Title: Mare Nostrum
Author: Circe (circe@redplains.net)
Date: Sunday, July 08, 2001
Author’s Note: This story may not be duplicated or re-posted on another website or in any other medium without the written consent of the author. All feedback is welcome at: circe@redplains.net. - Circe
Big thanks and kisses to PJ Shaye for help, inspiration and entitlement.
Mare Nostrum Part One
By Circe
Chapter One
Deep in the hot middle of summer, it is dry in the drought-ridden flats of Central California, and time is slow for a girl stuck in this semi-suburbia, stuck in the nowhere of her teenage years.
Slow to make friends, awkward socially, her pleasure and solace is in riding the mare she calls Sugar. She chose the pet name because she believes that anything that loves her must be sweet. She has not yet learned that relationships and affection, be they beast or human - can have more jaded and fickle natures.
Bareback upon the sleek gray, her thighs are strong and sure as they grip the cantering mare. With eyes narrowed against the wind that sweeps back her long and tangled brown hair, Annie knows that being popular is an empty gift and the wound of dateless weekends is not a mortal injury. She can pretend not to care.
She spends all her free time with that mare, boarding her a short bike-ride away from home at a small family farm. In return for her horse’s board, Annie helps out around the place. The owners are a couple in their sixties, whose children are spread out across the state. This leaves behind a myriad of incomplete 4-H projects in the way of former lambs, piglets, goat kids and ponies.
For the last three summers, Annie has kept these elderly pets fed and in clean quarters while the owners embark upon their frequent visits to vacation with their children and grandchildren.
This summer, thought, there is a change in the hot, sleepy routine. One day, without any announcement or fanfare, there is suddenly a stranger in residence; a man is living there, working there - apparently adding to, or remodeling the old farmhouse.
The owners introduce him as Marien and his designation makes Annie as uncomfortable and confused as the way he looks at her. She is girlishly American in her exposure to the world, ignorant of genealogy and history, knowing only men should have masculine names and women feminine ones. It unsettles her that he can so aloofly blur her understanding of something she never before thought to question. He also has an accent she can’t place, but it fills her schoolgirl mind with lessons of geography. Europe. South America. Places as distant and foreign as her own feminine soul.
She can’t even guess at his age. In her youthful mind there is only one world that separates boy and old, and that is "man." And he is, certainly, a man - with heavy, dusky blond hair and contrasting dark eyes. He looks at her in a way that she finds inexplicably embarrassing, and his expression convinces her that somehow he can sense and enjoy her discomfiture. He is compact, barely taller than Annie’s altitude of 5’7”, but he is built powerfully strong, with broad shoulders and a wide chest, all darkened to an exotic hue, as he is usually shirtless. He makes her feel nervous and awkward, and though they do not speak beyond that first introduction, she is always aware of his presence on the farm and can neither relax nor disregard him.
The foreigner, Marien, begins to intrude upon Annie’s private thoughts, and then into the complex threads of her fantasies. A slightly sinister trespasser into her erotic imaginings, she thinks about him late at night. Alone, burning from the heat of her awakening sexuality, tossing in her narrow, virginal bed, they are his hands she conjures - rough, calloused, hard - taking possession of her body, making her kindle to his imagined touch.
The trepidation and tension she feels in his presence are dark fuel for her mounting lust. She wants to be swept up, swept away, by a ruthless passion in which pleasure is akin to cruelty and ecstasy has no mercy. A strong girl, a smart girl, she is mortified by her furtive cravings to submit, to be dominated, to be ravished as are the histrionic heroines in bodice-ripper romances.
But under cover of darkness, and under cover of her twisted cotton sheets, she invokes his sardonic smile, his pitiless eyes, his hands - sure and compelling as he bends her to his will, forcing her own pleasure upon her. Her orgasm is deeply intense, as behind her tight-clenched eyes her slippery fingers become the thing she’s never in real life encountered: a cock, his cock, pushing hard and wet, plundering the secret heat of her.
Days pass, all dry, tall weeds and grasshoppers, and Annie cannot get him out of her mind. She spends more and more time at the farm, but she is terrified of coming face to face with him. She is sure that somehow he will guess, somehow he will know, what she’s done to herself those nights, thinking of him.
And he seems to be everywhere. Shirtless atop the roof, his hammer ringing, his legs planted strongly apart in denim shorts and work boots, a shadow of unshaven beard on his face. Frightening, somehow, behind the force and raucous noise of power tools.
Inevitably, then must encounter, and he comes forward casually as she passes on her mare. She watches, suddenly blushing and dry-mouthed as his strong hand strokes the curving neck of the horse. She can barely stutter a greeting before he is gone, but the memory of his hand upon her horse and the way he slowly smiled at her reddened face burns into her memory. That look her gave her is soon incorporated into her nightly fantasies. She is both thrilled and terrified by the implications of those dark eyes.
The owners of the farm are making one of their weekend grandparental pilgrimages. They leave Annie emergency numbers and last minute repetitions of instructions and then are gone. Stricken with the enormity of being nearly alone with her obsession, Annie hastens through her morning tasks and then flees the farm on her ten-speed.
Throughout the long, boring day, she curses herself for her foolishness. How can she be afraid to be alone with some strangely named man who has barely even said hello to her and can have no possible idea as to her nightly fantasies involving him? It’s ridiculous! It is almost as embarrassing and absurd as her perverted imagination, which insists in casting him as her seducer.
So she passes the day indoors, trying to get lost in a book, trying to keep her mind strictly away from anything prurient. During the long, hot afternoon, she dozes, her dreams a confusion of sexuality, until towards dusk she jolts awake, incredulous that she has slept for so long.
Through summer’s warm twilight, she peddles her bike, letting the breeze in her face chase away her slumber. Her ears are gladdened by the chorus of crickets, and she loves the scent of hay and horse in the air as she nears the farm. She is greeted by a medley of baas and squeals and nickers, and she quickly feeds and freshens water troughs, pausing to pet her pretty gray.
It is only then that the knowledge crashes upon her that he is here somewhere too, alone with her in the gathering night where the dark could cloak her blushes and perhaps make her bold. Frozen with the panic of possibilities, she stands outside her mare’s paddock, poised to flee to her Schwin, flee to the safety of her private fantasies and the security of Nothing Ventured. She hears a sudden splash from the swimming pool out behind the family house and she gasps, nearly choking on the images of her own imagination.
She seizes mightily upon the imagined sight of him swimming in the darkened pool. She pictures him: his powerful body sleek and wet, his movements strong and smooth, fluid in the warmth and buoyancy of the water. She feels the slow tumble of desire buzz her lower belly.
Would he even, perhaps, be naked? People did swim nude when they thought they were alone. On previous summers, she herself had done so in that very same swimming pool. Her blue eyes widen at the possibility, and before she has made a conscious decision, she is stealthy in the shadows, furtive, as she creeps back around the house.
A nearly full moon is rising up over the old oak trees, and it casts its light upon the rippled water of the pool. Marien is a dark shape beneath the surface, fast and sure under the water. Annie slips as close as her nerves will allow her, but it is still too far to ascertain if he is, in fact, naked. All too feminine curiosity dares her to draw closer. She wants to see; she is terrified to see. Her feet know nothing of this inner conflict and merely obey the impulses of her mind and shuffle forward.
He breaks the surface of the pool, gulps down a few deep breaths and turns languidly to float upon his back beneath the spangle of stars. Annie gnaws upon a fingernail, worried now that she is too close and will be seen.
The mere possibility of the humiliation of discovery devastates her. Another inner war splits her mind. Should she freeze in place or take flight? In a panic, she is certain that her own frenzy of fear and yearning will somehow emit an invisible wave - supernaturally alerting him to her presence.
As if in confirmation of her most fervent dread, he turns towards her, his eyes boring through the dimness, trapping her in place.
“Come swim,” his lightly accented voice invites her through the night. “The water feels good.”
In an agony of shame, she cringes back into the shadows, feeling her face burn hot. She opens her mouth, but no sound will come out.
“You’ve come to swim, haven’t you?” he inquires, swimming to the edge closest to her hiding place, folding his arms upon the brick side, a slow smile curving his mouth.
“Umm, yes,” she manages finally, lying desperately. “But I didn’t know you were already here. I’ll go.”
“Why go?” he tempts. “Why should it stop you that I’m here?”
“Oh, well…”she stammers. “No, it’s okay. Really. And any way, I forgot my swimsuit.”
He laughs at her, and irritation mingles with her mortification. “Swimsuit!” he mocks. “Swim in nothing, or in your underclothes. What are you afraid of?”
She steps forward into the moon’s pale light, determined to show him she isn’t afraid. Defiantly, she kicks off her sneakers and pads around to the pool’s steps. There her courage wanes and under the scrutiny of his amused eyes, she wades in, still dressed in her baggy faded shorts and oversize tank top.
The water does feel good, but she can scarcely appreciate it, as she is so intent on avoiding his eye and acting casual and self-assured. She swims a lap, nervous about her swimming technique, worried about her loose-fitting shorts, now heavy with water, that seem to be slowly slipping off of her slim hips. She is agonized about the fact that she hadn’t worn a bra and her breasts will surely show through her wet shirt. Her brain screams at her to get out, get away, before she makes an even bigger fool of herself.
She arrives back near the steps, ready to make a quick exit, her parting words ready in her mouth, when he suddenly surfaces in front of her. She shrieks and then is humiliated by his laughter.
“Why are you leaving so quickly?” he asks. He is way too close to her and she shrinks back. “And why are you so frightened of me?”
“I’m not frightened,” she protests, trying to keep her voice steady as she treads water even further away from him.
He snorts and his eyes pass over her while she huddles in the water. “You look like a woman,” he says. “But you are still a child.”
The truth stings, and the blunt exposure of all her girlish doubt manifests into anger.
“Fuck you!” she retorts, shocked and pleased that she can say this. She turns and dives through the water, away from him, planning to emerge beside the ladder in the deep end and furiously peddle home.
Halfway there, he catches her around the waist, and carts her back. Struggling against him, she is transported to the side of the pool, the cage of his arms on both sides of her as she sputters and tries to yank up her sagging shorts.
“Let go of me!” she demands, shaking her hair out of her eyes. There is something that excites her in his capture, something tantalizingly reminiscent of her secret fantasies.
He merely shakes his head and moves closer to her. In shock and something close to horror, she realizes that he is, in fact, naked in the water before her. In a panic, she ducks beneath his arm and dives under the water, her heart hammering in her chest. She can hardly see beneath the dark surface and when she emerges for air, he is nowhere to be seen. Fear thuds through her and she begins to thrash through the shallow end towards escape.
Waist deep in water, he catches her again, seizing her from behind, and she screams into the night air, momentarily silencing the incessant crickets. Holding her tight against him, his laughter rumbles in her ear. She has lost her shorts finally and feels what could only, incredibly, be his cock pressed against the white cotton panties covering her bottom.
One of his arms wraps around her belly, pinning her arms to her sides. His other hand slides under her wet shirt, cupping one of her breasts, lifting her fullness in his work-roughened hand, pinching her nipple lightly. Annie strains to pull away from him, but he holds her easily, and begins caressing her other breast, pulling her nipple into a hard peak.
Her breath comes in ragged gasps. Her fantasy becoming reality fills her with fear. This is no erotic fancy played out in her own bed at night, conjured and controlled by her own yearning and imagination, this is real and it is happening and she is afraid.
“Beautiful Annie,” his voice is husky against her ear. She is shaking as he holds her tight. His mouth, warm and wet, begins kissing the tender side of her throat. She feels his tongue and the rasp of his unshaven chin on her skin. His hand on her breast strokes and tugs her nipples, awakening an answering ache in the pit of her belly. She is leaning, suddenly weak, against his hard chest instead of pulling away. His other hand now slides over her smooth stomach; his fingers slip under the elastic of her panties and touch her pubic curls beneath the water.
“Do you want me to make you a woman?” he whispers, a question straight from her fantasies. Adroitly, his fingers move down to find where she is now swollen and sensitive. He slowly strokes her there, deliberate, teasing, and she is abruptly shaking and unable to catch her breath.
Annie can only nod, not trusting her voice. Suddenly he scoops her up into his arms, bearing her out of the pool. She can’t remember the last time she’s been lifted, much less carried. The loss of control excites her, and yet she fights against it, struggling until he lets her slide down the hard length of his body to her feet. Before she can form any speech, he wraps his hand in her long wet hair and pulls her head back for his kiss. He kisses her hard, his tongue insistent until she opens her mouth for him. She has never been kissed this way, never been touched with such proprietary boldness. She feels overwhelmed and yet there is a sense of extreme relief in being treated thus, in surrendering control or having it wrested from her.
“I’m going to have my way with you. Do you understand?” he insists, his dark, knowing eyes drill into hers.
“Yes,” she breathes, and a shudder overtakes her.
He nods, takes her hand, and leads her smoothly through the darkness.
Chapter Two
He is living in the small guesthouse. He guides her, barefoot and still dripping, in past the doorway, and before she can get her bearings, tugs her loose wet tank off over her head.
Annie cries out, trying to cover her breasts with her hands, trying to avoid seeing his nakedness, wanting to take back her consent. He catches her hands, prying them away from her breasts, draws her inexorably against him and seeks her mouth with his.
“No, no,” she gasps, twisting her head away. “I’ve changed my mind. I don't want to…”
He slowly shakes his head and catches her chin in his hand, pressing her against him and her eyes widen in distress to feel his hard cock against her belly.
“Too late,” he whispers, his lips against hers.
She closes her eyes and tries to twist her face away. She can feel heat radiate from his body, can smell the scent of his skin mixed with the tang of chlorine. The ache of her soft breasts crushed against his furred chest elicits a different kind of aching within her. She feels his tongue slowly trace her mouth, feels his cock jolt against her, and without thought, parts her lips for him.
Annie begins to shake as he holds her, kisses her, as his hands sweep down to grip her bottom, then move to raise her breasts for his avid kiss. She is panting as she feels the wet suck of his mouth on her nipples, and cries out at the feel of his teeth. Everything is swept out of control and part of her cannot believe any of this is actually happening. When Marien bends to pick her up again, she clings to him, buries her face against his neck, unwilling to acknowledge what is happening.
He carries her into his bedroom, tumbles her upon his bed above which a slow wooden ceiling fan stirs the air into coolness. He stands looking down at her as she pulls a pillow to cover her bare breasts. Then, she is frozen by the first full glimpse of his cock. Her instinctive thought is that there is no way that thing will fit inside her. Thick, curving fiercely up and to the side, the head swollen and flush with blood, wet at the tip with the seep of fluid. She shakes her head, mute with panic, and lunges away as he joins her upon his bed.
He is chuckling as he tussles her back onto the bed, pinning her easily beneath him. “Easy, easy,” he cajoles, sitting on her hips. But she is not calmed. Instead, she shrieks and struggles frantically.
Leaning over her, he takes hold of the edge of his sheet and unexpectedly rips a long strip off of it. The loud noise of the rending cloth freezes Annie and she stares at the sheet in bewilderment. Deftly, he catches both her wrists and binds them tightly together. Realization sets in and she begins to fight him in earnest. Subduing her with his legs and weight, he knots the long end of the sheet through the heavy wooden headboard, leaving her nearly two feet of slack. He rolls off her and watches, smiling, as she becomes aware of what he’s done.
Hands tied together, she awkwardly rolls to her knees and throws her weight against her binding; neither the sheet strip nor the headboard yield. There isn’t enough slack for her to get off the bed.
“Let me go!” she yells, fighting her restraint. She stares at him in dread as he stands watching her. Casually, he takes his hard cock in his sun-browned hand, strokes its solid length and shakes his head softly at her struggles. Her eyes widen, transfixed and horrified.
With a robust sigh, he lowers himself onto knees upon the bed, and moves towards her. Giving a small shriek, she rolls away, onto her tummy, her arms stretched out above her head, her face buried into a pillow.
“Annie, Annie,” she hears him say, his voice soft, yet teasing, and she feels him pull her legs out straight. She screams into the pillow when he straddles her upper thighs, his weight holding her still, imprisoning her on her belly beneath him.
She bucks and fights until she is exhausted and sags weakly under him, panting into her pillow. Shuddering, she feels his hands stroke her damp hair off of her back. His hands, rough and seeming to emit a dry heat, smooth her soft skin, his fingers find the taut constriction of her muscles and begin to slowly knead away the tension.
Keeping her face hidden in the pillow and pressed into her restrained upper arm, Annie fights now the creeping pleasure of his touch. His strong fingers press into the back of her neck, down her spine, out to her shoulder blades, rubbing, soothing, gentling, and coaxing her body into relaxing. Annie abruptly sighs heavily, gives up resisting, and surrenders to the warm lassitude his hands evoke as they roam her bare back. It feels so good to have his masculine hands on her. She closes her eyes, breathing deeply. It seems to her that nothing in her life has ever, truly, felt as good as this.
His hands slowly move down, coming to rest at the small of her back. She feels the heat of his touch resting there, and then sliding down inside the wet waistband of her cotton panties. She tenses slightly, meaning to protest, but his warm, roughened hands feel so good on her skin that is still damp, and chilled from the ceiling fan. She murmurs a wordless objection and squirms under him as she feels him pull her white panties down her naked rear end. She feels his thighs tighten, holding her in place, as though he is sitting a fractious horse. He takes the cheeks of her bottom in his big hands, squeezing her flesh, his thumbs stroking the tender crease where the back of her upper thighs meet her bottom.
“Beautiful, Annie,” she hears him murmur.
She begins to strain against her bindings again, panic returning to her. She feels him take hold of her panties, and suddenly, shockingly, he rips them from her.
“No!” she screams, and hears his low mirth. He stretches out upon her, one leg between hers, his weight on his arms.
“Annie, Annie,” he whispers against her neck, and his hot mouth finds her tender, vulnerable throat, licking, kissing her there.
She feels his cock press against her bare bottom, his tongue wet and cunning upon her throat. The feel of his warm breath on her skin makes her shiver and part her legs slightly for him. He whispers words of encouragement into her ear, urging her, arousing her. He rises up, his palms slide along the swelling sides of her full breasts, and he is pulling her up slightly, and then tucking a large pillow under her tummy. He leans back, kneeling, pushing her thighs apart with his.
Annie begins to try to twist away, mortified at her position; elevated by the pillow, spread open. He stills her with a firm hand on the middle of her back, pressing her down. She feels his other hand on her bottom, his fingers sliding down through the crevice of her cheeks, down where she has never been touched by fingers other than her own. She hears her own voice, muffled and ragged, pleading with him to stop. And then, the tip of his finger parts the secret folds of her, finding her slick with wet.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he whispers. “All wet for me.”
She feels herself constrict with the desire his words and touch induce. His finger gently presses into her and she moans. Slowly, wetly, in and out, making her tremble and clench her eyes shut tight at the intensity of pleasure. And then his fingers move further, adroitly finding the small button of her clitoris, and circling, stroking, rubbing her there with drenched fingertips.
The last vestiges of control and resistance slip from her. One strong hand still holds her upper body firmly down, his other hand is wetly between her legs, skillfully building her arousal, pressing one, and then two fingers deep inside her and fucking her slowly with them. She is shaking, arching her hips back at him, wanton, beyond shame, making incoherent pleas into the pillow.
“I want to kiss you there, sweetheart. Taste you.” He rolls her over, onto her back, her arms stretched out, bound above her head, the pillow now damp under her hips. She stares at him, her blue eyes wide, her face flushed, her lips parted, her breathing quick with arousal and with fear. He kneels between her legs, his hands move leisurely up over her hips, her belly and ribs, and take hold of her breasts, measuring her supple fullness, circling her hardened pink nipples until she gasps and moans. He leans over her, and she cries out as the heat of his mouth fastens upon her nipple. His tongue laves her there greedily, and she trembles in fear and pleasure at the feel of his teeth.
He kisses her breasts until her nipples ache and sting and she is twisting under him, panting, dizzy with need. He shifts, and his mouth trails down her body, slowly, tantalizingly, and she spreads her thighs and bucks her hips at him as though her body - drunk with some primal knowledge - has taken over.
She cries out wordlessly as his mouth finds where she is swollen, wet, and almost unbearably sensitive. Her hands grip the length of sheeting securing her so hard that her knuckles wash white. He pushes two fingers slowly, wetly, into her. She hears her voice, pleading with him, begging him in one long rush.
Please-please-please.
She wraps her shaking legs around him, his languorousness maddening her. His fingers deep inside her, his tongue, and the hot suck of his mouth, bring her again and again right to the verge of coming, before he draws back, leaving her desperately craving release. She groans in frustration as his fingers pull out of her, his mouth leaves her, and he kneels between her sprawled open legs, his dark gaze upon her. She catches her breath, seeing his mouth damp from her, smelling the musk of her own desire on the air. She strains against her bindings, wanting to pull him back between her legs.
“I’m going to fuck you now, Annie,” he informs her equably and she shudders. Her eyes fall to his cock, the head swollen, darkly engorged, and apprehension fills her.
“No.” she whispers. “No”
“Yes,” he asserts.
He takes her legs in his hands, spreads them wide and raises them up over his shoulders. Holding his cock, he begins to slowly rub himself against her slit. She gasps as he touches her distended clitoris, and helplessly arches herself against him. She stares down at his cock, wet and shining with her own juices, stroking there between her legs. He guides the slick head with his hand, and presses inside her that first little bit.
Annie thrashes her head; her hair clings wetly to her throat. She feels herself clench around the head of his cock and hears him catch his breath. It feels so good to have him there just inside of her, rocking slowly in and out. His hands grasp her hips, raising her up even more than the pillow. He presses deeper inside of her and she cries out when it hurts. He pushes in harder and her eyes fly open in panic.
“Stop! Stop it!” she cries, trying to buck away. His hands on her hips hold her still. Frantically, she beats her feet against his back. The intensity of his expression frightens her even more. He ignores her and thrusts again at the barrier of her hymen. A scream flies from her lips as he is suddenly immersed inside her. He eases himself deeper, while she tosses her head in pain. Slowly he begins to move in and out of her.
“Hurts,” she moans. “It hurts.”
He lets her hips settle upon the pillow, sweeps his hands over her belly and traces the taut tendons of her straining inner thighs. Whimpering, her eyes bright with tears, she watches, almost detached, as his hands move over her, soothing and arousing her.
Those calloused, skillful fingers flick over her clit and she catches her breath. Deliberately, adeptly, he circles her there while he carefully pushes his cock in and out of her. Riveted, she watches as his length withdraws almost completely before pressing back inside of her. The pain has all but abated, replaced by new sensations, and her eyes grow wide at the sight of the blood of her virginity streaking his cock.
Her gaze jumps to his face when he raises his fingers to his mouth. His black eyes lock upon hers as he slowly savors the taste of her, and she feels her face flame with heat. A corresponding heat rekindles between her legs as he brings his wet fingers to her clit and begins to stroke her there once more.
“Come for me, sweetheart. Come with me deep inside of you.” His words stir her, his touch makes her close her eyes in an agony of shame and arousal, and open her legs wider over his shoulders.
She knows she is going to come. Knows it will be soon. The sting and pressure of his cock, thrusting quicker now, in and out of her, the helplessness and vulnerability of having her hands tied above her head, add to her fervor. She hears sounds coming from her lips, sounds unfamiliar and strange to her ears. Her heels strike his back again, not to ward him off, but to urge him into touching her harder, rougher, faster, to make it more and more.
And he does. More and more until it is so much, too much, that she shrieks, bows her body off the bed, and feels her senses swept up by waves of pleasure rushing up in electrifying current along the nerves of her body, leaving her flesh tingling in the wake.
Then, his hands are back upon her hips, holding her hard. She opens her eyes, sees him with his head thrown back, the sinews standing out in his neck, intense concentration twisting his face. He drives himself fiercely, deeply into her. Groaning words in a foreign language, he slams into her so hard that she screams, and then he stays pushed deep inside her for a long moment.
Frozen, incredulous that this is happening, Annie feels herself filled with his semen as, gently now, he strokes his softening cock in and out of her. He reaches up and with a practiced hand, pulls loose the knot securing her to the headboard, and allows her bound hands to fall behind his neck, leaving them in one another's arms.
Lifting her shaking legs down from his shoulders, he lies down, pulling her close against him, her head on his warm, hard chest. Trembling against him, her body jerking occasionally with reaction, she is profoundly grateful that he does not break the silence between them with speech. He only holds her in his arms, the slow thud of his heart under her cheek lulling her, relaxing her, and she drifts at ease, and finally into a deep slumber.