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smackenzieHe sits on a bench watching the circle of dancers, working his way through cups of mead and hoping no one asks him to dance. And then someone does – Felise, her pregnancy just barely starting to show, pulls him to his feet and into the circle, where she tries to teach him the steps and laughs when he stumbles. But he laughs with her and doesn't mind.
She passes him on to Jaufre, of all people, and then Helis, the woman who was leading the services when Rainaut first brought him to the community. Brother Peire can only handle one pass around the circle before he begs off, too unsteady on his feet to try and dance to unfamiliar music with unfamiliar steps.
But he's enjoying himself, something he attributes to the general festival feeling and the newfound peace he's made with his circumstances. The fact that he's had what for him is a lot of mead, and that at some point in the near future he'll go off with Rainaut to laugh and touch and moan, and that he's proud of his work in the copy room, might also be contributing factors.
As if Brother Peire's thoughts have conjured him, Rainaut appears out of the thinning crowd of people and sits on the bench. He leans into Brother Peire and says "You look like you're enjoying yourself." His breath is warm on Brother Peire's cheek and Brother Peire just wants to kiss him. But there are still other people here, and he's not so far gone that he can ignore them.
"I am," he says instead. "I think I'm a little drunk."
"A little." Rainaut laughs and takes his hand and pulls it up to kiss the palm. The touch of his lips shivers down Brother Peire’s arm and into his chest. "Just a bit. I've been watching you, friar. Did you know that? I watched you dance with Felise. Pregnancy suits her."
"I stepped on her feet, I was so awkward."
"Oh, everyone is at some point. It's that kind of celebration. Soon we'll all be stumbling into each other and laughing at our clumsiness." As if to demonstrate, one of the dancers stumbles over her feet, tripping into the woman dancing next to her and causing a brief pile-up. Brother Peire can hear half of them apologizing and half of them dismissing the apologies as unnecessary.
"You should teach me how to dance," he tells Rainaut.
"Should I?"
"Yes. I want to learn. So next time I'm not falling all over my partners."
"They might like that." Rainaut grins at him and kisses him on the cheek. He hasn't let go of Brother Peire’s arm. "I know I would."
Brother Peire can feel the heat from the kiss and from his arm now pinned to Rainaut’s chest. They're sitting thigh to thigh and hip to hip, and Brother Peire wants nothing so badly as to grab Rainaut's face and kiss him breathless, to bite at his lips and suck on his tongue and taste the mead in his mouth. He wants desperately to leave so they can pull off their clothes and lie together, but he doesn't know how to say so. He thinks it might come across as rude.
"Don't go anywhere," Rainaut murmurs, releasing his arm and standing up. Brother Peire opens his mouth to say something - probably "Where would I go?" - but Rainaut has walked off before he can get the words out.
Amada plops down on the bench on his other side. "I saw you dancing," she says. Her voice is bright and delighted. Her hair is falling out of its plaits and hanging in wisps around her face and down the back of her neck. Her face is flushed, her freckles nearly the same color as the underlying tan on her skin. She still looks to him like a woman who has God’s favor, apostasy and all. "I didn't think friars danced."
"We don't. I'm not very good."
"Felise can teach you. I can teach you." She grins. "But not tonight - I don't think Rainaut wants to share."
"I don't - what do you mean?"
"You'll see." She leans close, whispers "God's blessings upon you and Rainaut and your coupling. May you both have much pleasure in each other." She kisses him on the cheek and very lightly on the lips, much to his surprise, although nothing these people do should surprise him any more, and she stands up and wanders off, a little unsteadily, to link arms with Sengrat and Aude and vanish into the dark outside the light of the bonfire. He watches them go, touching his lips where she kissed him and thinking about Rainaut.
Rainaut appears not two minutes later, carrying a bottle and two sweet rolls. Brother Peire takes a roll, which is sticky with honey, eating it in two bites and licking his fingers afterwards. Rainaut laughs and calls him a child, but his tone is affectionate and Brother Peire can’t help laughing a little as well.
"My mother would have taught me manners," he says, "had she lived. My father's second wife mostly succeeded, and the Gray Friars taught me everything else."
"They made you into the man you are."
"They did."
"I should thank them."
Brother Peire doesn't know how to respond to that - his brother friars would renounce him all over again if they could see him, or they would excommunicate him, or they would even throw him into the prison to submit to the inquisitor’s tortures. But he knows Rainaut means well, because Rainaut always does.
Rainaut stuffs the remaining roll into his mouth, washes it down with a swig from the bottle, and holds out his hand to Brother Peire. "Come with me," he says. "There's not much left in the bottle but we should have some to consecrate our night."
Brother Peire takes the hand and lets Rainaut lead him away across the grass and out to the fields, the wheat and clover, to a spot so far from the monastery that they can't even see the light cast by the bonfire.
Rainaut takes another swallow from the bottle and hands it to Brother Peire, who drinks obediently. It's wine, maybe even sacramental wine rather than the table wine they had with dinner. He can't tell the difference. He licks his lips, watching Rainaut's face, unsure of how to proceed. This isn't his ritual. He wants to do it properly, for Rainaut's sake, but he doesn't know what to do.
Rainaut takes the bottle, puts it down, and steps out of his clothes. Brother Peire pulls off his robe and toes off his sandals. And they stand there for a minute, looking at each other, naked in the light of the full moon.
"We should be bare before each other and God," Rainaut murmurs. "Bare of clothes, of prejudices, of blocks. We should be stripped of any anger, any jealousy, any avarice. We should be clothed only in skin, and love, and desire." He takes Brother Peire's face in both hands. "We are consecrated before God, my brother, and all we do tonight is to honor God's love for us, God's love for the earth, and our love for both. God's blessings upon you and your heart and your seed." He brushes his lips across Brother Peire's mouth.
"God's blessings upon you and your heart and your seed as well," Brother Peire responds. This is blasphemy to his order, he knows, but he is no longer entirely obedient to the Charter of St Austor, and tonight he is going to follow what his body tells him. He is going to follow Rainaut's lead and Rainaut's ritual and Rainaut's hands.
Those hands pull him down onto the grass, which is faintly warm from the day's sun and only a little scratchy under his skin. Rainaut pulls Brother Peire to him and kisses him deeply, hands stroking his face and down his arms. Brother Peire twines their legs together and holds the back of Rainaut's head with one hand, to keep him and his mouth close.
Time ceases to have meaning as they kiss each other's mouths and touch each other's skin, and then Rainaut pulls away and ducks his head, lips moving across Brother Peire's jaw and down his throat to his collarbones, his chest, his belly. He rests a hand on Rainaut's hair and tries to breathe as Rainaut's lips touch the base of his shaft, his hip, the inside of his thigh. He moans softly and thinks he can hear Rainaut chuckle.
"This is a night for exploration," Rainaut says, lifting his head. "For trying new things and being introduced to new pleasures." His voice sounds deeper to Brother Peire, darker, heavier. And then his tongue flicks out at the head of Brother Peire's cock, and Brother Peire gasps.
"This is, is - this is all, all new," he manages to say. "What was, was, what are you - "
"Shh." Rainaut's head comes down and he takes Brother Peire into his mouth.
Brother Peire's hand clenches in the grass, pulling it up by the roots. His moans are louder now, uncontrollable. He sucks air in harsh gulps. He's so consumed by this new and unexpected pleasure that he can't breathe. He wants to tell Rainaut to stop, and he wants to tell him to keep going, and he doesn't know what he wants.
Rainaut lifts his head and wraps his hand around Brother Peire's spit-wet, straining cock, pumping it with tight, quick strokes until Brother Peire cries out with his release and comes over his hand. Rainaut waits for Brother Peire to stop gasping before wiping his hand on the grass and lying next to him.
Brother Peire feels poleaxed. The ground seems to dip and sway underneath him. He blinks up at Rainaut, who is propped up on one elbow now to look down at him with a pleased smile.
"A new pleasure," he says, his voice still strange and dark. "For me as well." He ducks his head to kiss Brother Peire's mouth and push past his lips with a determined tongue. Brother Peire reaches up and pulls him down.
"What can I do for you?" Brother Peire asks eventually.
"Anything you wish." Rainaut grins. "Do you want to try that?"
"I don't, I don't know. I - I don't think so. I won't know how. Is that wrong?"
"Nothing either of us can do or say will be wrong tonight, my brother. Give me your hand."
He guides Brother Peire's hand down between them to his own cock, hard and hot with need, and Brother Peire closes his fingers around it and strokes until Rainaut is gasping and groaning with his own release.
Afterwards, he flops onto his back, then sits up and reaches for the bottle. "That was one," he says. "Should we keep count?"
"How many times - "
"For men, maybe three. Sometimes four, if you have stamina. For women, as many times as their partners can bring it out of them."
"Amada wished us blessings on our, our coupling," Brother Peire says.
"As she should have. Did you wish her blessings in return?"
"Oh. No. I didn't, I was too surprised. I would have." He tries to sit up, embarrassed and upset. He's grown to like her and would never leave a good wish from her unreturned. "I'm sorry, I meant to wish her well, or, or, what do I say to people? I should have told her that I wished her, um, that I wished her pleasure as well."
"Don't worry about it." Rainaut puts a soothing hand on Brother Peire's arm. "She knows." He passes Brother Peire the bottle. "Drink some wine, It's nearly finished. And then lie down with me and kiss me and imagine the stars overhead turning their faces away to give us some privacy."
So Brother Peire does just that, draining the bottle and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Rainaut laughs at him and kisses him and pushes him back down onto the grass.
He loses track of time as they continue on, pressing together and letting their hands roam up and down each other's bodies as their tongues tangle together and they swallow each other's breaths and quiet moans. It seems to take an eternity this time for either of them to grow hard enough to need release, but Brother Peire doesn't mind. He has lost all sense of his old self, and wonders if this is who he really is, or who he was always meant to be - this man lying naked in the grass, drunk on wine and mead, forsaking his God and his order and everything he has ever been taught so that he can lie on his back in the fields and let Rainaut straddle him and ride his cock under the shining light of the full moon and the sparkling of a celestial carpet of stars.
Brother Peire pants and moans as Rainaut rises and falls, hands on Brother Peire's chest for leverage and Brother Peire's hands gripping his thighs. Rainaut is warm and solid across Brother Peire's hips, his body tight and hot, his manhood stiff and bobbing with his eager motions. Brother Peire can't take his eyes from Rainaut's face, his parted lips, his dark eyes.
"My brother," he moans, "oh, my heretic brother...."
Rainaut laughs breathlessly. "Careful, friar," he pants. "Your God will hear."
"My God is here. I think you're, you're proof - ahh - you're proof God loves me."
"Am I."
"Yes. Yes."
Rainaut leans down, wraps his arms around Brother Peire's head, and breathes "My God loves you too" across his mouth. "And your God must love me. We are blessed, my brother, my friar."
And for the first time since he was turned out of Montagui, Brother Peire can well believe it.
words: 2260
total words: 38,167
She passes him on to Jaufre, of all people, and then Helis, the woman who was leading the services when Rainaut first brought him to the community. Brother Peire can only handle one pass around the circle before he begs off, too unsteady on his feet to try and dance to unfamiliar music with unfamiliar steps.
But he's enjoying himself, something he attributes to the general festival feeling and the newfound peace he's made with his circumstances. The fact that he's had what for him is a lot of mead, and that at some point in the near future he'll go off with Rainaut to laugh and touch and moan, and that he's proud of his work in the copy room, might also be contributing factors.
As if Brother Peire's thoughts have conjured him, Rainaut appears out of the thinning crowd of people and sits on the bench. He leans into Brother Peire and says "You look like you're enjoying yourself." His breath is warm on Brother Peire's cheek and Brother Peire just wants to kiss him. But there are still other people here, and he's not so far gone that he can ignore them.
"I am," he says instead. "I think I'm a little drunk."
"A little." Rainaut laughs and takes his hand and pulls it up to kiss the palm. The touch of his lips shivers down Brother Peire’s arm and into his chest. "Just a bit. I've been watching you, friar. Did you know that? I watched you dance with Felise. Pregnancy suits her."
"I stepped on her feet, I was so awkward."
"Oh, everyone is at some point. It's that kind of celebration. Soon we'll all be stumbling into each other and laughing at our clumsiness." As if to demonstrate, one of the dancers stumbles over her feet, tripping into the woman dancing next to her and causing a brief pile-up. Brother Peire can hear half of them apologizing and half of them dismissing the apologies as unnecessary.
"You should teach me how to dance," he tells Rainaut.
"Should I?"
"Yes. I want to learn. So next time I'm not falling all over my partners."
"They might like that." Rainaut grins at him and kisses him on the cheek. He hasn't let go of Brother Peire’s arm. "I know I would."
Brother Peire can feel the heat from the kiss and from his arm now pinned to Rainaut’s chest. They're sitting thigh to thigh and hip to hip, and Brother Peire wants nothing so badly as to grab Rainaut's face and kiss him breathless, to bite at his lips and suck on his tongue and taste the mead in his mouth. He wants desperately to leave so they can pull off their clothes and lie together, but he doesn't know how to say so. He thinks it might come across as rude.
"Don't go anywhere," Rainaut murmurs, releasing his arm and standing up. Brother Peire opens his mouth to say something - probably "Where would I go?" - but Rainaut has walked off before he can get the words out.
Amada plops down on the bench on his other side. "I saw you dancing," she says. Her voice is bright and delighted. Her hair is falling out of its plaits and hanging in wisps around her face and down the back of her neck. Her face is flushed, her freckles nearly the same color as the underlying tan on her skin. She still looks to him like a woman who has God’s favor, apostasy and all. "I didn't think friars danced."
"We don't. I'm not very good."
"Felise can teach you. I can teach you." She grins. "But not tonight - I don't think Rainaut wants to share."
"I don't - what do you mean?"
"You'll see." She leans close, whispers "God's blessings upon you and Rainaut and your coupling. May you both have much pleasure in each other." She kisses him on the cheek and very lightly on the lips, much to his surprise, although nothing these people do should surprise him any more, and she stands up and wanders off, a little unsteadily, to link arms with Sengrat and Aude and vanish into the dark outside the light of the bonfire. He watches them go, touching his lips where she kissed him and thinking about Rainaut.
Rainaut appears not two minutes later, carrying a bottle and two sweet rolls. Brother Peire takes a roll, which is sticky with honey, eating it in two bites and licking his fingers afterwards. Rainaut laughs and calls him a child, but his tone is affectionate and Brother Peire can’t help laughing a little as well.
"My mother would have taught me manners," he says, "had she lived. My father's second wife mostly succeeded, and the Gray Friars taught me everything else."
"They made you into the man you are."
"They did."
"I should thank them."
Brother Peire doesn't know how to respond to that - his brother friars would renounce him all over again if they could see him, or they would excommunicate him, or they would even throw him into the prison to submit to the inquisitor’s tortures. But he knows Rainaut means well, because Rainaut always does.
Rainaut stuffs the remaining roll into his mouth, washes it down with a swig from the bottle, and holds out his hand to Brother Peire. "Come with me," he says. "There's not much left in the bottle but we should have some to consecrate our night."
Brother Peire takes the hand and lets Rainaut lead him away across the grass and out to the fields, the wheat and clover, to a spot so far from the monastery that they can't even see the light cast by the bonfire.
Rainaut takes another swallow from the bottle and hands it to Brother Peire, who drinks obediently. It's wine, maybe even sacramental wine rather than the table wine they had with dinner. He can't tell the difference. He licks his lips, watching Rainaut's face, unsure of how to proceed. This isn't his ritual. He wants to do it properly, for Rainaut's sake, but he doesn't know what to do.
Rainaut takes the bottle, puts it down, and steps out of his clothes. Brother Peire pulls off his robe and toes off his sandals. And they stand there for a minute, looking at each other, naked in the light of the full moon.
"We should be bare before each other and God," Rainaut murmurs. "Bare of clothes, of prejudices, of blocks. We should be stripped of any anger, any jealousy, any avarice. We should be clothed only in skin, and love, and desire." He takes Brother Peire's face in both hands. "We are consecrated before God, my brother, and all we do tonight is to honor God's love for us, God's love for the earth, and our love for both. God's blessings upon you and your heart and your seed." He brushes his lips across Brother Peire's mouth.
"God's blessings upon you and your heart and your seed as well," Brother Peire responds. This is blasphemy to his order, he knows, but he is no longer entirely obedient to the Charter of St Austor, and tonight he is going to follow what his body tells him. He is going to follow Rainaut's lead and Rainaut's ritual and Rainaut's hands.
Those hands pull him down onto the grass, which is faintly warm from the day's sun and only a little scratchy under his skin. Rainaut pulls Brother Peire to him and kisses him deeply, hands stroking his face and down his arms. Brother Peire twines their legs together and holds the back of Rainaut's head with one hand, to keep him and his mouth close.
Time ceases to have meaning as they kiss each other's mouths and touch each other's skin, and then Rainaut pulls away and ducks his head, lips moving across Brother Peire's jaw and down his throat to his collarbones, his chest, his belly. He rests a hand on Rainaut's hair and tries to breathe as Rainaut's lips touch the base of his shaft, his hip, the inside of his thigh. He moans softly and thinks he can hear Rainaut chuckle.
"This is a night for exploration," Rainaut says, lifting his head. "For trying new things and being introduced to new pleasures." His voice sounds deeper to Brother Peire, darker, heavier. And then his tongue flicks out at the head of Brother Peire's cock, and Brother Peire gasps.
"This is, is - this is all, all new," he manages to say. "What was, was, what are you - "
"Shh." Rainaut's head comes down and he takes Brother Peire into his mouth.
Brother Peire's hand clenches in the grass, pulling it up by the roots. His moans are louder now, uncontrollable. He sucks air in harsh gulps. He's so consumed by this new and unexpected pleasure that he can't breathe. He wants to tell Rainaut to stop, and he wants to tell him to keep going, and he doesn't know what he wants.
Rainaut lifts his head and wraps his hand around Brother Peire's spit-wet, straining cock, pumping it with tight, quick strokes until Brother Peire cries out with his release and comes over his hand. Rainaut waits for Brother Peire to stop gasping before wiping his hand on the grass and lying next to him.
Brother Peire feels poleaxed. The ground seems to dip and sway underneath him. He blinks up at Rainaut, who is propped up on one elbow now to look down at him with a pleased smile.
"A new pleasure," he says, his voice still strange and dark. "For me as well." He ducks his head to kiss Brother Peire's mouth and push past his lips with a determined tongue. Brother Peire reaches up and pulls him down.
"What can I do for you?" Brother Peire asks eventually.
"Anything you wish." Rainaut grins. "Do you want to try that?"
"I don't, I don't know. I - I don't think so. I won't know how. Is that wrong?"
"Nothing either of us can do or say will be wrong tonight, my brother. Give me your hand."
He guides Brother Peire's hand down between them to his own cock, hard and hot with need, and Brother Peire closes his fingers around it and strokes until Rainaut is gasping and groaning with his own release.
Afterwards, he flops onto his back, then sits up and reaches for the bottle. "That was one," he says. "Should we keep count?"
"How many times - "
"For men, maybe three. Sometimes four, if you have stamina. For women, as many times as their partners can bring it out of them."
"Amada wished us blessings on our, our coupling," Brother Peire says.
"As she should have. Did you wish her blessings in return?"
"Oh. No. I didn't, I was too surprised. I would have." He tries to sit up, embarrassed and upset. He's grown to like her and would never leave a good wish from her unreturned. "I'm sorry, I meant to wish her well, or, or, what do I say to people? I should have told her that I wished her, um, that I wished her pleasure as well."
"Don't worry about it." Rainaut puts a soothing hand on Brother Peire's arm. "She knows." He passes Brother Peire the bottle. "Drink some wine, It's nearly finished. And then lie down with me and kiss me and imagine the stars overhead turning their faces away to give us some privacy."
So Brother Peire does just that, draining the bottle and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Rainaut laughs at him and kisses him and pushes him back down onto the grass.
He loses track of time as they continue on, pressing together and letting their hands roam up and down each other's bodies as their tongues tangle together and they swallow each other's breaths and quiet moans. It seems to take an eternity this time for either of them to grow hard enough to need release, but Brother Peire doesn't mind. He has lost all sense of his old self, and wonders if this is who he really is, or who he was always meant to be - this man lying naked in the grass, drunk on wine and mead, forsaking his God and his order and everything he has ever been taught so that he can lie on his back in the fields and let Rainaut straddle him and ride his cock under the shining light of the full moon and the sparkling of a celestial carpet of stars.
Brother Peire pants and moans as Rainaut rises and falls, hands on Brother Peire's chest for leverage and Brother Peire's hands gripping his thighs. Rainaut is warm and solid across Brother Peire's hips, his body tight and hot, his manhood stiff and bobbing with his eager motions. Brother Peire can't take his eyes from Rainaut's face, his parted lips, his dark eyes.
"My brother," he moans, "oh, my heretic brother...."
Rainaut laughs breathlessly. "Careful, friar," he pants. "Your God will hear."
"My God is here. I think you're, you're proof - ahh - you're proof God loves me."
"Am I."
"Yes. Yes."
Rainaut leans down, wraps his arms around Brother Peire's head, and breathes "My God loves you too" across his mouth. "And your God must love me. We are blessed, my brother, my friar."
And for the first time since he was turned out of Montagui, Brother Peire can well believe it.
words: 2260
total words: 38,167
