Syren

Chapter Five

Bellows awoke the next morning with the sun in his face. He was in the chair. So it was a dream... wasn't it?

The harsh light of morning seemed to arrow through the window to his left and straight into his eyes. His head pounded as if he had been on a week-long drunk and his mouth tasted like a slop bucket. He turned his head and saw stars and flashes across his vision. What the hell was going on? He opened his eyes again even though he didn't remember closing them in the first place and, moving slowly this time, surveyed the room. Same table, same chairs, same fire in the same small hearth. The bed was made and certainly didn't look 'fucked in'. The shutters were open, which explained the bright light that was quickly beginning to make his head pound like a drum.

At that moment the door opened and Emily MacLeod strode into the room with a bow slung across her shoulders and holding a dead rabbit by its back legs. She smiled at him and held the rabbit up for him to see.

"Good morning sleepy-head!" She said. "Look what I got!"

The rabbit was large and fat but the thought of eating it, or anything at that moment, caused Bellows stomach to lurch.

"Well done girly," He said half-heartedly. "Excuse me."

He rose cautiously from the chair and made his way outside to the back of the little house to be sick. He returned a few minutes later and Emily handed him a cup of exquisitely cold water. He drank it in one long gulp and asked for more. By the end of his third cup, he was feeling much better and trying to find a way to ask Emily if they had 'made love' last night. He realized quickly that no matter how he worded it, either the question itself or the fact that he didn't remember the sex was was going to offend and gave up on the idea.

He looked up to see Emily staring at him with a worried expression on her face. "Are you alright?" She asked, biting her lower lip.

That simple action, her teeth white like pearls clasped softly against the pink of her lip in concern, pulled at him. He had known many women in his life... the first girl he'd screwed, his first love, the barmaids, the whores, the crusty old hags, but none of them, not even Isabella who had undoubtedly saved his worthless life, had made him feel like this... and it was probably a dream.

She was still looking at him and he realized he hadn't answered. He sighed and lied, "Been too long at sea, lass, haven't got my land legs."

Emily reached out her hand and placed it gently on his forehead, then drew it back quickly. "You're burning up!" She took his hand, and he felt a pang of Deja Vu as she pulled him up out of the chair and guided him to the bed. He wondered if she was going to climb on top of him again, almost said as much, but then realized he was delirious.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

She loomed over him, then a washcloth was placed on his brow cold and soothing. He blacked out.

Cold... so cold. A man stood over him... moved his head from side to side roughly. The smell of smoke or sweat or both... taste of metal. Someone was screaming in his voice... the smell of urine, his back and side were on fire... water... thirst... dying. A cup touched his lips and he drank... the water burned his throat. Darkness.

Night again... she was on top of him again... riding him like a horse. Bouncing roughly against his throbbing erection. His organ was raw and it was agony, there was no pleasure in it for her either. She gritted her teeth and rocked sharply back and forth as if she was rowing a boat. Her hair was matted to her face with the exertion. She grunted with each hard slap of skin on skin. The soft flesh of her buttocks and thighs impacting the hard muscles of his torso and pelvis. A drip of sweat clung precariously, bobbing at the end of her nose and as she thrust forward it lost its hold and fell into his open mouth. He tasted salt. Mercifully he lost consciousness again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The sun blinded him again, this time he was in the bed. He moved and the room didn't spin. That was good. He sat up slowly and felt pain in his hips and abdomen. There was an acute soreness in his crotch... not a dream?

He was alone in the small house and gingerly he rose from the bed and walked stiffly to the door. Outside it was sunny and the blue sky was cloudless. The heat was bearable and he walked off into the brush to relieve himself.

As he relaxed those familiar muscles allowing the urine to flow something strange happened. An animal from inside of his belly began to try and tear its way out through his member. At least that was what it felt like. The piss flowed, boiling hot burning its way out down the shaft of his cock and claws scaped down the inside of it like a porcupine being forced through a garden hose. He screamed, cold sweat immediately beaded across his entire body. He tried to stop the flow of boiling yellow pain but couldn't.

Suddenly Emily was by his side. She thrust her hands down into the stream cupping them as if she was catching water to drink. He screamed on and the piss filled her cupped hands and now he could see there were thin strings of blood mixed into the fluid. Then a pain like none he had ever felt before passed through his entire body, his knees already weak threatened to fail altogether and a moment later it was over.

"I got it! It's okay James, I got it, see?" Emily cried with elation.

He was still pissing a few pathetic dribbles and feeling sick. She had caught something in her piss soaked hand and brought it close to his face. The tiny stone was smaller than a pea with a slightly jagged surface.

"What the Hell is it?" Bellows asked in between ragged breaths.

"Kidney stone... just like the monk said." Emily was rolling the thing between her thumb and forefinger smiling happily.

"The monk... was here?" He was starting to feel human again although the ache in his lower back was worrisome.

Emily nodded. "He came yesterday.... he knew what was wrong... said you'd be fine..." She bit her lip again and he smiled.

Bellows was amazed. "That little rock almost killed me?"

Emily laughed and that made him laugh, which in turn made his back spasm and he gasped but kept laughing just the same.

After she had helped him back to bed, Emily made him some broth with small bits of rabbit floating in it and more of the cold water.

"I have to go out, are you going to be okay?" She asked.

Bellows saw a look on her face that could have been concern or something else... fear... indecision? "Yes, I'll be fine." He said.

She smiled, still looking worried... or perhaps guilty. "I won't be long." She said and slipped through the door slamming it shut behind her.