He carried her out of the tavern over his shoulder, her bells jingling a merry tune with every stride. "What is your name, wench?" Nino supposed he ought to at least ask her that, although this was only rutting. He might want to call her by something other than "Wench" at some point in the night.

"Je- sa-myn," she replied, blowing a lock of hair from her lips as he bounced her along.

"I am Antonino. But everyone calls me Nino."

She said nothing, apparently not interested.

"I am a d'Anzeray," he added proudly.

"Yes. Thank you." came the flat, strange response. He began to wonder if she knew what those words meant after all. So much for polite.

He stood her on her feet once they were inside the stables. "I suppose you have heard the name."

Her eyes glittered with something like bemusement. Or scorn. "You suppose."

The woman was stunningly beautiful. Her skin was a soft, warm brown. She belonged among golden sands, where sun filled the sky and would play over her thick, dark hair until it shone like polished jet. She was out of place here.

"Your seed drips out," she remarked abruptly.

Nino pointed to the water barrel outside the stable door and suggested she wash herself, if it was a discomfort. For his part he enjoyed seeing his semen trickling slowly down the back of her thighs and so he made no move to help her clean it off.

"Why did you let me do that?" he asked.

"I did not permit. Your cock emptied without my permit."

"I meant, why let me fill you with my fist? I could have hurt you. Why did you trust me that way?"

She looked over at him from the open stable door, her eyes heavily lidded as she splashed her lower body with rainwater from the barrel. "You not harm me."

"How did you know?"

The woman shrugged lazily and turned away again to finish cleaning herself off.

Nino fell back into the stacked straw of an empty stall and watched her rinse his cum from her long legs. How flexible she was, he mused. Later he would have her dance for him again. For his private enjoyment.

"Where are you from, wench?" he asked her again, determined to get a better answer than "far away".

"My mother."

"Ha!" He shook his head. "What land, woman?" He had to know if she was the same little girl with the whip marks.

She was drying herself with straw as she came to sit beside him in the stall. "Over the seas."

He squinted. "You don't know, do you?"

"Yes. Thank you."

Chewing on a piece of straw he observed her annoyed face, watched her brow ruffle indignantly. Should he remind her of the souk and the day she kissed him? "How long have you been here?"

"A year. Perhaps. Longer than I desire."

"Who brought you here?"

"A lover."

Nino spat into the straw. "And where is he now?"

"She is dead." Her chin jutted high. "A fever took her. She too was dancer. We danced together."

He was even more interested now. "You licked pussy for the audience, eh?"

"We did much thing for the coin."

Nino reached over and moved aside the colorful rags that made up her skirt, so he had the fine view of her shaved cunt as she sat cross-legged before him. "You like women more than men then?"

She shrugged. "I like pleasure. Man, woman, not important. There are much ways to climax. Many roads for pleasure."

That certainly made sense to Nino, although personally he enjoyed cunny, not dick. He did like to see women together, however. It was most arousing and also relaxing since all he need do was observe. He often watched some of the wives pleasuring one another, while he handled himself to a leisurely climax.

He slipped a finger up into the wench's soft pussy to see if she remained wet. She did. He smiled. Christ, she felt like heaven. He didn't think d'Anzerays would ever get to those holy heights, but this was surely the next best thing. "Soon I will fill this again, but with my cock this time. As soon as I am hard again, I'll have more of you. It shouldn't take long before I'm raring to ride once more. Will you be ready to welcome me in again?"

"Why? Would it matter to you if I not? If I sore?"

"I can be patient."

Her reply was scathing. "You a boy. A cub. Cannot be patient." Affronted, he snapped, "I am one and twenty. You are younger, are you not? What are you seventeen? Sixteen?"

"I have lived nineteen winters," she replied.

"Good." He was glad to find her younger than him, but not too much so.

"My knowing of the world is great. Large much than my years."

He laughed. "And you will gain even more knowing tonight, wench. For the coin I've paid, I will fuck you as many times as I choose tonight and in many different ways."

She said nothing, but watched him with her tigress eyes. Yes, she was like a prowling, watching tigress with her lean strength and powerful gaze.

"Touch yourself," he hissed. "I want to see you come by your own hand."