A Tale of Fur and Flesh (5 page)

“Sure, ye feign to love all God’s creatures, but ye
royals only care for yer own rampant luxury.  Ye’re nothing but a grassback,
wearing Snake for a corset.  Look at ye, using me friend’s skin to press
together yer wee titties.”

Lally’s rage erupted.  “My titties are not wee! 
Rather, my breasts are not small.  I shall wear your pelt as a loincloth, dirty
dog.”

“Now, why would a dead easy lass need to shield her
loins?  Better use my skins to hide yer face in shame.  Och, what would yer
mother say of ye, Allerleirauh?”

Lally’s skin pricked at the mention of her mother. 
“How dare you invoke the name of the good queen?”

“Yer mother was ten times the woman ye’ll ever be. 
Every life in the village, and every creature of the woods, had value to her. 
And look at yerself, lass.  Made in her image?  Nah.  Ye go ‘round putting a
right fright into everyone in the kingdom.  Ye’re mean and ye’re cruel.  Ye’ll
never be half the leader yer ma was.”

“You make my blood boil, you filthy dog!” she cried. 
His insults evoked in her the same feelings Offal’s had, long before she knew he
was good at heart.  Picking a rock off the ground, she launched it at Wolf.  He
evaded the stone and it struck the oak tree behind him.

Allerleirauh braced herself for a stormy reaction,
but the creature said nothing.  He did nothing.  His violent gaze pierced her
like an arrow through her heart.  Then a threatening smile crept across his
face as he revealed sharp canine teeth.  She felt naked before this rough
beast.  No other creature had rendered her so bare, so fragile.  Could Wolf smell
her anticipatory juices?

The forest floor trembled under the creature’s
forward steps.  His voice was hot and rough.  It was the sound of friction. 
“Nah, I’m no dog, lass.  Ye know well I’m a wolf.  And ye?  Ye’re a
good-for-nothing hoor.  Even yer old da wanted a piece of ye.”

Lally tasted bile at the mention of her demented
father. 
It wasn’t her fault!
  How dare he?  Her heart pumped with fury
as she rushed the wolf-man, not knowing what she might do next.  Strike him? 
Kick him?  But no.  What
was
she doing?  Plunging her tongue into his
hot mouth!  Wolf caught her in his lean arms when she leapt at him.  Holding
her aloft, he returned her thirsty kisses.  Even his mouth was strong.

Breaking from the desperate kiss, he dipped
Allerleirauh back.  Blood flowed to her brain, making her dizzy as Wolf ravaged
the breasts peeking out from under black snakeskin.  He bit her tits.  He
sucked her tender nipples so hard they stung.  He could do anything to her. 
She was his dinner.  Wolf ran his rough tongue the length of her chest and up
her neck, leaving traces of hot moisture in his wake.  Again and again he
lapped her skin.  What strength in his arms, that he could he support her.  The
power she perceived in his body made her muscles limp.

When Wolf raised her to his lips, the collection of
blood in her head rushed straight to her cunt.  A tremble shot through her
core.  Grabbing his silver mane, she kissed the beast unrelentingly.  “You will
help with my mantle, you dirty dog,” she disparaged him.  “You harmful beast,
you callous brute!”  This would be their game.

“Aye, I’ll help ye, trollymog,” Wolf replied,
abruptly releasing his grip on her.  When Lally tumbled down to earth, he
continued their match of denigration.  Grabbing her by the waist, he inverted
his princess-cum-whore.  “Turn yer belly to the ground, wee strumpet.  I cannot
bear to look upon yer bawdy face.”

“Gladly shall I turn my face from you, vile
creature.  I would rather press my nose to the worm-infested soil than look
upon a filthy dog.”  This was a slight exaggeration, for Lally placed the
rabbit’s pelt under her cheek to separate it from the sharp twigs and cold
mud.  Taking in the earthy cologne mingled with the sweet aroma of animal fur,
she surrendered fleshy buttocks to the cool night air.  Her heart pounded. 
Allerleirauh ached to be penetrated by the rabid wolf.  “Well, beast?  Are you
a wolf or a mouse?” she provoked him.  “Ha!  I knew you were not man enough to
ravage me.”

“Ye’ll find I’m well-favoured by Nature, wee stray. 
I only hesitate because ye reek of rank prossy.  But since ye’re begging for a
mount, I’ll oblige ye this once.  To my own detriment, I expect…”

The heat of his fur-lined torso impassioned Lally’s
behind.  How cruel of the man to make her wait for the dirty work!  But it was
this very malice that caused her lower lips to flow with lustful waters.  In
one swift motion, Wolf pressed his hands upon her back and thrust his stiff
meat into her cunt.

“Well-favoured my foot!” she cried through the sting
of its entry.  “Your member is no larger than my little finger!  I have seen
rats that outsized than you.”

The slur encouraged Wolf to press Lally’s bare
shoulders to the ground.  A fallen branch scraped her arms, combining pain with
pleasure in a sizzling dance through her body.  Forcing himself into her with
increased vigour, Wolf responded to the insult.  “If yer sullytripe crevice
weren’t so loose, perhaps ye might feel when a man’s infiltrating ya.  Ye could
take a tree trunk in there and not feel a thing.”

How could he ransack her body and generate insults at
the same time?  Lally’s mind barely functioned through the tumult.  Her brain
melted into a puddle of pleasure at the friction of his thrusting.

“You…”  She grasped for an effrontery—anything to
make Wolf hold her arms against the forest floor and plough harder into her
ravenous cunt.  “…you gut-monger!”

Wolf pulled out of her as quickly as he had entered. 
“Am I that, now?” he asked with a cruel lilt in his voice.  Lally kept her
cheek to the ground.  “So the wee alley cat wants to be buggered, does she?”

“Do to me what you must, you hideous animal,” Lally
replied with contained exhilaration.

His rough fingers slipped inside her, searching for
juice to coat her clutching anus.  “Brace yerself, lass,” warned the wolf. 
“This is going to burn.”

He rammed his meat in her hole.  The cruel
pleasure-pain of Wolf’s infiltration caused an internal scream that jumped to
her toes and her throat at once.  Every muscle in her body clenched, holding
Wolf’s cock in place as he attempted to thrust in the depths of her rear.  Oh,
the pain was horrible and thrilling at once.   “I told ye I was well-favoured,
wee scruffer.”

“And so you are,” Lally winced as Wolf ran his nails
across the flesh of her ass. 

“Ye must relax, wee lass.  It will’nt hurt so much.”

“You monster!  How may I relax with your deviant cock
in my ass?” 

Hollering helped.  When Lally allowed her muscles to
ease, she discovered the wonderful pressure this act generated in her core. 
Wolf barely moved, and every subtle motion wove reams of coarse gratification
through her flesh.  His cock massaged her insides.  She felt heavy and warm. 
Wolf thrust faster until he was pushing too rapidly and the pressure was too
much.

When she shrieked, Wolf pulled out, howling at the
sliver moon.  Fresh cream heated a trail from her hip, down the cleave of her
backside and onto her thigh.  She made no move to wipe the filthy stuff from
her skin.  Exhaustion set in fast.  After Wolf’s ravage, Lally welcomed the
sweet embrace of dream-filled sleep.

* * * *

Waking with a start, Lally turned to find Wolf
watching over her.  He was just a man.  No fur on his belly, no animal tail, no
silver mane. His mismatched eyes gleamed in the pre-dawn light. Under his naked
bottom sat the hide for her mantle.  Rolling the cramp from her neck, Lally
asked, “Why have you stayed?”  After their encounter the night before, she
imagined him incapable of having noble intentions.

“To guard ye as ye slept, wee lass,” he responded,
staring up at the stars.

“Yes, well, thank you for that, Wolf, but I really
must be off,” she replied in a haughtier tone than intended.

“No,” he exclaimed almost before she had finished her
thought.  “No, lass.  Ye’re heading in the wrong direction.  Ye ought to be
roving northward rather than westward.”

“Preposterous,” she replied. It wasn’t until she
tried to stand that she realized how sore her body was.  “To the North are my
father’s enemies.  Why should I wish to entangle myself in that debacle?”

She trembled against the early morning air.  Wolf
stood to drape his skins around her scraped and bruised shoulders.  Their rough
coupling seemed distant now, like it had happened in another lifetime.

“Thank you,” she said, touched by the rough
creature’s kindness.  Her heart opened to him.  With a hollow sob, she fell
against his chest.  She wept in his arms.  “Oh Wolf, I cannot live out my days
in the forest!”

“Aye, lass, ye can if ye must,” he encouraged. 
“Ye’re a survivor.  Ye’ve proven that already, escaping yer crazy da.”

Lally ran her hand across the soft silver fur Wolf
sacrificed for her salvation.  Her heart beat tentatively, hoping not to make a
sound.  When he shifted away from her, she buried her head in the hide tent
encircling her frozen body. “What will become of me?” she asked him.

There was no response.

“What fate awaits me now?” Lally repeated, popping
her head out from the heat of the fur. 

Wolf was gone.  She was alone, abandoned by him as by
everyone else.  Every time her heart began to open, tentatively, as a chick
taps at the shell of its egg, the beloved disappeared.  Lally was left alone to
begin again.  With the skins of Wolf and Hare draped over her slouched
shoulders, she travelled the countryside by the light of the morning moon.

During her journey northward, Lally stopped only to
relate to the enchanted creatures of the woods.  None were quite as thrilling
as her encounter with Wolf, but she took pleasure in them all.  She was able to
secure the skins of the eager beaver, the great bear, the sly fox and the
putrid skunk. By day, she hid in a cave or the hollow of a tree, where she
slept and sewed her pelts into a mantle using her mother’s golden needle and
thread.

When the mantle was complete, it covered Allerleirauh
entirely.  She felt safe and protected inside.  It was almost like being
invisible.  No one perceived that a woman lived inside the cloak.  She became a
horrific animal roaming northward through the forest.  Terror flashed in the
eyes of all who beheld her. They had no idea the appalling beast from which
they ran was only a frightened girl under layers of peltry.

Winter was harsh in the North, and it came on out of
nowhere.  The bitterness of the cold and the darkness of the days produced in
Allerleirauh the desire to crawl into a lonely cave and not emerge until springtime. 
When the snow rose to her knees, it was time to take refuge.  With no caves in
sight, she climbed into the hollow of a chestnut tree and curled up inside her
warm pelts.

“Mother,” said she, holding her enchanted walnut
against her cheek.  “Am I not hopeless enough to warrant your help? 
Gott im
Himmel
, I live in a tree!”

But the walnut did not crack. 

“Mother,” Allerleirauh despaired.  “Why have you
forsaken me?”

Chapter Five

In the hollow of the great tree, Allerleirauh slept.
With the peltry mantle covering her eyes, her
slumber endured as the sun rose.  She slept on as it set, until many days and
nights had passed by.  Then it so happened that a huntsman was tracking his
prey in the vast forest.  All the world was white with snow when his dogs came
to the great chestnut tree.  They sniffed it at length, and ran barking around
it. Their howls and yelps awoke Lally with a start, but she kept very still. 
Perhaps they would move on.

Footsteps crunched warily against ice-encrusted snow,
like father’s as they had approached the chamber on the morning of her escape
from his house.  And now his dogs had caught her scent and father would
apprehend her and force her into marriage!  Her only hope was to remain
perfectly quiet.

“What kind of a wondrous beast is this?” a man’s
voice asked.  He seemed to be talking to the dogs.  “I’ve never seen anything
like it.”

He spoke the dialect of the Northerners, which Lally
had learned from the merchants of her father’s court.  This was not one of
father’s huntsmen at all!  He was most certainly a Northern fellow. 
Nevertheless, when he laid hands upon Allerleirauh’s back, she let out a
terrified scream and bolted upright in the crook of the tree.

“Pray, do not harm me!” Lally pleaded.  “I am not a
beast, but a girl.  My name is Allerleirauh.”

The head of Wolf’s pelt cloaked her face, and she
looked at the huntsman through holes where the creature’s eye had once been. 
The huntsman assessed her hairy form with an incredulous glare.  “You sure
don’t look like any girl I’ve ever seen,” he replied.

“My trials have rendered me hairy and hideous,” Lally
said in agreement.  “I am a frightful monster.  I implore,
have pity on me and take me with you.”

“Where do you live?” the huntsman inquired.

She hesitated.  “I live in this tree.”

“Well, aren’t you cold?”