired is all, maybe we can go to town another day eh? Come to bed will yer.” It was with some relief that he nodded; at least he could avoid all this talk and be in a place where he had some experience, something’s he was sure were the same. With a click she reached to turn off the light.

Sitting down on the edge of the mattress he felt it give under his weight and, barely resisting the urge to bounce a little on the unfamiliar sprung softness, he reached for the buttons of the cardigan, deft fingers delighting in something physical to take his mind off the confusing ethics of what he was about to do. Sure Father O’Donoghue would tie himself in knots over this one. ‘Husband’s duty’ and all that, only he wasn’t quite now was he? Folding the cardigan neatly, he then pulled at the tie and, leaning forward, he untied the laces of the shoes. He could feel her watching him from behind, the weight of expectancy tinged with desire waiting for him. Alright so maybe it was best to just get into bed quick and his hand was tugging with some purpose at the unyielding layers when she giggled a bit

“Steven did you not want yer pyjamas then?”

His what? What had seemed the simplest course of action was apparently fraught with difficulties he could not have imagined. She, now that he looked, appeared to have changed into some sort of fancy outfit in pink and lace, the thinness of which hinted at the skin underneath and teased him to look more closely but the mirth in her voice pulled him up. “Your pyjamas, they are under your pillow as usual!”

“Aye of course” he could feel a slight burn in his cheeks as he reached for the apparently new set of clothes that he was required to put on to go to bed. Cleary the ‘sexual revolution’ or what ever they called such a thing in America, at that place called Woodstock which he was reading about only that very afternoon, a place where men and women had relations in the full glare of the sun, and the full view, it said, of other folk without so much as a ‘by your leave’, had failed to reach to these shores, wherever in fact they were.

This time he stood, while slightly less sure fingers undid the buttons of his shirt, shrugging it off his shoulders to reveal a loose white vest against his far too pale skin and, ignoring her eyes, he stretched to pull it over his head. The belt to his trousers already gone his hand slid the velvet brown cloth down his legs taking the tightness of unanticipated elastic with them and he stood there, the light of the street lamp catching the ridges of his bones and his body and the shiver of exposed, that previously had not troubled his mind. Naked and not to put too fine a point on it, exposed.

Help and salvation though was at hand and his legs slipped easily into loose cotton trousers, pulling at the drawstring and tying it tightly. Not usually given to self consciousness, he felt a little like a rooster at a dance with a peacock, and it had thrown him a little, which was as well, he mused with a wry smile, since the slit at the front of these ‘pyjama trousers’ would surely have revealed any lingering expectations or desire he held. Maybe in the next dream he could find himself somewhere more congenial?

The warmth of her body had softened the sheets though and he sighed deeply, perhaps if he could fall asleep he would be delivered from the starch white restriction of unfamiliarity. “Are yer tired Love?” a smaller voice accompanied the stretch of her hand across his chest and her head nestling into his shoulder asked for him to lift his arm, to curl it around her. It was all he could do to keep his voice level, no hint of the resignation he had come to, that really he would have done better not to have handed his cash over to Aaron for this stuff, and the sooner it was out of his blood the better

“Aye a little”

“You work too hard Steven; you should relax at the weekend at least”

“I should think so, though I’ve t’ finish that chapter” One of the few things he knew about this man was that he wrote, and so seeking to not appear completely clueless he replied with one of the small titbits of information he could. What he didn’t expect quite was her pressing her body a little closer into his side as she answered with a smile

“Oh that old thing, really Steven...how long has it been? 2 years nearly? And what chapter are yer on?”

“Seven…yes chapter seven”

“Well it’s hardly what you would call progress is it?” She didn’t seem to think he would find her words insulting, well either that or it was just assumed he would just to have to put up with her jabbing comments with good grace, since at the same time her hand took his and placed it around her waist “You can if you want you know. Dr Riddleston gave the Pill, on account of the babbies coming so quick. Said I was the best case he’s seen in the surgery that week. Give me body a chance to recover so he said”

Alright now this was just getting too complicated, and he looked down at the women cradled in his arms with pleading eyes, “He gave you ‘the pill’?”

“Oh now come on, you aren’t going to say that I can’t take it! Four of them is enough- even your mother said so, and you know how much she dotes on you. The Doctor says that it’s safe, I have just to take it everyday, save for a week a month, and that way we don’t have to worry, you know, about me getting pregnant.”

“Christ…really? I mean, yeah, well that would be grand!” He was really quite glad that the light was off and she was now nestled into his arm rather than looking at his face, which was quite a mix of both elated possibilities and staggered disbelief. No of course he couldn’t take things back with him, this was a dream. Aye and the girls back home would no more believe him if he turned up with some of them ‘pills’ telling them that they could let him because they wouldn’t have babies, than they would jump in the creek in winter. He smiled a bit at the thought of their faces, open mouthed and “Joe Byrne. If you think I am going to swallow that tall story never mind that little white thing! Do yer think I was born an idjut?” Jesus will yer concentrate now. His body was reluctant to be back in the bed, intent rather on focussing on those familiar willing smiles that said often said ‘yes’ to him anyhow and feeling that warm easy flood of blood that heralded their agreement, when she strained up to his kiss his neck. A forward kiss, one that was used to jumping over some of the formalities as it were, a kiss that said years had slipped by and now would be as good at time as any.

“So anyway, you can if you want” He was still pondering what to do with the press of his cock that was connected to the past, when the present intruded again and she moved to sit up a little, the pink nylon slipping off her shoulder as she pulled away from him “For the love of God Steven! Is a wife supposed to have to beg her husband, well I tell you now…” the last bit of her tirade however was swallowed in the touch of his mouth covering hers, the curl of his moustache pressing into her lip and his hand moving to touch the silky strange heat of pink nylon. Pushing her back down into the over stuffed pillows, his body half covered hers. At least that Steven fella, her husband, could do something right today.

Oh Aye, he was magnanimous alright. He smiled a little into her mouth, perhaps it was just best to give her what she wanted he noted with some satisfaction as blood thumped through him. And she wanted him, clearly indicated by the wedding ringed hand that was now in the curls of his hair and the way that she was opening her legs a little as her hips moved. A last, slightly indignant thought skittered that this was his dream after all, before he abandoned thinking and turned to his senses.

The strange heaviness of the sheets and the pile of blankets, all topped off with a fringed bedspread, impeded his exploration of her nightie a little so his hand hastily wrenched the tucked in straightjacket from the mattress to see. She wasn’t skin and bone like most of them girls back home, and the curves of a better life, of more abundant harvests made him want to feel her skin on his face, so his fingers moved to the little ties of pink ribbons that held the thin nylon together amongst flounces he’d not seen before, except on the ladies dresses that passed through Beechworth on a Sunday.

“What are yer doing Steven? It the devils own job to get them bows done back up again… will you let me just take it off…” she was trying to sit up again now

“Sheila ssshh, will yer just be quiet a minute?” One hand on her shoulder he eased her backwards to the pillows as the other pulled open the flimsy bows, freeing her breast for his mouth to taste. Large and full, it was warm on his tongue and she pressed forward to make him have more. He did what she wanted- pulling more soft skin into his mouth and suckling hard, eliciting a soft groan as his fingers and his thumbs found the other nipple, twisting and turning while her fingers dug into his scalp. Glancing upwards made him smile, her head back in the pillow and her mouth open in acquiescence she didn’t look so different after all, but as her hands moved now on his shoulders he could feel her nails digging into the smooth skin of his back, a sharp sting of desire that was about experience and demands. Demands he would answer, when he was good and ready, though in truth he doubted that would be long. When he was ready. Right. He had pussy footed around this dream all day but now it was his to control, and he let his cock rub against her cushioned hip as his hand moved down her belly and between her legs.

Her cry of pleasure was followed by words that at last had lost their sourness “Steven…I don’t know who you are sometimes, I wish we were always like this, like man and wife if yer get my meaning”

He kissed her heavy and warm before pulling away to answer, his fingers slipping over wet syrupy desire and watching her face crumple with a grin “cause a bit of a stir out side now don’t you think? Neighbours might ha’ a word or two to say about it.”

“Oh…them curtains would be twitching down the street alright…Be in the Nottingham Post I should think” but she couldn’t quite make her words clear as he pressed strong fingers into her and his thigh worked its way between hers “but be worth it all the same” surprised eyes closed with the feel of him and her hips moved involuntarily to slide underneath him “but you are like another man when you let yerself be” He mused for a moment at the truth of that and at the ease with which he had some to this place with her, his cock wet against the soft full tops of her legs and her hands on his ass pulling him forward to enter her, how different it was back home, here just a matter of course that it would end like this, and after not to much of a wait neither.

“Well I am here now” and with a tilt of his hips he was there inside, her backbone finding the deluxe springs, his hands finding her legs to press them wider “Jesus”. The plush padded headboard hit the wall and she giggled a little in amongst little cries, about them next door and the kiddies, but not enough to make him stop nor asking him to, just feeling him deeper and faster, with the strength of the Bush and horses and hard work muscles that were miles and centuries from his desk and the typewriter. Her soft round belly indented with the bones of his slimmer hips in a rhythm of heartbeat until he felt her stop quite still beneath him, holding her breath and herself in

Looking up at his body held poised on his arms, at the Brylcream curls rebelling with the salt of his effort and the dark black eyes she could recall vaguely from before, she took one last kiss from him “Yes you are. Oh but I miss you”. Joe closed his eyes to remember the feel of her body and with one last stroke took them both over the edge.

*

Dawn had barely begun when she heard the milkman rumbling over the cobbles outside, the clink of gold tops being placed at the doors of grateful housewives. She turned to look at her husband still asleep, his features peaceful and serene, with gentleness her fingers reached to touch his lips “good morning”

It was full into the day before he whispered a prayer that what he would see when he opened his eyes was wood and earth and dirt and home. Across the shack Aaron was still sleeping on his bunk, half naked in the sun that poured through the window picking up the movement of insects and dust in the Australian air. Joe took a deep breath of lemon eucalyptus and heat before he smiled and stretched his arms over his head. Christ.

Celebration Part One -Some Kind of Paradise

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:43:42 GMT

Author: Nuit and Fourleaf Clover

Rating: Adult

Disclaimer: I certainly didn’t invent Steven Shaw or Joe Byrne of course. These are pure wild imaginings for which no one would pay me, even if I asked them. Apologies to David Storey for borrowing his difficult and emotionally restrained character. Joe I think is used to me taking liberties (ha!)

Warnings: Only sex and complete confusion

Summary: An opium dream takes Joe Byrne to places he couldn't have dreamed about. This idea was conceived by Fourleaf Clover who has written 2 parts of it- this introduction and the third part where Joe finds himself as Orlando at the stage door. Mine is where he finds himself in 1960’s Britain and the life of Steven Shaw, a character from David Storey’s In Celebration.
It is a weird premise for sure, but inspired by an overwhelming flood of feeling and gratitude at seeing flashes of ‘Joe’ walking around on that London stage, live and in person.

Some kind of Paradise

Eloquent opium! that with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath, and, to the guilty man, for one night givest back the hopes of his youth, and hands washed pure from blood; and, to the proud man, a brief oblivion for Wrongs unredressed, and insults unavenged. – Thomas de Quincy, Confessions of an Opium Eater.

He does it, he says sheepishly, shifting his weight on the stony ground from one foot to the other and backing his spine to rub up against the spindly tree, because he’s always done it. His own words make him smile gently, half to himself, because he knows that’s a poor answer and he wants to explain, to be helpful. It’s just that these days sometimes it’s hard to make the words come out right. Perhaps, he ponders with a laugh that doesn’t quite hide the unease in his eyes, that’s a skill that rusts from disuse.

Just Ned and Dan and Steve, and what might as well be silence under the measureless bowl of sky, day after day. Not much in the way of words needed when it’s just about whether you live or die that day. As for those occasional moments of exhilaration - a gentler sun on your face; the final surge of a horse as it carries you out of the river; evading the traps one more time - aren’t these things always better treasured for being unspoken? Other times, maybe there’s Tom or the others, and then sitting around the fire, it’s all about ideas so grand that the words torrent out on an easy stream of whiskey and bravado until you hardly know any more what you truly believe. When you’re a boy, fists in your mother’s skirts, barely catching your breath in your haste to tell her everything, you find out from the harsh looks, the dismissive pushes, that talking about what you feel isn’t what is expected of you. By the time you sit in school, legs dangling over the bench, the fear of sharp words or even blows lowering your eyes to your slate, you’ve learned to choose very carefully what thoughts you share. Much later on, you find that women don’t always silence you. Soft and giving, shining for you until it’s like sitting in the warmth of a fire, they lull you into lowering your guard and maybe saying more than you meant to. Perhaps it’s no surprise that out here it’s almost a relief not to have to express anything very deep or meaningful.

Ah well. To start at the beginning, back then it was just something to do. Him and Aaron, just a pair of young larrikins, them and the Chinese they’d always kept company with. Sticky black nights oozing into empty days. Decisions to be made, realities to be faced, all made hazy and distant by the curls of smoke. He never cared much for it though, did Aaron. He thought it a fine enough waste of time and he didn’t bother so much after a bit. Just another way they drifted apart.

Not like that for you though. From the start it was like coming home, as if your very heart knew it straight off and begged to be allowed to stay. There’s pleasure to be had in company, pleasure in a good horse, a fine view, a good meal. Yet more pleasure - and, aye, the pleasing too - with women. But this was pleasure like no-one could ever have imagined. Celestial vision they called it, and it was that right enough. But it was more too. It was a feeling of peace and belonging, far beyond anything daydreaming or deep sleep ever brought. It’s different now though. The effect long-since diminished by custom, now it’s merely a way to grab blindly for the a fleeting connection with the rest of humanity; sinking for a few hours into the relief of feeling the way you once felt all the time. The stuff’s still easy enough to buy – Ned writes it off to overhead – but it has the mastery of you, body and soul.

You can’t describe it, he says finally, working hard with cupped hand and pursed lips to light a cigarette. Everyone finds his own dreams through it and if you aren’t about to try it for yourself, well, it’s a poor job anyone can do of conveying what it’s like. He can say what it’s not like more easily. With the brandy or the whiskey, he says, his hands doing the explaining when the words don’t, the fire builds slow at first, warming you inside until after a bit you can’t think straight and right there’s the welcome oblivion.

With the stuff, right off you see the sense in everything, the order of the world all clear out before you like being on top of the ranges on a bright day. Lying in the cold, barely sheltered from the drizzling rain, the horses shifting restlessly, earth pushing up the damp into your very bones, the blackness descends over you like a blanket, inviting sleep. There’s acceptance there, love even. No crying out for people to understand you, or you them, no cold, no exclusion, no fear in their eyes, no waiting hangman’s noose. There’s no outlawry in opium dreaming.

He scratches his thin beard and trying to make his eyes kind, he says that maybe it’s like swimming in the creek. You know, how the water closes over your head and there’s another world down there. Your eyes clear, and you can see things but they’re blurred. But imagine you just keep on going down, no worries about breathing, and your vision gets clearer and somehow your body seems less and less important. No sense of the infinity of hard ground, or the eternal rolling rhythm of a horse, just peace and your own mind with another place to explore…

Wilde/Rentboy Story

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:00:26 GMT

Those of you from OL will have already read. One of our character OB challenges.

Author: Nuit
Title: Outcasts
Rating: YA
Warnings: none, well prostitution obviously
Summary: The rent boy remembers Oscar Wilde
A/N: I saw this film once, a long time ago and to be honest missed Orlando in it, so the portrayal here is not based on anything much about him in the film, which was not very much anyhow. I do however know a fair bit about Oscar Wilde, though I have struggled with some of his poetry, not being Classically educated. He was a stunning brave and compassionate man, stood up for what he knew to be true and wrote not only some of the wittiest but the most inciteful things I have ever read. I could go on and on, but I won't. I couldn't write about sex here, because it seemed wrong. Not that Oscar would have minded I am sure, he was promiscuous and proud. But he also knew about deep love, for lovers, friends and his wife too, that there were different sorts of love, the loss of his heart in the end killed him. He died a few years after his release from gaol, in Paris, a broken man, but not in vain.

Outcasts

He never ‘did it’ to me that Mr Wilde, though I swore a statement as to his intent. The Marquis of Queensbury, don’t you know, who was very persuasive, very persuasive and very rich said that we had a choice- a hefty sum or a court case of our very own. Well let me get this clear- HE didn’t say anything direct to us, he looked like he would rather sleep in the gutter than come within speaking distance of our type, but Bosie’s father wanted ‘that foul sodomite’, as he called him, banged up where he belonged, in Gaol. What he wanted from us was a statement for the police that said Mr Wilde had, now what was it? ‘Solicited and incited boys unknown to commit sodomy and other acts of gross indecency and immorality’. Funny enough the Marquis hadn’t wanted to shake on it neither, when I agreed. Those bleeders are all the same. Its all hoity toity once they have what they came for, before they run back to their wives, wiping the memory from their skin.

Mr Wilde though, didn’t want to do it anyway. Once inside the gilt edged room somewhere near Pall Mall, I started as I always do, a little brush against his cock, making it clear that he could have whatever he wanted, no sense in dragging these things out, but he just stepped back and guided me into the drawing room with something of a wince

“Mr Wilde…”

“Oh Oscar! Please...call me Oscar dear boy!” and that’s how it went. Him arranging me on the divan while he talked about his travels and his literary endeavours, all the while smoking his cigar, dropping ash all over the carpet like some proper Aristocrat, enacting scenes from Salome parading around with the head of John the Baptist on a plate and all manner of things. Didn’t seem to matter neither that I hadn’t the foggiest who he was on about- Michael Angelo and some Greeks, he would laugh out loud and touch my face and begin again in his way. He said me mouth would inspire an Ode to Beauty! Listen, here he sent me this bit of poetry before he was arrested

Enough, enough that he whose life had been
A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame,
Could in thy loveless land of Hades glean
One scorching harvest from those fields of flame
Where passion walks with naked unshod feet
And is not wounded, -- ah! enough that once their lips could meet (from Young Charmides)

Like I said, I didn’t have a clue, I just smiled and he seemed to like that.

“So are we going to get on with it then?” It had been an hour or so and that French wine had begun to make me brash so I asked him. I was engaged in a service as it were, providing for those who for reason of their fame and standing felt the need for more discreet liaisons. Only Mr Wilde wasn’t discreet was he? He flounced about in them furs and odd colours, writing things that scandalised the gossip papers and society apparently. The thing was he said out loud that men loving men wasn’t a crime, on the contrary, he said it was a beautiful thing.

“Oh! Be still my heart!” he was fond of what you might call ‘over zealous gestures’ and he let out a loud guffaw at my suggestion, his hands clutched at his chest and with a big sigh from his large mouth he feigned collapse and denial both “You delightful thing! But you need not be concerned with that - all that wretched huffing and puffing and unseemly noise! You should be entwined with a nubile; an Adonis to match your beauty, to be otherwise would be to scorn nature herself. Oh what an image! Perhaps Whistler would consent to a private portrait for my rooms…” he took a moment to think on that I don’t doubt before looking at me with sad old eyes that I can’t quite get out of my head to this day “But as to the physical, no. I fear I am lost to Bosie in that regard” and he squeezed my knee by way of emphasis. Lord Alfred Douglas, Bosie to those who knew him, well you could see why Mr Wilde was taken with him, that blonde hair and those delicate features. He had the arrogance of Birth and that which came from adoration.

Bosie had other appetites too I had heard, and that was true enough as it turned up, the stained sheets that they talked about in the court room never got like that when I was there that night, of that I can swear truthfully. Rumour was that the parties started after Mr Wilde left in his carriage- wine, some of that Moroccan hashish and the sort of boys that Bosie liked, and he had liked a lot. Mr Wilde, he was off home to his wife Constance before the clock struck 12, and me, I was back at work.

The trial was all over the newspapers, his book The Picture of Dorian Gray pulled apart to show his desires and depravity, our statements presented to prove how he had procured a whole baker’s dozen of boys and therefore how he committed both adultery and sodomy in one foul swoop. I stayed away from the court house, I didn’t want to have him look at me with disgust, rather have him throwing his head back to laugh and imagining me on the wall of his study, but in any case the evidence was about damnation.

Those few weeks of the trial was like London in shock and then the panic set in. People said the ferries leaving for France were full of men with hardly a trunk packed between them, the clubs were quiet and dark that’s for sure and it seemed to me that the Marquis locked up more than Mr Wilde.

I wish to God I never signed it now, not that He is going to listen to me I don’t suppose. The court of course found Mr Wilde guilty, and maybe that was what he wanted, he never lowered his head once but stood there solid in the dock, he never said he was sorry. And for that the rest of us owe him a debt that we cannot repay.

happy summer solstice

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:39:46 GMT

wishing you an abundant and warm summer solstice. fuzzy picture -sorry. There are a lot of things on this table, dragons from ewan, a bowl made by tegen, a moon crystal i bought for carmel when i was ill, the bottle casting the amazing shadow, appropriately is fom my sister sal, a flower scarf like magic's that wraps her tarot, a burner from richard, a bird vase my mother bought in mexico, a card from my friend kim whose sister had cancer at the same time as me, and sadly didn't make it. In the bowl is a gift from Gem and Ki, the little tea light at the front was given to me by a wise woman and shiatsu therapist who helped to save my life and whose light i ignite every once in a while, there are crystals for clarity and a turquoise for my sister charlotte, who makes me think of that. And most of all a whole load of incense burned for all the people that matter and flowers to celebrate it all. thank you XXXX
Gem, whatever power there is in it has been sent to you and your family

Joe Fic

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 21:58:00 GMT

TITLE: Bath
AUTHOR: Nuit
RATING: Adult
WARNINGS: Sex and sadness
CHARACTERS: Joe Byrne and the young Chinese woman who walked in on his bath
SUMMARY:thats about it
DISCLAIMER: Joe Byrne was a real person and I mean no disrespect to his memory or anyone connected to him.
A/N : Gem suggested this and I thought YEAH! and then it felt kind of sad and took a long time. Perhaps because this was the first time, except for a short thing, since Visions of Joe that I have written him in situ, not AU, not escaped to Colorado, nor in Dreamtime in compromising back alleys behind banks, nor with a soul that moved on. Alright so she was in the film and a made up character but it felt hard and real and sad. I was talking to magic and she said that Joe was the sort of man who women wanted to give to, and that makes sense to me. Thank you to Four leaf Clover for suggestions on linguistics and spring rolls.

Wait...Please.

He looked older than the picture in her mind, like an apprentice returned from the wilderness, chewed and spat out by the Buddha to go and test his inner strength some more. Filthy dirty, she could barely see him through the mud, blood and overgrown beard. But she knew how he moved. Back at the camp she had watched him walk many times, watched how the longer limbs than those of her race carried him great distances slowly, his knees bending with the movement of the earth. She had been barely 14 in the months of that hard winter when she had last seen him, the winter before she came to this house. A snow fall heralded bitter winds and colder skies but she had watched him come and go, from behind screen doors or from the anonymity of many. She looked down quickly in case he caught the eye following him, though he would not know her. Did not the light eyes say that the Chinese all look the same?

Can you help...

Now she was a laundry and kitchen maid, nanny, whatever else the Mistress said she was. She had cried silent tears, when she was sent from her sisters and her mother, away from the Woolshed camp where they worked like the demons they were called in the dry dust or the raging storm torrents, to work here. The ground didn’t give the gold up so easily, and many of her people had moved to the outskirts of Beechworth, a slice of China cutting a red swathe through the town. She however had come to this house to work, her wages, such as they were, part of a communal pot of family and back home.

While the Mistress wrung her hands and pleaded with the man they called Ned Kelly, she stole another lookout of the corner of her eye at him leading the horses to water, moving with unsteady grace, animal and rider both, a thickness to his thighs still that spoke of power not quite broken. Ah Joe. She had seen him, two years ago, him and his friend almost crawl out of the camp on the occasions that their shared their smoke with her uncles and brothers, but always then they had the youth and the permanence of boys. Like stones in the river they would stay forever. They did not know of the flood.

to scrub my back?
The boys tipped buckets from the pump, but he asked for warm water for a bath, a polite quiet request, he was prepared to wait, delay his pleasure and cleanliness until the pots bubbled and were emptied into the speckled rustiness of the old tin bath, perhaps he knew that the water could only clean his skin, that there was no hurry. They said he shot a policeman in the woods, said he was a cold blooded murderer and maybe he was, but her senses told her otherwise, he moved with purpose and consideration but he could challenge the sun with an unfettered smile.

She served him tea while the pans boiled, scuttling about the kitchen in soft shoes and with her head bowed while she considered using words instead of gestures, frowning at his hands shaking with hunger and the cold nights on bare earth. A little rice, the food of life, and for the first time he looked up at her, the nod of thanks accompanied by a grin at her quiet plea
“請吃更多, 您是雞骨頭” (Eat more, you are nothing but chicken bones)

“I wouldn’t make much more than a thin soup at best, is that what you mean? Alright then I will have another bowl” He spoke perfect Cantonese still and all the while she watched him come back into himself. The pans had been heavy, spilling water on her skirts and his boots as they struggled with them to the out house, but once emptied she stepped back outside and leant against the wall listening to the heels clatter against the stone floor and clang of his belt. Mei Lien shut her eyes to see the images of his hands finding buttons and buckles and stiff sweat baked cloth. She watched him transformed in her mind

I can't reach.

He smiled a question at her giggle while she decided whether to look up and see naked limbs and chest, her hands full of laundry that should have been elsewhere, but an answer all the same as she closed the door behind her.

*

He is different now, as if he awakened his senses, and instead of heat and hard and hunger he can feel the waters’ gentle caress on his skin, the food in his belly and the tobacco smoke in his lungs, as if he remembered he can do more than survive, memories of being a man finding warm circles in his mind. I should be careful, and yet it is he who is looking at me troubled still, searching my face for clues. You do not have many more years than me Ah Joe, though I think that yours were made more full. “I am old enough” he nods deeper than most and watches me place the basket on the chair.

One step closer and I will have to shroud my eyes if I am not to see his maleness and yet he makes no move to hide himself, he is not afraid of who he is. The sponge is still in his hand, though I think that he may have forgotten his question, made in jest perhaps but now full like the sponge itself in this stifling room. A single droplet tinkles and sends rings across the surface of the still water to where the tin encloses it and I take the sponge from his hand, casting my eyes around for a sliver of soap. My breath is so light it would not move a blade of grass in the field; I can only feel its warmth in my mouth as I reach out to touch his shoulder, my fingers slippery with the mixture of lye and oil. He flinches underneath his skin and closes his eyes as my hands sweep along to where his fingers rest on the bath top and I whisper “My name is Mei Lien, I know of you Joseph Byrne, my father, my uncles they talk often of the squatters and the police and the gang of outlaws that run circles around the police, you have many friends in the camps, those that remember you as boy, who know your mother and her land so close to ours, and amoungst those that do not, those that know also of the police and the value of community” He turns his head to smile at me now, the words alien in his western mouth

“And what about you Mei Lien? What do you say?”

“I say that there is also value in being of service to a man who would stand up tall” He straightens, the water finding it’s paths over the muscles of his chest and stomach back down to the bath, his head falling forward to drop curls over his cheeks and his eyes, he does not answer. I feel my stomach pull tight as I speak “ I will go, I have offended you, I mistook who you were” but as I stand his fingers catch mine and when I return his stare there are no boyish smiles

“Mei Lien , I have need of your fingers and your hands and Jesus I could weep for you standing there right now, my eyes have been as empty as me belly, it is not the difference that has me pause. I am no animal, though they say that I am, and God help me and I won’t take what isn’t freely mine. A thousand men and women, maybe more, are out there in those selections watching to see what happens next and yet all I can see now is you, wet to the elbows and nothing I can think of right in this minute would be better than you staying exactly where you are.” He has let go of my hand, I am free to step towards the door, but my feet stay rooted “I speak too plain- will yer forgive me that? I am not sure that so many words have passed me lips in a week.”

I sink my hands into the water and rub the hard soap, my eyes lifting to his and returning to his skin with a gentle pressure “then there is pleasure in staying, I will wash you Ah Joe.” He is beautiful like moon, smooth and clear and hard white, not as the western men that the friends of my mothers age laugh at, thick and hairy and fat bellied. I watch him lie back in the water and close his eyes to give up to my strong fingers and hands, fingers that know hard work and now slip over his arms and his shoulders and his chest, smoothing and healing the wrinkles of his soul. His legs are bent, too long for this bath, but he cannot see me looking beneath the water watching his thoughts stiffening his body, the still surface hymen broken as he moves. He does not see me watching until I touch his thigh, slow eyes open and I have to glance away, the words in my head making me blush. Yet here in this room is neither China, the camps, no selections nor Bush and we are both out of our elements, my ancestors passed down no rules in black ink sweeps that seem to fit here in this room with him. Or maybe there are none that I chose to see.

“Mei Lien” he speaks quietly and leans to kiss my face smiling at me at last “and you thought I was just lying there enjoying myself imagining? I have been searching me mind for the words- for your name, precious orchid isn’t that right? Though I am not so sure that I have ever seen a Chinese one up so close.” He is teasing me now, seeing what is in my thoughts and letting me sink deeper, his eyes shading to watch my small hands sink into the dark water to brush light finger tips over where he wants them most. I hear myself mutter an oath, his skin sliding in my palm, slippery still with soap and hot blood heat. Harsher breaths out his mouth are urgent now struggling with a question that seems to be hard to speak “can I not touch you?” and as I watch him sway with the movement of my hand, his fingers reaching to touch my hair and my lips and my throat, I answer

“ I cannot lie with you Joseph Byrne, I cannot be outcast with a child taller than my father” and he holds me still, his own fingers mixing with mine in the water while we sit bare faced on either side of tin

“That is not what I asked, I would not ask you that” he is stumbling over the unfamiliar words. In Cantonese there are many words for perhaps. Yes you can touch me; I close my eyes to nod. A water fall of sound and he stands up, stepping from the bath so that the floor is a wash and crossing the room to lock the door before he returns, wet and naked against my clothed body. Slow blunt fingers find knots and ties to loosen and I just stand looking, his height now a mountain and the strength of his body belittling mine, but I have power yet and it is in his sigh of pleasure at the form and his silent thank to his God. “Come with me, though the water is half cold” and holding my hand he steps back to slip into the warm wet translucent sheet.

My legs folded over his I watch him marvel at the feel of my skin, watch him look up to my face and smile at my sighs, sighs that threaten to escape the window as his fingers rub over my breasts and my belly, catching water in cup fulls to trickle over and bending to let it flow into his mouth. The babe at my sisters breast did not look so content as this man. He resists my hand, kissing my fingers and returning them to his chest “Not yet Mei Lien, it has been too long” but I cannot stop, I want to see those light eyes full of desire, so my demanding kisses hold him still and my hand finds him again, thick and full and taut, I can feel him moan into my mouth and press into my hand. ‘Let me’ whispers in a tongue that he half knows and I lean over him moving slowly and steady, watching him gasp and smile and plead with me for both more and less. It would be easy to sit, let his body slip into my own, give him more and take for myself but I will not, instead I will store this memory in my head, the ecstasy of his beautiful face as his white heat spills into cool water, mixing and dispersing like the mist of the dawn

well that took some time- but if you feel like reading is here..X

Joe Byrne Fan Fiction and stories

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 12:41:22 GMT

A small and select bunch only will have fond this by internet search-or indeed be looking- welcome.
My small Joe Byrne Fanfiction site can be found here the Larrikin Mary.

or if you want to go straight to Visions of Joe then here you go
Visions of Joe

Just to let you know...

Title Visions of Joe
Author Nuit
Category Movie- Ned Kelly
Type Historical, Love and Sex, Politics and Religion
Rating R- M/F
Warnings Some sex, a little voyeurism, profanity mainly of a religious nature due to who they are, character death..jeez..
Characters Most of those in the film plus Evie McBride a female O/C and her family
SummaryThe story starts in 1876, Evie is 18 and a rebel, it tells her story wrapped up with that of the Kelly gang and principally Joe Byrne. The story follows the historical fact though not always precisely, drawing on Peter Carey, Robert Drewe, Max Brown and the various sites available, including the fabulous Iron Outlaw, for extra analysis and ideas. Although it has its roots in history it was inspired by Orlando's portrayal of Joe Byrne which left me shell shocked for days. I don't think I ever recovered and frankly I don't want to.
Disclaimer This my imagination and absolutely no harm is intended to those real young men whose lives have become legend.
Edited by Lizzynet and helped along its way by Unplugged32 and Blue Magic. Thank you SO much!

Cowboy Story

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 23:24:25 GMT

Colorado- nuit 2005/pirates_cove13

*Subject: It is a story concerning Joe Byrne, and an OC called Sarah (and no, her middle name is not Mary Sue ;-)) It is set in the American West around 1885
*Rating: It is NC17 by the end
*Disclaimer: Did some one mention money? Well we don't have any, though if anyone wants to pay us to write please form an orderly queue..heehhe. Seriously Joe Byrne was obviously a real man, this is a work of fiction inspired by Orlando Blooms portrayal of him in the film Ned Kelly, and takes place in a time after those events which in reality led to his death. We have enormous respect for history and no harm is intended to the real Joe Byrne nor any one connected with him
*Feedback: Any comments, criticism, professions of undying love are acceptable and welcome. It is not beta'd, so please look upon mistakes as local colour..
Hope you like it.

OK Last one- a bit early on account of Gem's visit to her mother in laws. :P Has been great fun to write, and I want to say THANK you to magic XOXO

Chapter 6

He’d been up and down like a jack rabbit all afternoon, sometimes he thought he might read a book, sure that would pass the time and he would sit in his chair and open what would normally be a door to an adventure, only his eyes didn’t seem to work too well, like they couldn’t connect up with his brain, the words just flat on the page and he was struggling to follow their pattern. He had seen a hole in the barn roof, aye, that would be good, and she would appreciate him fixin’ that. Christ what time was it? Way past time already. He had removed the stew from the fire, tender meat being what he wanted her to have and if she didn’t come soon it would be like string, and then put it back on again so it wouldn’t be cold. His hands it seemed couldn’t stand to be still.’ My calm friend Joe’, aye well that was a laugh.

Yet another cigarette and the change in the wind made him look up, and it all flowed out of him, she was there and riding almost as fast as he had done, and for the first time that day, well since he left her, he let out a breath.

She was smiling and her eyes never left his face as she slid to the ground, Joe’s hands automatically reaching for the reins as they both just looked a moment. She wondered if her face looked like his. Sort of a smile over such undisguised longing her whole body was hot in an instant and she had to think about breathing to do it.
He licked his lips.

Sarah was sure he didn’t know that he had and her smile broadened making Joe grin back. “Had to work late?” from him answered by a nod and a “you too, I guess,” and her smile didn’t waver but he still wanted to explain, “You shoulda seen the lightening Sarah, it was like…” and then he had no idea what it as like, could just feel her fingers on his lips. He breathed in tomato and onion and the tip of his tongue touched vinegar - barbecue sauce, some part of his mind acknowledged, then he was trying to talk again, “they went everywhere…” and she slid her hand down to his chest and covered his mouth with hers. He seemed to want to finish his sentence in fact until she let her teeth drag over, almost biting, his bottom lip and then it was as if he’d thrown something heavy off him, his hands in her hair and his tongue plunging into her mouth and trying to taste everything at once and she staggered back a step only to have her eyes fly open at Saji’s noise of impatience as she butted Joe with her nose. He still had the reins in his hands.

They almost laughed though they couldn’t quite manage it panting that hard but then they did after all, Joe’s other hand still on her face as he touched that soft, soft skin and Jesus they would both be on the ground in a minute, horse or no, if he didn’t let go.

He was burning for her, and just couldn’t stop himself bending to kiss her again
“ I’ll go take Saji to the stable” hardly a whisper in the inch between their mouths before he was up against her body his free hand holding her back, hard planes of his chest against her soft breasts and the bones of their hips sparking in amoungst kisses that took everything, that were more than sex in themselves, a brush of his tongue over hers and he let his hand trail down over her breast, his eyes on hers watching her lose her sight for a second or two. “I will be back with yer ...” and without being able to feel his feet he led Saji back into he stable, his fingers for once fumbling with buckles.

One foot in front of the other to get to her own door, that’s all it needed, pulling it open with slightly shaking hands and thinking only to sit down before the sight before her brought her up short. It was the same house but not the same. Everything had that fresh swept look like her Oba used to get, like she swept so hard it was amazing she hadn’t worn down the floor. She peered at the scrubbed boards under her feet and then raised her eyes to the brightly colored cloth she’d gotten at the swap she had thought to find a use for, draped over her table with a jug of flowers, early spring brilliance of bottle brush and the first blue columbines. All for her. He’d done it all for her.

She just had time to take a deep breath and realize that the food that she could smell didn’t come from her clothes – that on top of all this he had cooked something - when her next step was stilled by the feel of him behind her, waves of heat washing over her before he ever touched her.

His fingers pulled down the collar of her shirt and soft lips kissed at that place that shoulder and neck met
“She is all settled…”
It took a moment before Sarah realized what he was talking about, ah right Saji, she had a horse- that’s right. It was just a fleeting memory, he wasn’t going to stop now and she knew it - extending her neck for more suckling kisses that had her gasping his name under her breath while hands held her body hard against his.

Rough hands slipped under her shirt, Christ they may have been leather themselves and she sunk down a bit more against him, he had worked hard all his life and yet he could touch her so gentle she was melting under his hands. A soft “Sarah” in that voice that sounded more Irish when he spoke quiet and his palms touched the skin of her breasts, a graze over her nipples that had her cry out and him do it again “I want to see you”. Her fingers were there in an instant, pulling at buttons while he stroked and caressed the skin he had dreamed of.

At last she was undone and her shirt fell open, Joes hands clearing it out of his way at the same time as he turned her round to face him, his arms not leaving her, supporting her around the waist and he closed his eyes “oh but you are beautiful” a moan more than a sentence and she was in his arms as he carried her back over to the bed he wanted to live in. There was nothing but a flurry now of kisses and sucks and groans as he struggled to remove his own shirt too,

Sarah would have helped him, Jesus, she wanted to see and feel his skin against hers, but she was all caught up by the sight of his mouth at her breast, the tan of his shoulders and the swell of his muscles as he overwhelmed her with desire. All of her screamed with pleasure at the feel of his lips and tongue and teeth, her nipples tingling as if she’d been struck by lightening. He was watching her too, glancing up to see the tortured ecstasy on her face, tasting her in his mouth – real. Real after what seem like forever.

She let herself fall back onto the bed and felt herself slide along the glossy softness of the beaver pelt and she had to touch him now, her fingers threading through his hair to pull him up to her, bringing his mouth to hers while she finally slid that shirt off of him. She wanted to talk. To tell him she hadn’t stopped thinking of him either, as he had told her that night. But she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t find words at all. Couldn’t do anything but feel his hands on her and the ache in her body.

Her hands stilled on those shoulders – her palms pressed down against damp perfect skin as she arched up into him, her hips looking for his weight to press down on her now, and they both groaned as her legs fell open, everything in her wanting to take him inside. The thin cloth between them couldn’t contain a fraction of the heat and she could feel him move against her, the hardness of his cock rubbing as he gasped kisses into her mouth, all she wanted to do was pull him further and her hands did just that.

Jesus, he was gonna come before he got her pants off at this rate, he suppressed a laugh between harsh breaths at the irony of that and Joe pulled his head back from her kiss and lifted himself up off her with arms that just flexed, the cold air that flowed between them chilled her moist skin and she could have cried out at the loss of him until she felt his hands circling her ass, stroking and covering and wondering at the curve of her body, all his at last, he smiled.
“Jesus Sarah, you don’t know how many times I thought about your ass and these pants- ah perhaps you do” he smiled a bit but his voice was dark thickness itself. There was but a fraction of a second when they left her body before thumbs ran up the up the inside of her legs and Sarah cried out as her hips rose to meet them.

She rode a horse everyday, she went about the business of sitting on chairs, but here he was with just the tips of his thumbs running the seams of her pants and she might just die of want for him to even touch the swell of her sex through the cloth, there was nothing he could do that didn’t send waves of pleading through her. He could almost feel the wet – his thumbs circling and rubbing gently over skin that was so sensitive to him that she could scream. Her head went back on the pillow, she didn’t think she would watch him any more, his eyes intent on his thumbs while they touched her, as his fingers brushed over buttons. Joe’s hands were in her pants, on her hips and she heard him curse as he took the soft material down her legs.
.
Well he was here now- between her legs, kneeling between her legs and she was naked, her legs open and he bent to kiss her belly, a soft mouth on her soft belly and a his fingers were aching to touch her, he wanted everything at the same time, he had all but touched her in his thoughts and now here she was, wet and aching for him and open and he couldn’t stop, a finger tracing up her thigh, her trembling only matched by his if he was to be truthful and then he let himself touch her, a drag through her and into thick hot honey and he moaned out loud.
“Oh Christ Sarah…”

She could hardly stand it, ‘oh please don’t stop’ mutters on her breath but whatever he was doing she was going to take him with her and she took the sort of breath that would be reserved for those jumping off the highest peaks and struggled to sit up. Sarah reached for his neck to hold his mouth to hers, anything to hold on to while she did this and she felt him draw breath. Her fingers flat against his skin, she slipped under the band of his pants, they were hardly covering him anymore, hot wet silk already on the skin of his belly and her fingers worked to undo buttons, his breath ragged and full of quiet moans. Undone at last she slid heavy cloth over the most perfect angles of hips, thighs that were wire and muscle, down over defined calves and on to the floor.

“Joe...” her small dark hands folded round him, he was struggling now, his fingers tangled in the black strands of her hair as he tried to stop himself coming right then into her palm. Oh he was so soft and hard and smooth and heavy and she slid down to feel just once, a glance at his face and she thought he might draw blood from his own lip if she didn’t stop.

Jesus he wanted to move, wanted her to make him come, his hips swayed a little and he could feel it all, what it would be to have her fingers circling and rubbing him, the gentleness of her hands sliding over his skin and he very nearly lost the battle right then, a glance down at her holding him that he really shouldn’t have taken and he squeezed his eyes shut. Ol’ Ma Morgan’s soup- that would do it. Only it didn’t really, not for more than one second, and Joe took a breath.

His hands were on her shoulders now and it was just time, naked and together at last in what was left of the afternoon she was enveloped in fur and she couldn’t help but smile at him
“I want you Joe”
“Aye well thank Christ fer that..” he was grinning as much with his eyes as his mouth, his body’s answer was the draw of his hand between her legs to part her, fingers carried silk up over her belly and his hips were moving now, pressing himself up against and into her. Thick and smooth and right to the centre, the blood in her body rushing through veins and trembling limbs held on to keep him there for a moment, feel her whole body stretching round him before he pulled back to look at her face, beautiful eyes that said ‘I can’t stop’ and he hit her hard, she didn’t think she ever felt it like that, the bones of his hips indenting her thighs and his cock hardly out of her before he was back, stronger and deeper and burning in side her.

He wanted to look – wanted to see her body under his, wanted to see himself pushing into her but he couldn’t stop, and Joe took her legs in his hands, lifted them over his hips and buried his cock so hard inside her he thought he would be swallowed up, but instead she took all of his clenching shaking screaming ecstasy and mixed it with her own, their bodies rocking together while the shudders died down, not one second when they would consider not being exactly where they were now ever again.

He couldn’t quite believe he was here when he stopped gasping, still inside her and not wanting to move, couldn’t he just stay there? But it was as if his senses came back to him, just slow but they did, the cold air on his back, the smell of the stew and the sound of the night coming down. So he was in the world after all. Joe lifted his head from where it was buried in her hair and breathed in something other than just her before his eyes opened and he looked in her face.
“Sarah” just a soft whisper to prove he could speak really and he touched his lips onto hers, her tongue teased his and he smiled, there would be more and longer and he couldn’t quite imagine how it would feel better, but they would find out.

She squeezed him from the inside out, a tight hug and relishing kiss before a quiet, “I need to get up just a minute,” and it was so hard to leave her even for a few minutes now, his body demanding he keep that skin within touching distance.

She padded silently across the wood floor in the almost black room now and he heard the sound of water being poured and then poured again. “All that gasping” she smiled as she kissed him handing over a cup and deftly sliding out of a grasp that sought to pull her back. “One minute” she laughed and he wished he could see her as she moved, carefully placing three logs on the grate and crouching to blow on the embers.

The papery bark of the wood caught and burned and with a whoosh the cabin flooded with light, her coppery skin fairly glowing and Joe hardly hearing for the blood rushing through his veins. “I’d have done that, lass….”

She stood next to the bed now and looked at him, gesturing at the room behind her as she looked, “Seems to me you already did.” She smiled a huge smile that had him beaming too, “And what’s in that stew, anyway?”

It didn’t seem that Joe was of a mind to discuss culinary matters, his eyes not knowing where to settle as his hand reached up to take hers, an insistent pull
“Rabbit, I caught one this afternoon. Sometime, whenever that was” and it did seem like in some other life right now “Ah will yer come here?”
Sarah grinned and lifted one leg to slide over the top of him, there was a pause his breath before she sat and then she sank down on top of him, soft sticky sweetness.

“Had to find something to do while I waited” but he could have been reciting the Bible for all he knew rather than having a conversation, all those dreams and blurry images now sharp and he could feel her. Feel her thighs and her ass and see those breasts, her dark nipples right there, and Joe pressed down on her thighs.

Jesus her skin was soft, his hands open over her hips and the inside curve of her waist; palms over her breasts and she moaned a little and he could feel all the blood rush, his cock pulsing again. As much as he wanted to look at her, there was something else he was dying to feel and he sat up, his hands at the small of her back holding her close while he kissed her, long tasting tongue sliding kisses that made him forget for a minute what he was after. One hand slid to find the back of her head and he remembered, slipping his fingers inside silken knots and tugging a little, dragging himself away from her mouth to ask, “can I?”

Her smile was all he needed, Jesus he couldn’t keep away from that mouth even while he slid leather thongs out of knots that rested at the base of her back, gentle searching kisses that had him forget all over again for seconds at a time. Her thick hair though it seemed was in no hurry to be loosened and Joe moved to look over her shoulder, to watch his hands work the threads unwinding them as much as her. Oh they were just little pulls, soft tugs as he let strands of black tangle through his fingers but her head went back, this man could make any part of her feel like new born skin and her scalp no exception.

He was intent now, working in rhythm through her braid, fuck he wanted to feel that hair touch his chest, wanted to feel it skim over his skin while she rocked on top of him, and he sucked hard on the skin of her shoulder, she knew he was ready again, he was right there between her skin, she could slide over his cock in a second and she would, she would soon. The last twist undone, blunt fingers let themselves run through silk, separating and combing, pulling strands to fall over her breasts, sweeping over tantalising nipples and Joe couldn’t stop looking at her as he lay back , lingering fingers touching and teasing at her breasts.

She thought he looked at her as though he’d never seen a woman before, as if he still marvelled that she had curves and softness where he did not. But he touched her as if he’d known 1,000 and the knowledge in his hands made her sink into him as he did her, lovers bronzed by firelight, tenderness and heat.

*******

She complemented him on his stew and if he felt rather like a boy praised by his mum, inordinately pleased she had liked it. “I’m quite serious Joe, it’s really good. What’s your secret ingredient?”

He grinned back at her shaking head and shrugged. “I just opened up your little tins there and breathed in to see what it would taste like…like you in that blanket the other morning. Only I didn’t get to open that up, Christ Sarah I didn’t think I’d make it to the week’s end”

“Oh, that reminds me…” she was quick as a rabbit herself, jumping up to retrieve the book by the fire and sliding back on to the bed, one more drink of savoury broth before he took the warm stone bowl from her hands and set both of theirs on the floor, Cheetie appearing as if from nowhere to search for her evening treat.

Joe smiled fondly at the book she held, never did tell her about where he had been in Venice on his own that night, but now he wasn’t alone, she was between his legs and against his chest and he wasn’t even sure they weren’t inside the same skin.
“See where your fingers land Joe” she chuckled at the thought of it all, pressing the flat of the book into his hands

He laughed back “Aye Byrne Expedition’s around the world, but all from your bed. I reckon not to bother with selling tickets then” and the tenderness of his kiss made her wriggle back into him searching for another inch of contact if any was to be had. He cleared his throat and allowed his fingers to flick over the pages. Venice, Rome, Pompeii all passing under them until he was nearing the end of the book, going further than he had thought to and quickly opening a page before leaning his head back against the wall.
“Your turn Lass..” and she opened the book wide to take in the print all before her.

At 6 o'clock P.M., we came to a halt here on the breezy summit of a shapely mountain overlooking the sea, and the handsome valley where dwelt some of those enterprising Phoenicians of ancient times we read so much about; all around us are what were once the dominions of Hiram, King of Tyre, who furnished timber from the cedars of these Lebanon hills to build portions of King Solomon's Temple with.

They might have just stepped out onto the moon, a smile on both their lips and a heartbeat of anticipation of what they dimly knew to be the Holy lands to some.

Shortly after six, our pack train arrived. I had not seen it before, and a good right I had to be astonished. We had nineteen serving men and twenty-six pack mules! It was a perfect caravan. It looked like one, too, as it wound among the rocks…

Sarah told him in hushed soft tones of the crimson gold and blue tents and the iron beds, the soft white towels and velvet opulence of this camp in the desert, all the while Joe listened, his fingers touching her skin or her hair, waking from his dream to kiss her shoulder and remind himself that whilst they were now flying on magic carpets to the place where the spices of life crumbled different colours, he was here with her on the fur of her bed.

Sarah’s eyes flew faster than her lips “Joe! Oh will yer listen to this!”
It grew dark, and they put candles on the tables -- candles set in bright, new, brazen candlesticks. And soon the bell -- a genuine, simon-pure bell -- rang, and we were invited to " the saloon." I had thought before that we had a tent or so too many, but now here was one, at least, provided for; it was to be used for nothing but an eating-saloon. Like the others, it was high enough for a family of giraffes to live in,

He frowned as deep as her “Giraffes? I can’t say that I know what one of them looks like.”
Sarah was shaking her head too, “giants you think? A family of giants?” wonder and imagination all sparkling as she pictured those billowing canvases home to enormous beings.

“Well I think we should make it our business to find out about Giraffes wouldn’t you say?” his mouth touching her ear sending streaks of pleasure all through her “what next? The giants eat the banquet?” a little giggle and he laid his head back as she read on.
Those stately fellows in baggy trowsers and turbaned fezzes brought in a dinner which consisted of roast mutton, roast chicken, roast potatoes, bread, tea, pudding, apples, and delicious grapes; the viands were better cooked than any we had eaten for weeks, and the table made a finer appearance, with its large German silver candlesticks and other finery, than any table we had sat down to for a good while, and yet that polite dragoman, Abraham, came bowing in and apologizing for the whole affair, on account of the unavoidable confusion of getting under way for a very long trip, and promising to do a great deal better in future !
“Ah see he should have served up rabbit stew, yer can’t get better than that” and Sarah smiled as she turned to brush over his lips with her own, the whisper of the start of their own very long trip.

Cowboy Story

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 08:16:25 GMT

Colorado- nuit 2005/pirates_cove13

*Subject: It is a story concerning Joe Byrne, and an OC called Sarah (and no, her middle name is not Mary Sue ;-)) It is set in the American West around 1885
*Rating: It is NC17 by the end
*Disclaimer: Did some one mention money? Well we don't have any, though if anyone wants to pay us to write please form an orderly queue..heehhe. Seriously Joe Byrne was obviously a real man, this is a work of fiction inspired by Orlando Blooms portrayal of him in the film Ned Kelly, and takes place in a time after those events which in reality led to his death. We have enormous respect for history and no harm is intended to the real Joe Byrne nor any one connected with him
*Feedback: Any comments, criticism, professions of undying love are acceptable and welcome. It is not beta'd, so please look upon mistakes as local colour..
Hope you like it.

Mata icon beauty today. One more chapter after this one..

Chapter 5

“STOP!” She froze without thinking, she didn’t think she’d ever heard Jacob yell like that and she stared at him now in utter confusion. His hand was around her wrist and he gently up righted the bottle in her hand. “It’s the chili peppers, Sarah.” He looked at her just as uncomprehendingly, “It’s the chili peppers you are putting in the flapjacks – not the cinnamon next to it there.” Funny enough she looked at the shelf first to find that cinnamon before she turned her hand and whispered a word that made Jacob’s ears prick up.

“Right well that will be two secrets between us then, Jacob-and thank you…I seem to have a few things on my mind this morning I guess.”

He looked at her quiet and thoughtful for a few minutes. She looked back, sort of, but seemed far away still. Jacob’s eyes screwed up in concentration looking for clues and then opened wide in astonishment when he realized he knew that expression and shuddered. “You don’t think I could get it, do you? Is it only girls that get it or is it like the flux we had last summer when we was all pukin’..”

‘What are you talking about?”

“That look on your face- like my sisters got. That look when they talk about that new guy, Jake, and they get all stupid and they giggle.” And with a look that clearly communicated a sense of betrayal that his friend, with whom he’d been through everything, might suddenly get like his sisters – it was too much, and she idly thought ‘that needs oil’ as she listened to the kitchen door swing back and forth behind him.

It was still early, a shake of his head that was all about extra minutes that would never have been enough and Joe took a sip of the bitter coffee that dripped from the pot. Strong, to take the taste of her away. He had to get on with this.

No one was about talking much until noon at least when they stopped to eat some of the bread Mrs. Morgan had wrapped for them, the soft lowing of the cows making the serenade for a rustic lunch
“You really made Loretta mad.” Cain was attempting to chew on the frankly less than fresh crust “rushing off like that. What’s up with yer? We don’t have to watch our backs now do we?”, he had a coarse laugh.

Suddenly the others seemed more interested in the meal than it’s quality demanded, though it didn’t seem like they was doing much chewing.
There was just a click
“You might be needing to watch yer back mate, but it won’t be because I am about to jump yer. You are an ugly bastard and no mistake” Joe knew at least one of the others would laugh, a breath taken that eased the air and opened it up for him to lean forward, there was not even a hint of a smile on his lips though and his pistol weighed heavy in his hand
“My business is mine, be safest for you to remember that”

After that the afternoon didn’t yield much more in the way of conversation and Joe concentrated his mind on the cattle, shit they walked slow, he was of a mind to start a stampede. Two or three days, Christ every time he allowed himself back into that room he could feel a warm in the pit of his belly that spread down his legs and clouded his reason. If he made it back without riding off a ridge before the week’s end he’d be lucky.

Friday- it was Friday at last. If they got those cattle settled real quick, he would be asking the almost impossible of Chuchip, ah but she would give it anyhow. His hands tangled in her mane giving it a friendly pull and she raised her head, and if a horse could smile he thought she just did. He could feel a buzz now- not much longer and he would be inside her. Fuck, the thought of it was almost enough to undo him. She might even be in bed by the time he got there- these bloody cowboys having less than a reason to hurry; they’d even talked about ending up in Silverton for the night instead of going home. Wisely Cain had declined to refer to the proposed evening’s entertainment for fear that ol’ Mrs. Morgan might be able to afford that new hat after all on account of him not collecting his wages.

The others scouted round Joe now, he knew what he was doing alright, him and that horse it seemed knew where those cattle were about to go before they had put their bovine thoughts together, but well there was a sigh of relief that he wouldn’t be joining them in Silverton, that he had business back in Durango. He was just quiet. Their tales of conquests round the fire of an evening were nothing new- Christ a few weeks ago he might have topped the lot with a tale or two, well a tale of two maybe- those usually got him some wide eyes, approving mutters and the sort of shaking head respect that only men could give, as long as it wasn’t their sister he was talking about that was.

Now he was just listening- taking in those stories of quick fucks and getting away with it and wondering to himself what the faces of those women looked like, what they felt. Ah shit- he was no better, alright he made them smile but he still left the next morning, or the next week or the next month, well and maybe he made them cry more too. He had nothing to add to the cowboy talk, to share his women. Joe smiled, well they all had a bit of him, maybe that was the way to think on it, but to share them with these men seemed to him right now to rip at their hearts when he had no business doing so. So he kept quiet and drank too much and waited for the quiet of the night to see if he could hear her on the wind.

But today was Friday and it was a happier Joe Byrne that was now whistling and guiding the cattle, the grass in sight- and it was definitely greener on the other side.
“Someone put something in yer tea Joe?” Jed, the youngest of the men shouted across the herd “haven’t see yer smile since we started out and now you might frighten the cows with all that white”

“Yer cheeky Bugger- well now I know maybes I haven’t been the life of the party.” A guffaw from Wolf made Joe laugh “Aye alright then, well next time I might educate you on the ways of making women smile, since from what I heard you barely got them to notice you were there..” there was a few seconds before Wolf laughed loud and Joe smiled “If yer let me come herd cattle with yer that is” a wink at Cain made him release his shoulders for the first time in days. In the way that men seemed to go on that was just the end of the conversation, a done deal that none of them doubted for a moment, and the hooves went on pounding over towards the lush grass.

It was mid afternoon when the clouds came over the way they did in the mountains- one moment you were on yer back looking at azure blue the next moment the peaks were throwing hurling black into the sky. “Holy shit…” he pulled his jacket up round his neck as the first pound of rain hit the ground with the force of a bull. He could see it slipping, her bed slipping away from him just as the cows were now in the top soil that became a river almost immediately. But a crack of lightening sent all thoughts out of his head and the cattle into a spin of panic.

He had seen cows spooked before- their eyes had it, the sheer rising panic evident in those eyes.
“Jed! Get to the front of the herd!” he was struggling to get himself heard through the rain and the startled noise of the cows. The young man had his whole body battling against the rain, not long before Joe couldn’t even see him anymore for all the water that was washing over his face. Wolf he could hear bellowing to Cain, some of the cattle had left the main herd and were headed to nowhere that any of them could rightly see.

“Keep these together! Just keep them close!” And Joe galloped off into the mud. Herding cattle on the run was never easy, when they were going every which way with each new crack of thunder, it was nigh on impossible. Joe’s quick eyes scanned the group for the oldest cow. This was going to take some doing. Dodging flailing legs and hefty backs that even Chuchip would have had trouble standing a nudge from, he wove his way through.
“Christ” a whinny from his horse as she slid and Joe leant to pat her neck “come on lass.”
A mixture of putting himself in the way and herding them to rougher ground where their flight was impeded eventually had them slow and he turned them back to the pass, completely drenched and gasping for breath, his fingers scratched round Chuchips ears, she was as much as part of his body as himself sometimes.

There was no way he could leave- the cattle still wide eyed and the rains still threatening to drown them all, and Joe tipped his head back, she would be waiting for him, and he wasn’t going to be there, not today. Fuck it. That was the night, round and round as much as those storm clouds in the sky and by the time Saturday dawned he felt like he had been eaten up by something much bigger than him.

*******

Her tea had gone cold and her shoulders slumped a bit. It was late and she’d have to get up at her usual time in the morning, her eyes would feel like they had half the mountain in them.

All of her was cold and she thought she might just manage one more cup and still keep her eyes open. Cheetie felt her restlessness and hopped off her lap before she even had to ask.
She put the water on to boil and grabbed a blanket from the bed before going out to the door again.

It was ice out here tonight. Spring seeming to have been a joke, but the sky so clear that each star was outlined with a diamond edge and it hurt just a little bit to breathe. If he wasn’t near a fire….a parade of wolves and big cats and bigger bears went through her mind like those ladies floated by on the Grand Canal – she and Saji had been out for a ride 2 Sundays ago and seen one, quite far away thankfully. Must have been 12 feet from tip to tail. She hadn’t even told Jacob in case he couldn’t keep a secret that was 12 feet long – next thing she knew there’d have been a hunt for sure, the idiots.

No No NO! She scolded herself as the kettle hissed. He’s not alone after all. And surely a big cat would go for a calf rather than a scrawny human any day. Who’d eat chicken when they could have veal? She laughed and had an urge to apologize; making a mental note not to tell Joe she’d compared him to a chicken. Who was she kidding – she’d tell him for sure as soon as he was back where he should already be by now.

She made the catmint this time, thinking it might help her sleep and it smelled like home and she heard her mother’s voice gently chiding her. “You’ve lived with white people too long, daughter. All their calendars and clocks. He is moving with the animals and they have there own time. He’ll get there.”

”I know he will” she started to argue and then caught herself up short. She did know. She could feel him burning and tender all at once when he’d come to say he was leaving and she knew he would be back, as soon as he could. The tea was a present for Cheetie as she crawled under the covers and closed her eyes.

The morning brought a clearer sky, enough anyhow for the cattle to be moved up to their corral and Joe breathed a sigh of relief when the gate was tied up, the heads counted and hands shaken. Could he go now?
“Wolf, you boys have a drink for me in Silverton and tell Ol’ Morgan to keep me wages for me would ya?”
It was going to be a good hard ride back to Durango, a couple of hours and Joe looked at the sky, pleading for good weather, not that he was going to need a wind at his back, Chuchip could feel his anxiety go on and stamped her hooves. A last goodbye to the men and Joe shifted his hips ‘let’s go lass” and they were almost flying. He had seen pictures of the constellations once, tried to find them in the sky too, lying on his back on hard ground letting his eyes be dazzled by the sheer numbers of stars there till you couldn’t really see a scrap of black between then. Anyway that was it - an archer on a horse, ah sure he had a pistol not a bow but the leaps Chuchip made over the ground were just like it and they were almost flying back home.

Ah, now home, well that might be a bit of a presumption- but whatever it was it was pulling him in, she was pulling him and wrapping him in a blanket. Jesus. He wanted to be in that bed.

It was noon by the time he came fast into the clearing. Breathless and blown by the speed he had been traveling Joe looked around and puzzled for a moment, there was no smoke from the chimney, the doors and windows all shut and he frowned before it dawned on him, ah sure she wasn’t going to be sitting there waiting- she had work to do. He allowed his body to sink before he slid down from Chuchip’s back and led her to the trough, his fingers slipping through leather and buckles to unsaddle her as she drunk. She was hot- a layer of damp covered her flanks and her back, she had got him here as fast as she could and Joe rubbed her neck. A peer through the window confirmed it she was gone, though the sight of that blanket draped over the cushions of the bed made Joe wince and shift around in his pants, Christ he’d not blame his cock for going on strike at this rate.

His legs were a little unsteady from the ride, well it might have been that, and he sat for a minute or two smoking a thin cigarette on the chopping block where he had first seen her, a smile gracing his mouth as he remembered. He didn’t have a clue where she worked.

Cook, he could cook for her make her a welcome home, a table like in those flash hotels he had seen in the big towns- they had flowers and all and a cloth with the forks all straight and gleaming. Aye that was it. There wasn’t a moment to loose, nothing short of perfect would be the thing, though he smiled at himself then too- sure she wouldn’t mind sitting cross-legged on the floor to eat no doubt either, nor maybe even in a tent made from blankets on her bed.

Christ he had to stop thinking about that bed otherwise it would be all done the moment she looked at him. His hand brushed over his hips, fuck he was aching, ‘Joe Byrne- will yer get a grip of yerself, ah no don’t do that” a small smile to himself as he sighed “go make the lass some food’ to which Chuchip whinnied her agreement and looked on at Joe who was up and in the barn searching for wire and the means by which to make a trap. Expert eyes scoured the surrounding hill until he found the trail, hidden entrances and droppings that were a sure sign of rabbits. She had to have some vegetables some place, some corn maybe and the traps set, Joe let his hand rest on the latch of her door.

The click made him swallow, Jesus he had walked into bars where he was likely as not be shot feeling less nervous, but the open door revealed something like heaven, and his eyes took it all in. A cup stood on the table from her morning many hours ago, it was just her, the smell and the feel of the air and Joe pulled the door shut behind him, breathing lightly he went to the hearth and sorted the scraps of wood into the makings of a fire, he’d light that once the rabbit was skinned. Turning round to reach the large pot his eyes caught a scrap of paper on the table.

He couldn’t quite dare look at it a moment, carefully fashioned script in a straight line-
“Make yourself comfortable. There is bread in the store. I finish at 2. Sarah”

***********
By rights she ought to be ready to slide off Saji’s back and collapse right about now. Her back hurt in fact, Mr. Mac in a big rush at breakfast this morning to tell her he had some investors he’d gotten interested in a new venture – talked 'em into it over poker in town last night to come for a real barbecue. City fellas so they wanted it all done up right, show 'em a real cowboy time. Hate to ask this of you Sarah, but just this once might ya stay and for the first time ever she’d said no. Was expecting a guest, she’d told him – and more than she’d usually volunteer but under the circumstances – but she wouldn’t leave him in the lurch either.

So now there was beans to feed all of Southwest Colorado and a cabbage patch worth of coleslaw and there was nothing like moving around a whole side of beef to make a person dog tired and hell it had to be close to four. Had she gotten out at 2 she coulda walked home by now and it’d be Joe’s turn to worry. If he was there.

She heard about the storm when she got to the ranch this morning. Bad news traveling fast, seemed some family’s house had gotten washed clean away. She didn’t know she was holding her breath till they topped over the last hill but she could already smell it before hand, and the place wasn’t on fire. She was coming home to a fire and her eyes found him leaning up against the corral, Jesus a fire indeed flashed through all the tips of her, and she’d never been more awake in her life as she and Saji did their best to look like they weren’t hurrying down that hill.

Cowboy Story

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 07:49:13 GMT

Colorado- nuit 2005/pirates_cove13

*Subject: It is a story concerning Joe Byrne, and an OC called Sarah (and no, her middle name is not Mary Sue ;-)) It is set in the American West around 1885
*Rating: It is NC17 by the end
*Disclaimer: Did some one mention money? Well we don't have any, though if anyone wants to pay us to write please form an orderly queue..heehhe. Seriously Joe Byrne was obviously a real man, this is a work of fiction inspired by Orlando Blooms portrayal of him in the film Ned Kelly, and takes place in a time after those events which in reality led to his death. We have enormous respect for history and no harm is intended to the real Joe Byrne nor any one connected with him
*Feedback: Any comments, criticism, professions of undying love are acceptable and welcome. It is not beta'd, so please look upon mistakes as local colour..
Hope you like it.

Mata icon beauty today, there are 2 more chapters after this.

Chapter 4

She was lying in a tree. Breakfast over and a few things simmering for tonight’s supper, time for a break and the white ash called to her. Down here in the valley Spring was two weeks further along than at her cabin and she was surrounded by a brilliant leafy green. The tree was enormous – had stood here long before there was a ranch, before there were white people, before her great grandmother was born, back when all the land you could see and then way beyond that was the living and hunting grounds of the Ute.

Since she was a child, she loved to sit in trees, that feeling of being of the earth, but not quite in it, her own little green world where she could think or eat or take a nap.
She let her eyes drift up to the canopy of curving dappled green and hummed with pleasure feeling herself cradled by the thick heavy branches. The sound of an approaching rider caught her ear and turned her head and she rolled over onto her stomach to peer down for a better look.

Well wouldn’t you know…Chuchip looked sprightly, clearly feeling better she told herself approvingly. Well alright she shouldn’t lie to herself at least, not the first thing she noticed well yes it was too but also that Joe looked awfully good sitting on top of her. She watched as he swung one long leg over to dismount, tying the horses’ reins to the rail and speaking with Charlie who then was off the in the direction of the barn. Mr. Evans returned - interesting – maybe looking for work? But really those were the most detached of thoughts. Mostly her eyes just followed him. How he moved. Confident – not cocky just at the moment though he could be she knew, but all loose limbed and like he’d be ready for whatever came along. Hee hee, she wondered how he’d do with a panther dropping on him out of a tree – that might fluster him a bit..oh…maybe best not to dwell on what that would feel like, her on top of him and a growling bite to his neck…damn but the man did disturb her peace.

They were too far and there was too much other noise for her to hear, but she saw Mr. Evans now gesturing with his hands – giving directions. Didn’t find what he came for here then. She watched him nod and shake hands and she was so tempted to go say hello…but too many of the men where around. Better not. Better see him again with less of an audience. Well that was her nap done for now.

Well he’s made a good start, a positive tip for the next ranch in the valley, and if they needed horsemen then they were in luck. Aye that was the way to approach the thing- ‘what can do for yer Mr. Morgan? I hear you are in need of hands, and as luck would have it, I was passing’ Fact was he hadn’t quite intended or thought about staying this particular place, these mountains must have had a hundred towns like this, but well he could do with a few dollars in his pocket. Right, yes that was it, and Joe squeezed Chuchip with his thighs for the wind to whip through his thoughts.

Mr. Evans had been right, that very next day some stock was to be moved from their winter grazing to new pastures uncovered by melting snow further up the mountain and the ranch owner was in need of some hired hands, well it was only going to be a short bit of work, but enough to get a roll to win on at the card tables.
“And how long will we be gone from Durango if yer don’t mind me askin’?”

“Two – Three days. Got a schedule to keep to, have yer lad?” Mr. Morgan looked up from his calculations.
Joe looked at the ranch owner and hoped to hell there wasn’t a flush on his cheeks as he pulled his jacket round him.

“Nah, just some thing to attend to, a couple of days will be just grand. Will I start now then since I am here?”

Mr. Morgan sighed and lifted his eyes again “Well some of the lads are putting fences back to rights after the winter storms, down that way a mile or two “ old fingers pointed to a ridge you had to squint to see “No doubt they could do with a hand if its to be done by next year. Call in the ranch with them after, they’ll be some food for the lot of you, and well if I know them they will be heading down town to spend money they didn’t earn yet.”

Joe nodded before a quick shake of the man’s hand which did for an agreement and he rode off in search of hard work and something to take up his mind. The rest of the day went quickly enough, though he wished on reflection he’s not bothered with that bath, swinging the mallet to embed posts even in the deep softness of the earth had left his muscles growling with complaint after several hours, and the mud of the mountains streaked on his skin.

Still it was good to have some company, and Joe could feel himself slipping back into his skin as they rode slow and lazy back to the ranch, a huge wooden table on the porch had been laid with mismatched bowls and spoons that looked like they had had been forged by a blacksmith who had smoked too many of them pipes. The first spoonful though sent him flying back there, to her table and her cat and her soup. The thin water he had in his mouth now his body seemed undecided about taking in, and it was a while before he swallowed, this was no curiously scented rich mix of beef marrow and cold ripened carrots, and he pushed the bowl away after a few mouthfuls. No appetite all of a sudden.

“No wonder you are all bones.” Mrs. Morgan’s tone pulled him back to her table.

“Ah sure now it was a fine soup, truly a marvel, a little heavy on the seasoning fer me delicate constitution” the smiling wink he gave her leaving the woman assured of her own culinary skills and the other men chuckling. They liked him already. Though it wasn’t obvious how a man that wiry could work that hard, he had, and well a stranger with a few stories to tell on a night they intended sitting many hours in a bar was something in these parts.

Jed, a fresh faced bull of a boy, the no doubt nobly named Cain, a man whose name apparently meant ‘Wolf’ in the language of the Ute, and Joe took their leave, a solemn promise to be back at dawn if not before to see those cattle moved on and they sank into the sort of warm anticipation of beer and company and a night that, if it went as planned, they would struggle to remember in the first light.

The bar was loud, well there was rarely a quiet night frankly, the town being one where the limits of existence and the possibilities of your life were all too painfully exposed to not have another whiskey. Well that was if you never lifted your eyes up to the mountains.

Joe started drinking heavily with them, one round after another of rough alcohol and cards - funny how the 2 went together. A warm buzz in his belly that was all about staying right there, when hands went around his chest,

“You looking for some company?”

Of course he was, he wanted to feel himself slip into a warm wet body, press down on top of her , open her legs, feel her tongue with his. His head went back to feel the softness of breasts behind it, a cushion to sink into, his dark eyes looked up into a face that smiled. Painted blue eyes and soft blonde curls. Jesus she was pretty.

One hand was already playing with his buttons, the lads around the table egging him on, and he could feel a flood of desire

“I’ve to be up early..fer work..” Christ, did he really say that? That woman really was going to be the death of him.

A soft painted mouth was next to his ear “well you don’t have to marry me first….”
Joe closed his eyes, this was just crazy, he had money, he had a hard cock and he it seemed had a woman who would do what he wanted to do, she just wasn’t her. A deep breath and Joe unpeeled her fingers from his waistcoat
“Lovely as you are me beauty, I need me sleep” a finger down her cheek, that almost took him, she had soft skin “see yer in the morning lads..” and a table full of wide eyes followed the long steps up the stairs.

He was almost glad to be alone. His head back on the pillow he shut his eyes. He needed to tell her, that he would be gone, that he hadn’t stolen her book, that he was still thinking about her. Jesus, had he stopped? It would be morning soon.

Too worried about missing the dawn. Fuck the cattle, he wanted to see her. His horse was woken by his gentle chucks, saddled with the ease of someone who could do it in the dark, and he was on her back. Off into the quiet that was predawn

Sarah was frowning a little at the something poking her, burrowing under the covers to escape attempts to rouse her from sleep. A new assault as the something walked up the backs of her legs and along her spine and a tell tale batting at her hair. A threat of ‘you will never eat fish again’ bitten off as she heard a tapping at the door that grew into a knocking.

She was out of bed as fast as a mostly asleep person can be, blanket in one hand and gun in the other before she heard his voice, “Sarah…Sarah are you not up yet lass? I thought you were up before the chickens….”

Relaxing a little she wondered if she had overslept – she never did that, “It’s Joe,” he added unnecessarily, and she shivered, pulling the blanket tighter around her as she walked to the door, Cheetie purring happily now that he’d succeeded in getting her up.

She didn’t think really, just pulled the door open as if it were somehow not at all strange for this man she barely knew to arrive at her door in the wee hours. “Joe?” her reply and then a long silence as she felt him drink her in, just the slightest flush through her as she realized the blanket didn’t cover that much at all and the look on his face…the cold metal of the gun lock dangled on her fingers now and Joe reached to take it from her, “sure, you weren’t going to shoot me – it’s only been two days,” he took the gun from her now and leaned it in the corner, “and I did bring it back.” She was bewildered at first –what time was it anyway – but Mark Twain finally came into focus. And she reached to take it, the blanket slipping just a little as she did so.

Joe leaned back against the door frame and watched Venice fly through her head, fuck she looked good, her hair all a tangle of black strands and Jesus he could see the tan skin of her thighs tantalizing from behind wool. She had been in bed, and he was breathing in the scent of her from bare skin, folds of warm scent pulling him in.

“Why did you bring it back now Joe? Library is shut. At least till morning” a small smile and she could feel her body and her mind waking up, little stretches into a day that was still foggy with dreams.

“Well its like this Sarah, I’ve some work at Morgan’s ranch, starts at dawn..soon.. and I’ll be away and I didn’t want you to think I’d have run off with yer book” Sarah reached to close the door behind him a frown on her face, but the closing nearness of her body made him swallow, he might have caught her arm then, she was so close, and he could almost feel that skin brushing against wool, Christ her breasts were inches from his chest, from his hands.

“You are going away?”

“Well just a couple of days and all, yer know. Some cattle ranching. I will be back, you know that I will…” his breath was harsher now. Almost everything else was gone from his head.

Sarah scraped a stray wisp of hair from face and shook it down her back “but you thought I might wonder where you were?”

Joe looked back at her, no sleep and her half naked in front of him and it was just unstoppable
“Well. I hoped yer might. Christ Lass, I can’t stop thinking about yer. To tell the truth I’ve not slept a wink waiting to come here ..” his blunt fingers reached to touch the side of her face, a thumb brushing her lip, rough skin caught on the red brown curve and her tongue instinctively reached to soothe. She thought she might be able to hear a moth flap it’s wings, he was looking right at her, his eyes drawn down her throat to where the blanket was grasped in her hand at her breast.

He was holding his breath to see what she would do, holding himself back for her answer to his fingers.

“You were waiting to bring my book back?” her mouth moved to brush against him. He had her reply.

Joe still had a grin on his lips when they touched hers,
“No Sarah, to do this...”

It was sweet and surprisingly soft his mouth, gentle and testing but she could feel all that he was holding in check behind it and she pressed back, her tongue seeking his. She felt him startle and then step into her, all of him seeming to move more around her with a soft groan that she felt through her whole body.

Joe could almost feel his muscles straining, it would be so easy, Christ she was kissing him back, kissing- only this wasn’t, this was letting him taste her, letting his tongue do what his cock was ready to do, showing him, just the edge of what they would be, and he wanted her right then. It would be so easy to lift her up, let that blanket slip down, let his eyes and his hands and his mouth have those breasts. Fuck he wanted to feel her ass, he wanted all of her. His head went back against the door frame, his hands on her bare shoulders and his breath heavy, if she moved her hips one inch, those cattle could go graze the moon

“Sarah. Lass, I have no idea how to let go of you….”

She didn’t answer right away; just stood stock still and swallowed, the two of them straining to get enough air in this dizzying freefall to think clearly.

“Maybe I’d better help then,” she finally managed and took a step backward, just enough that his hands left her shoulders and trailed down her arms, perilously close to her breasts and she stepped back a little more, his arms falling down to his sides. She thought she heard a thunk as his head hit the door frame again and she had to smile a little.

“Ride Fast, Joe. I’ll be here – I’ll be here when you get back.”

That didn’t exactly seem to help so much, the air escaping from his mouth telling its own story about how he had no desire to go anywhere that wasn’t inside her. Joe’s eyes were a little unfocused
“Aye well you’ve work an all” he was trying to convince himself evidently that the best course of action was to leave despite the scream of every other bit of him. “I will be off then. It’s nearly dawn. Be two or three days I shouldn’t wonder. Sarah..Ah Jesus, well I don’t need to tell yer. I’ll be gone”.

It might not have been wise, but he couldn’t stop himself- a tortuous brush of his lip over her bare shoulder, oh she had silk skin and he moaned just a little “Alright, alright the damn cows are waiting, and ol’ Morgan, I know” a little half smile and he turned to lift the latch.
A curse that Sarah was surprised didn’t wake the birds echoed round the small bit of sky that circled the little cabin, sky that was just about to lighten, and she listened to the hooves disappear all over again. Only this time they were moving fast, the blood quick around every vein in his body.

Sarah stared at Cheetie who stared at the door, seeming to hope it might open again. A long sigh as she turned to look at the sleeping furs and blankets and pillows, a thousand thoughts racing like a fast horse through her mind and no, if she got back in it she might never get up.

Cowboy Story

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 07:58:20 GMT

This morning's broadcast from the BBC- is a little more steamy, so please make sure all minors leave the room..

Colorado- nuit 2005/pirates_cove13

*Subject: It is a story concerning Joe Byrne, and an OC called Sarah (and no, her middle name is not Mary Sue ;-)) It is set in the American West around 1885
*Rating: It is NC17 by the end
*Disclaimer: Did some one mention money? Well we don't have any, though if anyone wants to pay us to write please form an orderly queue..heehhe. Seriously Joe Byrne was obviously a real man, this is a work of fiction inspired by Orlando Blooms portrayal of him in the film Ned Kelly, and takes place in a time after those events which in reality led to his death. We have enormous respect for history and no harm is intended to the real Joe Byrne nor any one connected with him
*Feedback: Any comments, criticism, professions of undying love are acceptable and welcome. It is not beta'd, so please look upon mistakes as local colour..
Hope you like it.
Mirk icon beauty today

Chapter 3

It had been a jagged cold ride down to the town, not made any better by the fact that having been thoroughly warmed through, his body was complaining about riding again. Joe smiled, his hand resting on his hip to hold the reins and well he could almost feel quite how warm she had made him, she’d fed his belly, his imagination and his eyes and now he wasn’t with her he didn’t feel quite so guilty about that last one. See now there was a word he didn’t like, but she’d had him feel guilty for looking at her without the right to, not that she said anything of the sort, and he hoped to Christ she hadn’t seen him looking when she bent over that fire, or followed his gaze when she had been swinging that axe and there was just a glimpse of soft skin, Joe shut his eyes for a second ‘clearly been in them mountains too long ol’ man’ he muttered out loud.

And then to add to it then she had told him where to go to find some relief but now come to think of it, the appeal of whiskey and a woman, some cards and perhaps another woman- things he had allowed his mind to wander to only last night while he tried to stop the icy fingers of the ground sneaking under his blanket, all those things had lost a bit of their luster. Fuck.

The town looked like any other, wide hard dirt streets and an array of mismatched wooden buildings either side; he could hear the honky tonk piano already. With something of a sigh he slipped down from Chuchip’s back and tied her rein to the post outside the wooden building.

A bed for the night anyhow, that would do the trick and having secured stabling for his horse and a bottle of whiskey Joe took the stairs two at a time to a small room with barely more than a bed and a chest of draws. Jesus he was tired, with a thunk his boots hit the floor and he laid down, the covers underneath him and the ceiling above, flat space at last. It must have been several minutes before he moved again, all that rush and mix and tension he had felt, just about subsiding enough for his mind to think again. A glance over to his jacket hanging on the back of the door and Joe reached up slowly, his long body stretching to feel inside his pocket for her book, a slug of whiskey before his head hit the pillow and he held it up in front of his eyes.

Just for a few minutes, he would read for a few minutes before he went back down stairs to the bar. The waters of a floating city though took him back to her room and to a warm coziness where his body just sunk into the bed, this was good, and Joe pulled the covers up around himself almost without thinking. Through the thin wood of the door he could hear the piano and voices raised in laughter, the scrapes of chairs over the floor and the shouts of men finding themselves in proud possession of a few dollars more. But it all faded in and out some how like the tide splashing against the walls of buildings that had withstood storms and still refused to submit to the sea. Venice.

He could almost feel the tide come to think of it, ah Jesus, this bed creaked. So much for not keeping the neighbours awake once he got back down stairs to find a woman to pass the time with, a quick seconds glance had identified a couple in the bar. Hang on one second now, the bed had creaked and Joe’s eyes rolled a bit when he got it, he hadn’t been lying so still afterall.

Joe let his memory of her sneak back in to the front of his mind, she had nearly said yes, he would have been there now, in amoungst all those covers and furs, a flash of his hand over her ass made him catch his breath and he shifted on the bed. Shaking his head he let the book close on his chest, it wasn’t just her ass, that was the problem- she had let him in her house, she had given him blackberries, and his horse tea, shared his poor excuse for a cigarette, Christ it was beginning to sound a little too homey, be dreaming of darning socks next, oh but what’s the betting her fingers would look good doing that too, strong, she had strong fingers, and his cock was really starting to complain now.

Joe reached down to pull at the material. Shuffle around a bit, he would go downstairs soon, just finish this thought, but it felt good to have some pressure, so he left his hand there.

She moved quietly and with purpose, yes that was it, she was herself, real and on the ground, not some flighty giggling thing, a little smile though as he remembered her a bit flustered. “I have thought of something, if your willing” IF he was willing? That wasn’t the issue here, oh that felt good, just a rub, and his eyes closed. Willing indeed, he’d have let her sit on top of him on the bare earth there and then.

Jesus he had to stop that, where the fuck were those flashes coming from of her thighs on top of his hips, his hands on her skin? Ok just go with that a minute or two, and his hand moved over the cloth of his pants, his cock didn’t seem to mind too much one way or the other, pressing up, Jesus he was going to have a stain on these pants, oh that would look impressive “hey Sarah, here’s yer book, oh don’t mind me, I just wanked thinking about yer last night.”

Alright so better to undo the buttons, his fingers not doing exactly what he wanted, shit, she was doing him in, a rip of metal through cloth and with something like surprise he had his cock in his hand. What the fuck was he doing? There were women downstairs who as likely would do it for free if he asked them, not that he would, but well, out in the mountains was one thing, right here when there was women within a few feet, if yer went straight down that was..his hand slid down and he just held it there. More of those effin' flashes, her legs open over his and a patch of dark hair, and Joe closed his eyes, dark nipples and soft breasts moving as she did on top of him, and he was bloody panting now. No, it would be too much of an effort not to call one of them ‘Sarah’, better this right now, and he let his hand move faster his thumb squeezing to catch the head of his cock.

And another thing, they didn’t wear pants..those women, and they didn’t have hair like her, and nor did they make him so hard he couldn’t concentrate, and Joe Byrne gave up trying not to let flashes of her body take him over, he let her breasts and her hips and her legs and her mouth and her eyes and that ass pull him along. His strong hand doing exactly what he needed now, his head back, Jesus, I want her, and he held in the cry as his come spattered out, shakes of it rolling through his tense body. He reached out to pull her mouth to his, Christ that was good Sarah, a deep sigh as it took him by surprise; it was only air his fingers could feel.

********

She woke as she always did at 4:00, but not as wide-awake as usual after a curious night of dreams and restlessness. Still she didn’t have to think yet, tea and bread and butter for her first breakfast while she pulled on clothes, heading out to the barn mug in hand to let the goats out and give Saji her morning oats, break the ice on the trough. Wouldn’t be long before she’d have milking to add to her list of morning chores, Ninny’s belly was round as could be but she should have another week or two yet.

Cheetie gave her that forlorn look he always did after she’d been home for a day.
‘I thought you had finished with all that work nonsense.’ He got a good scritch in recompense but he could catch his own breakfast if he was hungry. She would bring him home his usual treats later – Cheetie was the best fed cat West of the Mississippi most likely…Sarah looked at him out of he corner of her eye as he sat on Joe’s chair – hmph. Ridiculous. “Well you were no help” she told the cat, ‘throwing yourself at him like that,” a swish of the tail and turn of the head said clearly ‘don’t be absurd’ and Cheetie at least was done with the conversation.

It went on in her mind however. Her hands saddling Saji but her brain having a long chat with herself. He had thrown her off stride completely. Well no, not totally. Sometimes she felt totally herself talking to him and relaxed and simple. Just simple. There were things she didn’t have to explain. He knew the book was a kind of miracle – she’d given him her book! What an idiot – well on the other hand it meant he had to bring it back….

He’d loved her food – well they always loved her food, but she could see how hungry he’d been and she knew he had been truly grateful. She’d seen that in his face. It was a good face. And gratitude wasn’t all he’d shown. She was back in that doorway now, feeling him more than seeing him, feeling her own heart beat way too fast, “if you’re willing’ her lips had spoken and she knew how much he wanted to answer her…could felt the heat of how much he’d wanted to answer her with his body and she flushed down to the toes inside her boots.

She could have done it. Would never have had to say a word, just leaned in a little and tilted her head and his mouth would have been on hers, tasting of cigarettes and her tea with a hint of blackberry sweetness she would want more of, wanting the weight of him pressed up against her, to feel the muscles of his thighs and his flat belly and his chest up against her own, and her body knew, palaces and sweet words aside, that he would be very good at that.

She wondered when - and Saji’s good morning greeting to her friends feeling their oats and loping about paddock brought her back to where and when. She was here already without having really seen a thing outside herself the whole way here.. She swore at herself.“Impressive. Very impressive. Infamous Indian tracking skills - Would have trotted right up to a Grizzly and said good morning with all the attention you were paying…” She took Saji’s tack to hang on the wall and thanked her with a pat. ‘Good thing I have a smart horse at least’ a kiss on the nose before Saji spun to run with the others and Sara stood in the quiet of the barn, taking a deep breath, gathering herself in to get to work.

She made the rounds of her stores before anything else – the creamery first – plenty of buttermilk – there was a thought; the smokehouse - three slabs of bacon but still what must be two hundred pounds of sausage from when the rumor hit of some kind of swine sickness and they’d butchered two pigs, and she unconsciously grabbed her forearm remembering how her wrist had hurt for a week from grinding and grinding till her arm about fell off. She’d make some this morning but time for a trip to town to do some trading before they got too sick of it not that a hungry cowboy ever complained really, but she liked to think of these things ahead of time.

She’d sweeten it up with buttermilk pancakes though and the family could have some of those later too but with some bacon. And of course Jacob would have both breakfasts.

He was there already waiting for her in the kitchen when she wheeled her little wagon inside, a big gap-toothed grin a new addition from Saturday, “Jacob you’ve lost a tooth!” she proclaimed as he hopped up to hug her – there being no one else around yet so he didn’t have to look bigger and proudly displayed both mouth and basket for her examination.

“I’m sure it won’t slow you down though when it comes to eating – ah one of those teeth…no doubt it will grow in long and pointy like the little wolf cub you are…”

He growled appropriately and laughed and told her “52! I counted them myself. Most yet ever” He looked as perfectly puffed with pride as if he’d been personally responsible for the number of eggs the hens laid, and perhaps it wasn’t just the Spring that did it but also his lovely way with the creatures. He was a natural the way he moved with all the animals and the ranch would be in fine hands indeed when it came to him, though that should be a very long way away, his father being a robust and hearty man and Jacob only 6.

He watched her crack the eggs and add flour and buttermilk into the huge mixing bowl and she let him be the one to fling the water on the griddle to see if it was hot. His face lit up as the drops of water danced and leaped and then she shooed him off to the rest of his chores before the men arrived. Nine cowboys to feed as the sky got light plus Mr. Evans the headman and Mrs. Evans who did for the family. Depending on the day, Mr. Mac might eat with the men or a bit later with his family though she suspected he was often glad of a “Got to be getting an early start” excuse to avoid breakfast with his wife and four daughters, plus his youngest boy. There was no doubt in her mind he loved them dearly, but the two eldest were just getting to that age, at 12 and 14, to be becoming alternately silly and sullen more and more frequently. Still, their mother was not a silly woman, she could never have worked there otherwise, and Sarah thought they’d pass through it well enough.

So, 9 plus 1 – she thought Jacob could give most of the men a run for their money in the pancake department plus 2 plus 6 oh round it off to 20 meals a day times three. Many would have found it a chore, but she was just grateful that she found it to be work and work she loved doing like no other.

Considerably later than 4 but still early for him on a morning he would have expected to wake up with a hangover, somewhat lighter in his pocket, and with the residual scent of cheap perfume on his body, Joe opened one eye and stretched out on the creaky bed. Well that woman appeared to have done what years of bible bashing and lectures on temperance and morality hadn’t achieved, Joe Byrne arriving in town and waking up positively sprightly. He would make her laugh telling her that, that and about the Basillica in Venice.

Still fully clothed if not quite buttoned up he grinned to himself, well maybe the preacher might have something to say about that bit of it. Fuck, he only had to think about her and his cock filled, a swell of desire passing through him before resolute fingers found the buttons, his hips lifting from the bed to pull his pants together and he spoke to himself a little sternly. Bath, shave, blacksmith, find some work. In that order. A man couldn’t sit around or in this case lie around touching his own cock and dreaming about her ass all morning, it just wasn’t right. Although now that he thought about doing just that it would be some minutes before he could go down the hall in search of a bathroom, Christ he would just have to stop thinking about her. That was the key.

It was a considerably younger faced Joe Byrne that stepped out on to the main street of Durango, his over grown beard all but lines along his jaw now, his hair still damp curls at his neck and a clean linen shirt, with the sun a pleasant warmth on his skin and Joe took a deep breath, he was going to like it here.

A Cowboy Story

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 07:33:45 GMT

Some more for you..Mirk's icon this time

Colorado- nuit 2005/pirates_cove13

*Subject: It is a story concerning Joe Byrne, and an OC called Sarah (and no, her middle name is not Mary Sue ;-)) It is set in the American West around 1885
*Rating: It is NC17 by the end
*Disclaimer: Did some one mention money? Well we don't have any, though if anyone wants to pay us to write please form an orderly queue..heehhe. Seriously Joe Byrne was obviously a real man, this is a work of fiction inspired by Orlando Blooms portrayal of him in the film Ned Kelly, and takes place in a time after those events which in reality led to his death. We have enormous respect for history and no harm is intended to the real Joe Byrne nor any one connected with him
*Feedback: Any comments, criticism, professions of undying love are acceptable and welcome. It is not beta'd, so please look upon mistakes as local colour..
Hope you like it.

Chapter 2

Leaning against the door frame rolling a thin cigarette Joe followed Sarah’s movements- the nuzzling, stroking of her hands over the horse’s nose and flank, just about catching the encouraging purrs and clicks of her tongue as she coaxed and asked the animal to drink, Sarah’s fingers twisting in the mane that hung long over the horses neck and Joe almost forgot to strike the match. Sarah gave a last gentle pat before she turned to return to the house, an empty can in her hand just as the sulphur illuminated his face and she jumped a little.

“I didn’t mean to startle yer… I just came out see how she was”

Christ he wanted to touch her again.

“She will be fine now. Chuchip that is, should be able to ride her to town.”
She could feel his eyes on her even in the dark.

“Aye well that’s grand then, I best be on me way…”

She wasn’t quite sure whether she said it too quick or not but either way she almost heard him breathe out “Oh there’s no hurry, let her tea and your supper go down first” the air still around them and Joe moved first holding out the cigarette to her.

“The tobacco’s turned to dust. So be careful as to not suck on it too hard”
Sarah felt herself slip a little but it was dark, he couldn’t see her face as she held it to her mouth, moist from his lips and she pulled on the smoke, letting it curl around before she breathed it in. And they were comfortable again, right here and now, leaning against the wood wall of the shack looking up at the sky, and she had his cigarette between her lips and for the life of him he couldn’t think of a reason why after all the encounters he’d had with women, that he should find that so intimate, but he did, and he closed his eyes, her voice bringing him back.

“That tastes awful Joe.” Sarah nevertheless thanked him with her smile as she handed it back.

“Aye, that it does, a poor return for that food and that’s for sure.” He took one more drag regardless though, mostly to feel where her mouth had been, and his body found that quite an idea as well and he thought it was time to move again.

“Well I’ll not be leaving you with a mess anyway,” and his fingers touched hers as he took the pail from her hands and walked with some purpose toward the pump.

She didn’t know what to make of him. Watching him at the pump she thought he had a kind of quiet competence about him – which went with his gentleness toward the horse. He was a man who knew how to do things without forcing them. But there was something else…no one rode over those mountains when the snow was so deep without a powerful reason for it. There was restlessness there too – the way he’d followed her outside and all, that didn’t go with the calm. It made her think of sorting beads with her mother, making little piles of blue and green and yellow and then you’d come to one where the colors got mixed up in the making some how and she wouldn’t know where to put it, just roll it around in her fingers awhile, feel the hard smoothness of it, like she’d held on to that awful cigarette, just liking the fact that he’d offered. She rolled her eyes at herself in the dark and thought that clearly she should be chopping more wood because she was floating off like a book. Which made her think yet one more thing as he came back to the doorway, “I have thought of something Joe, if you’re willing,” and it was almost as if her words travelled up and around the doorway and back to her and she heard them as Joe stopped in his tracks so suddenly the water still sloshed in the bucket trying to find its way inside.

For just that moment, Joe didn’t school his face, didn‘t drop his eyes and the very air she had trouble finding said he was more than willing. Several minutes might have passed, and he just looked at her, reading the flicker of surprise and worry and breath of desire too. Minutes when the water found its level again.

“I have books Joe, I thought you might to read some..to me..that’s what I thought of..” That seemed not at all big enough for the space that needed filling, space that was keen and sharp and not that comfy warm blackberry pie sort of a place but the hard edges of want.

“Was it now?”

She could almost see the rise of his chest and they both knew, once they said yes it would be unstoppable. But for now he saw yes mixed with maybe and whatever else Joe had done he had never forced a woman to do anything, so he looked up at the mountain, steady and quiet peaks that didn’t answer and that was just fine, and then he filled the space.

“Aye well that would be grand Sarah, once I have cleaned these dishes.”

She could have kissed him for it really, but under the circumstances thought better of it, concentrating on passing him the few dishes to wash in the nearly cold water, watching his hands work meticulously and carefully, placing each plate on top of its partner almost soundlessly. He was more careful now with her too, almost too far away to make the passing of the plates easy, his fingers keeping their distance but the last pot being the cobbler and he smiled at her, at last.

“Sure they’ll be not much to clean there, I think I polished that off without a lick left..” dark eyes crinkling under his lashes which might have even brushed his cheeks when he closed them, and Sarah felt a lurch that she might see that very thing if she let him stay, but Joe was for now focused on the job in hand, set to the task of swilling water and rubbing the stubborn edges of browned sugar.

Sarah couldn’t help but smile, “Well I am very glad that you liked it, now will you put that down and come read to me, a sing song voice to read to me in trade for a blackberry pudding. How does that sound?”

“You’d fair have yer work cut out back in Australia then Sarah. A whole field full of blackberry bushes you’d have to plant, though there’s not many as had books to read, save the Bible, and between you and me, that gives the game away in the first chapter.…” to which he might have added “unlike you” but instead he grinned and reached up to place the pan back exactly where it belonged on the shelf and she very nearly shook her head. This man was definitely an odd bead in the pot.

“Now what book is it you are wanting me to read?” Joe sat back down at the table, the only other possibility being unthinkable for just now, “Something you were enjoying on your Sunday before a stranger came up and pulled you from it?”

“Well as a matter of fact,” a great smile at the accuracy of his guess as she picked up her book from the chair by the fire, and carried it to him, “It’s this. ‘Innocents Abroad’ by Mark Twain. I’d only read the first three chapters - I make myself read slow so I don’t use it all up in one day. I can only get one every 2 weeks so I try to make it last like a big pot of stew for a whole week at least.”

“So that would be me upsetting all your plans then, aye? For stew and book? A troublemaker, Joe Byrne, me Ma always said…” but there was a twinkle in his eye and she knew he didn’t mind that much at all.

“We can start back at the beginning, so you don’t miss anything,” she offered, and then thought about the implication behind those words and turned her attention back to the water just coming to a boil for tea hoping the glow on her face could be ascribed to the fire. She heard more than saw the touch of a grin in his answer as he flipped through the pages, “Well now, we don’t always have to start at the beginning do we?”
She swallowed just as he slipped his fingers between the pages he’d been flipping with his eyes closed.

Joe leaned back against the hard back of the chair, stretching his legs out under the table, just a scrape of his heels on the floor as his eyes scanned the pages in front of him, searching for a way in to the text in front of him. His hands almost seemed to big for the book, more used to horses and fires and pistols maybe, but nevertheless holding the bound pages like she could imagine he would a new born foal, with the sort of gentle comfortableness and wonder that would pull at every string. His eyes frowned a little and searched the title again for a clue before he cleared his throat
“Well Sarah it sounds like someplace from somebody’s imagination, one of them smoky dreams maybe” His eyes flickered up to hers for recognition “ But well since this is the place me fingers found what do you say we find out where this fella went both together?”

Sarah let her shoulders fall and her smile tell him ‘yes’ and she watched him focus those brown eyes on the paper in front of him.

“Will you need more light Joe? I have another oil lamp”

“Its grand as it is, cozy wouldn’t you say?” he was grinning “just grand Lass, but thank you all the same”
Joe’s words started slowly, a stumble of difficulty over the sound that the letters should make in an unfamiliar tongue, but well if was possible for words to seep into you, that’s what they did

Rested and refreshed, we took the rail happy and contented. I shall not tarry to speak of the handsome Lago di Gardi; its stately castle that holds in its stony bosom the secrets of an age so remote that even tradition goeth not back to it

She let him take her, soft spoken words mixing with warm air and crackles from the fire until it was a thick cloth around that could have lifted the little house and swept away with it. Swept it to a place with water for streets and boats instead of horses

The imposing mountain scenery that ennobles the landscape thereabouts; nor yet of ancient Padua or haughty Verona; nor of their Montagues and Capulets, their famous balconies and tombs of Juliet and Romeo et al., but hurry straight to the ancient city of the sea, the widowed bride of the Adriatic. It was a long, long ride. But toward evening, as we sat silent and hardly conscious of where we were -- subdued into that meditative calm that comes so surely after a conversational storm -- some one shouted

"VENICE!"

And sure enough, afloat on the placid sea a league away, lay a great city, with its towers and domes and steeples drowsing in a golden mist of sunset.

Joe looked up from the book
“Holy Mary..A floating city, did ye hear that Sarah?”

He saw her face wide-eyed as she shook her head in amazement, unable to imagine the feeling of nothing underneath her. Her feet pressed into the soles of her boots as if to remember that the mountains and stones she breathed in everyday had never faltered. He grinned as if to say it was all just as fantastic to him and then picked up again.

Right from the water's edge rose long lines of stately palaces of marble; gondolas were gliding swiftly hither and thither and disappearing suddenly through unsuspected gates and alleys; ponderous stone bridges threw their shadows athwart the glittering waves.

Her eyes involuntarily moved to the door as if it might suddenly swing open to show them floating on their own cabin-shaped raft, while galleried houses moved in and out of view and women clad in jewel-toned silk paddled by in old canoes.

There was life and motion everywhere, and yet everywhere there was a hush, a stealthy sort of stillness, that was suggestive of secret enterprises of bravoes and of lovers; and clad half in moonbeams and half in mysterious shadow…music came floating over the waters -- Venice was complete.

She’d let herself flow with the current long enough that when the silence caught up with her it was like finding the nose of her boat bumping up against the shore. She opened her eyes not knowing when she’d closed them and found Joe watching her as a very contented Cheetie purred on his lap.

“It’s quite a picture isn’t it…? So tell me now we’ve introduced you to a kangaroo and sent you floating down the Grand Canal, what’s the most fantastic place you’ve seen?”

Her tea had gone cold and Joe’s was empty, so she poured some more while she pulled herself back into the room, though she didn’t have to think about her answer. “The Cliff Cities of the Anasazi – the Old Ones” Many years before the people found this good grass, this land, there were the Old Ones. And they built their homes, carved their homes in limestone cliffs in a place called Mesa Verde. It’s a whole town and you can walk around and its not a cave like a bear cave or something with a room its more like…hollowed out of the earth, so the earth curves over you to protect you some from the wind and the rain and all, but it is still open.”

It was Joe’s turn to look amazed now, trying to find pictures in his memories to fit but feeling they were not grand enough. “Were they hard to get to then?”

“Well not that far from here really, a long day’s ride or two easy ones. But the cliffs themselves…some of them you can walk up paths and it’s an easy walk because the ground is sandy there and soft. But some of them you had to scrabble up and down the face of the cliff with handholds…you should see it sometime Joe, “ she smiled, “Not palaces exactly, but then they are too….”

“Well since I don’t know the way perhaps you will agree to show me one day?”
And it was hard to say no to a man who seemed to be so enthusiastic about almost anything she suggested or offered and quite a lot that she hadn’t, well that and a man on whom one’s cat seemed to have taken up residence.
Fingers were scratching behind his ears and Cheetie was showing an indecent amount of pleasure
“Sure he likes to be tickled. Don’t you me darlin’” and Joe picked him up to look in her face “But I better be on me way before I am thrown out.”
He placed the cat back on the seat, despite the mew of discontent and reached to find his jacket which seemed like all of him to have decided it was comfortable, molding itself round the back of the chair.

If she was going to ask him to stay this was the time, and so she kept her lips shut for fear of what they might say while his eyes looked at her face
“Thank you Sarah, I feel like I slid down that hard old mountain and ended up in a feather.. well now.. a pillow.” Which wasn’t much better really and his eyes were glinting “Would you mind if I borrowed this book, give me something to do when I get to the hotel. I’ll be sure to have it back to you in time.”

It was her turn to smile “Of course not.Or you might try the second floor of the saloon..”
There was a stop in the conversation where he frowned, a nodding grin back, this woman took him back with her frankness, but he could play too.
“Aye well that I might, see how it goes with the Doges Palace and all shall I? Thanks for the tip. Straight down the valley so you say?”

He seemed taller when he stood next to her and she was almost taken aback by his hand stretched out.
“Thank you from me and Chuchip.”
He had hardly let go before he was lifting the latch, a blast of cold night air almost taking their breath away
“Shut the door quick will yer..keep the warm in” and he disappeared in the black, Sarah sat on her chair listening to the tinkle of buckles as he saddled the horse, a breath out as he mounted her, and then the click of his tongue as the hooves trod over harder ground back out to the trail. And then it was quiet save for the wind in the aspens and the night birds and the whisper of the mountains, well all that and the purr of Cheetie as he settled into another lap.

A Cowboy Story

Tue, 21 Feb 2006 09:26:43 GMT

To celebrate the sending off of Visions of Joe in book form, AFF link here, on its World Tour (first stop-mirkwoodelfchic won't he be a happy outlaw getting to visit you all!) I am going to be posting a fic written jointly by myself and pirates_cove13. It is a short story which I hope will lead us off into who knows where, this feels like a beginning. Hope you like Chapter One- more to follow shortly

Colorado- nuit 2005/pirates_cove13

*Subject: It is a story concerning Joe Byrne, and an OC called Sarah (and no, her middle name is not Mary Sue ;-)) It is set in the American West around 1885
*Rating: It is NC17 by the end
*Disclaimer: Did some one mention money? Well we don't have any, though if anyone wants to pay us to write please form an orderly queue..heehhe. Seriously Joe Byrne was obviously a real man, this is a work of fiction inspired by Orlando Blooms portrayal of him in the film Ned Kelly, and takes place in a time after those events which in reality led to his death. We have enormous respect for history and no harm is intended to the real Joe Byrne nor any one connected with him
*Feedback: Any comments, criticism, professions of undying love are acceptable and welcome. It is not beta'd, so please look upon mistakes as local colour..
Hope you like it. I should add that my icon is by the amazing mata, I have credited her in the 'info' bit but who looks there?

COLORADO
Chapter 1

It was a short ride home from Mary’s place – not that it really was shorter or longer, but it felt easy when it was her day off and there was an unread book in her pack and it was nestled against a bottle of the Pottsdam sisters’ finest Spring tonic which might put a spring in your step to start with but would likely finish in a stumble.

Soon it would be warm enough, when the winds shifted, to sit on the front porch and read, and it was hard to imagine that in two months she’d be swimming in the river but for now the ground was still soft around the house from the thaw and the first pea shoots had yet to appear in her garden. She smacked her lips thinking of spring peas – she was going to have to start giving Mary cooking lessons instead of food. If she succeeded in winning over that new pastor, he was going to be powerfully shocked to find out the woman couldn’t cook a lick and Sarah had been providing all the food for the after church suppers. Course if she married him, he might not quite approve of her friend the ranch cook who found a new novel and strong drink a better way to spend a Sunday than church. Oh well. Cross that bridge as her dad used to say. The goats gave a little “mehh” of welcome as she and Saji picked their way over the rise and down the last little bit of trail to a perfect Sunday afternoon at home.

*******************************

Christ he was cold, his body long since having forgotten the flames from last night’s fire, and now with the sun insisting on sloping off behind the snow capped peaks, Joe let go of the reins for a moment to blow into his cupped hands, his thighs more than the horse needed anyhow to guide her, picking her way through the rocks and boulders that passed for a trail down Wolfcreek Pass. She was slow now- the rocks taken their toll on her shoes and he was riding her gentle, letting her take her own pace. He understood her. Well and she would let him ride her until the day she couldn’t stand anymore.

He needed to find her a blacksmith. Hell he needed a bath and some food too. Joe ran his hand through a good week’s growth on his chin- shave- that would be good. Oh and some whiskey while he was at it. He needed some hospitality.

*********************************

She pulled the heavy wool flannel down over her wrists and buttoned it up, scooching the chair just one step closer to the fire. Damn this was just sheer laziness though. There was nothing for it she had to go split some more wood. She just wished it didn’t have to come at such a good part…..Ah quit your moaning woman, she admonished herself pulling her boots back on with a satisfied feeling of ‘ahhh’ when her foot found home. She loved these boots – a gift from her mother and they fit better than any pair she’d ever had. She was glad she had smaller feet – she thought there was a few men in town might be more interested in her for those boots than anything else they set eyes on. And they couldn’t even bury her with her boots on if some bastard killed her for ‘em…she laughed at herself and picked up the heavy wedge and the sledge hammer and laid the first log on the old stump that served as a chopping block, a satisfying chunk as the two halves split apart.

Her muscles always moaned at the first few swings but then she fell into the rhythm of the thing – lift, aim, swing chunk, four steps to the dance and it was the sort of thing to make you feel your feet – remind her where she was if her head took her too far off in a book.

She was hot now and stopped to strip off the heavy wool shirt, catching sight of Cheetie in the kitchen window watching her with what she thought was decided amusement that humans would insist on such activity. Sarah stuck out her tongue and was rewarded with the little lick of a paw in response that made her laugh until she heard Saji’s neigh from the paddock. She squinted in what little was left of the light and swore at the figure of the rider in from the mountains – poor sod must be freezing she thought. She sighed and pulled her shirt back on again, the union suit underneath now wet with sweat and clinging to her – didn’t have to make it quite that obvious for him.

She reached inside the door for her rifle and carried it out casually propped nearby, but enough in plain sight to maybe cause a man to think twice. She swung her hammer a few more times. Chunk, chunk the wood fell around her. Why did these people have to materialize out of nowhere – and it was as close to nowhere as you could get, the San Juans, when it was her day off.

Joe smelled the smoke in the clear air before he saw any sign of human life, even from a distance the warmth of a fire catching in his nose. The trees were growing denser as the pass descended towards what looked like a circle of glass from where he was, a lake that a few hours ago reflected the cobalt blue of the sky and now was as black as deep night, and Joe pressed his heels soft into her belly, ‘just a bit further’.

Smoke was good. If he didn’t run into the Ute, or a less forgiving rancher, he might get some food at least and directions to a town. Any place would do, it was a long way back across the mountains to Denver, and well, if they were looking for him they wouldn’t be here any time soon. The trail wound down through the pines and the aspens until at last he saw it in the distance- a small cabin, backing on to trees but with a vantage point that said ‘I know you are coming’. Ah sure he wasn’t out for trouble, but just put his hand on his pistol to feel it there and with a growl more from his stomach than anything else picked up some pace.

The thunk of the wood splitting was a good sign too. Not some wild hill Billy’s but someone who thought further than the next minute and he smiled. This valley felt fine after the cold of the mountains, green and wafts of earth and promising. His keen eyes watched the figure hard at work, the rhythmic swing and the precision of the hit, and Joe almost involuntarily circled his shoulders, he missed that. That feeling of losing yourself in something that seemed mundane but in fact held memory and now and hope all in one movement. Perhaps he could find some work here.

It wasn’t long before he spotted the Winchester, well at least it wasn’t already pointing at him. This place was full of good signs. A curiously slight man, ah, who was he to talk, his mouth turning up at one edge, he hadn’t had a good meal in days. Them lasses in the town he was already thinking about would be hurting themselves on his bones, Christ had been a week or more and an involuntary stir made him sit back in his saddle.

His attention caught up a bit he didn’t quite look up again at the figure outside the cabin until he was close enough to squint and peer into the conspiring gloom. No, it couldn’t be. What would a woman be doing out here on her own, and solitude was one fact he was already assured of, since the clothes that danced on the washing line were of just one size, now he thought of it they could be performing something he had seen some southern boys and their women do. He nearly laughed out loud, all that mountain air, well sure it was hard to breath, but it must have weakened his brain too. Fucking dancing clothes.

Christ he was cold AND hungry, whoever it was down there would maybe have a bit of broth and some bread.

Joe resumed his watch as he drew closer, the lines becoming clearer, actually no, there weren’t just lines but definite curves, and he allowed himself a few minutes, slowed the horse, to take this new discovery in. He could see curves in clothes that were more fitting for a man, but only served to contradict the purpose still further. His eyes covered the tan pants that clung to long lean thighs and the curve of her ass, watching the swing of her arms that took in her whole body
“Ah Joe. Don’t get all caught up in that now..food and fire remember?” an insistent voice from the rest of him, that might have won out except now that he was closer still and as the last thunk hit wood he caught sight of the rise of her skin disappearing under the unbuttoned union shirt. A little shake of his head to clear it and Joe pulled his horse up to the where there words would not be taken by the wind.

“The town is right down the valley, should you be looking for something”
He watched her pull around to face him, and nodded, his eyes flitting to the Winchester, something about letting her know it was there.

A pat on his horse’s neck, to assure her that all was well. Which ‘her’, he wasn’t rightly sure, but either way it made him feel better to do it, while he thought how to answer, well that and take a closer look at this woman in front of him. Her long black hair was in a braid that reached all the way down her back, and the tan skin of her face perfect over the bones of her face. Christ she wasn’t what you would say as fancy, well not like those lasses with all their rouge and frills, but she was something else and he couldn’t stop looking

“Will yer forgive me for intruding- I’ll not trouble you for anything other than a bowl of food if yer have some, and a minute or two’s graze for me horse, she’s fair done in”

“Is that right?” She looked at the horse instead of him, “Who have we got here then?”

“Her name is Chuchip”. Joe answered watching her movements, Sarah chuffing warm breath on the horse’s nose and petting her neck and now she was being nuzzled in return, that wool shirt-covered shoulder seeming to be just the place to scratch her ears. ‘Suits her.”

Joe watched all this with some amusement, and grinned at the last, “And here’s me thinking it was just that I was irresistible…” It just came out of his mouth and was maybe not the wisest choice as she looked up at him, but nothing feeling menacing in the man’s gaze and as she moved to check the horse’s flanks and her belly, he had her approval for this anyway.

“She’s well taken care of even if she has been ridden rather too long” Joes’ brows creased together and she added, taking in the whole appearance, “I suspect you had some good reasons for that. You have that hungry look of a man might need to be somewhere or not be somewhere in a hurry.” He looked wary now and Sara just shook her head.

“Bring her in here,” she unlocked the gate to the enclosure, “before you put her out in the field.” Horse and rider picked their way carefully though the yard and she motioned for Joe to slide off. It was full dark now and you couldn’t see much but Sarah moved next to him on Chuchip’s side. “Have a feel of her belly.” Joe did and felt some rumbling and some hardness that had not been evident from where he had sat on her back. In the little light from the house, she could see his face truly frowning now in concern, “Why did you not complain more, then” he said stroking her with concern.”

“I expect she knew as well as you that you couldn’t spend tonight on top of the mountain – you’d have freezed to death.” Then she smiled at him because she wanted him to know it would be alright, “Or it might have been that irresistible charm you spoke of” Joe did grin though a bit more embarrassed this time, but then Sarah took some springs of dried grass and small brownish leaves out of a saddle bag that was hanging on a hook.

“All right now lovey, don’t you worry, a nice cuppa tea and you’ll be right as rain,” in such a little old lady English accent that Joe did laugh out loud now and Sarah looked a little startled that she seemed to entertain him as well as herself. “We’ll be right back sweetie,” and left the door behind her open in what seemed to be as good an invitation as Joe would get.

Bending to enter the low door Joe could feel the warmth seeping through the cold cloth that was stiff around his body, and anxious to keep it all in he pulled the door gently behind him, letting the latch down with a clunk. If she noticed it which he was sure she must have there was no sign of tension in her back, she simply continued arranging pots over the fire, one of water and one which he could smell as the first licks of fire lapped at the bottom of the pot, releasing the pungent scent of herbs. Christ he wished he could keep his eyes from that ass.

“Will I be sitting down then?” He would distract himself, aye that was the best plan.

“I think that’s what the man who made them intended, mister” he could see the edge of her smile as she turned from the pot and he grinned, well she seemed to take some pleasure from teasing him, but then that seemed like a small price to pay for the pleasure of sitting here, the very air in here seeming to wrap itself round him like a blanket

“Well I’d best not disappoint him then” pulling a chair from where it was nestled under the large wooden table with its mismatched compatriots “and me name is Joe. If yer wanted to know that is”

Sarah uncurled from where she was kneeling by the fire and looked back at him
“Well, Joe, if you want to tell me your name then I am pleased to hear it, since I am not accustomed to having nameless men at my table”
But she did have men at her table, ones with names, and some of them maybe in her bed, perhaps the ones that had more than one name, a half a second when his eyes flickered over the pile of pillows and furs in the corner that he hoped she didn’t see, his brown eyes returning to hers
“Joe Byrne”
If she had seen his thoughts she wasn’t letting on and she reached to stick the wooden spoon into the pot before extending her right hand.
“Sarah, I go by the name of Sarah”

He just managed to stop himself saying ‘that’s a pretty name’ something that might have won him some favour when accompanied by his smile in a saloon down in the town, but here- well it might just have got him out in the cold again, and he extended his hand to meet hers, his firm shake more about pulling himself back to where he was than being simply being friendly. Bang. He had touched her.

“That’s grand, well I am very glad to have met your acquaintance then Sarah” and in no time he was sitting down again, a bowl of steaming soup in front of him and a piece of bread that would serve as a mounting stool, his feet firmly under the table, telling her bits and pieces about where he came from between huge gulping mouthfuls. Her hands it seemed were never still, stirring herbs and leaves in to a big iron pot while her eyes listened to him and watched him devour her food.

He was starving sure enough, she thought, though he still had decent table matters. She had smiled to herself when his eyes closed when she put the crock of soup in front of him, taking a big breath in of the aroma of beef with marrow bones and over-wintered carrots and onions. But she did see his lips move just a little and she wondered if he wasn’t saying a silent grace before he started in. She watched him unconsciously lick his lips after swallowing the last bite and she scooped the plate away and filled it again, putting it back down before he had to wonder about if he could really ask for more. His gratitude was all in his eyes which kind of crinkled at her as he thanked her kindly and she wanted to give him more for the real appreciation she saw there. She had the left over cobbler she was going to have for after her supper but he looked as though he needed it far more than she, and she put the low heavy pan to heat gently on the stove, set the tea for the sweet mare out the door to cool, all while listening to words and seeing pictures between bites.

“Now you are teasing me Joe. A giant mouse that hops 10 feet - what do I look like to believe such a thing? Make a good story though for the children though. Here’s Joe Byrne, young ones. Hopped all the way across the ocean from Australia to America on a giant mouse with a pouch to put his valises in..” and she laughed a beautiful musical laugh that made Joe think far too much about her mouth, the way she threw her head back, but as the soup was finished now he rose to protest.

“On me Ma’s honor it’s the truth – not the part you made up, a teller of tales yourself, Miss Sarah, hopping across the sea. But the animal’s real as rain. You wouldn’t by chance have any paper then?”

And she did and he did his best to draw her one though it was not like his sister could have done. She would have made it jump right off the page and jump around Sarah’s kitchen. But it was enough to gain some belief on her part.

“A kangaroo you say it’s called?”

“Aye, a marsupial. That’s what they call it when they carry the wee ones in front of them like that.”

”Unbelievable. Course you’d never believe an armadillo either…saw one in Texas on a cattle drive once…. “He looked at her quizzically.

“I couldn’t even…sides if its alright with you I’m going to go give your gentle deer out there her tea so her belly has a chance to settle while you fill yours up some more. Those are canned blackberries from last summer but still…and I suppose I don’t have to tell you the pot is hot.” With that she took the cover off and Joe inhaled the smell of sugar and vanilla and fruit and it made him dizzy as perfume he literally couldn’t remember the last time he’d had something sweet. Biscuit and berries and a sugary crust and now she was pouring thick cream from the cold box and his mouth was watering but he was almost afraid to move.

“Jesus Sarah, do you always eat like this? I feel like the bloody king of England but the company’s much better….”

He made her laugh again. “No one leaves my table hungry Joe, It would ruin my reputation.” And with that she was out the door.

The pot well and truly scraped out Joe sat back in the chair and closed his eyes, a full belly and the warm room conspiring to make him feel like he could sleep for a week, and that bed looked it could swallow him up there and then. He winced a little and pulled his eyes back round to the fire, uneasy at looking at her belongings, her place without the permission to do so, she had invited him in for food after all, what business did he have imagining himself in her bed.
“Christ”. It seemed his body was refusing to give up the thought so quickly, and Joe shook his head “A smoke. Aye and see what she’s up to with that tea” a mutter under his breath as he stood up

Ok so he did normally have a smoke about now, though the dwindling amount of what was mostly dry powder in the pouch made for a less than satisfying drag, the tobacco dust either falling out of the end or ending up in his mouth, but it wasn’t tobacco that drew him outside, he wanted to see her, watch her with his Chuchip, see her move around his horse. He couldn’t quite keep away.