Prologue to The Heretics

Prologue:


So much had happened in the past two years that reflecting back Isabella could scarcely remember it all. Hardly a day had passed when she wasn’t arguing with the Dominicans on the folly of establishing the Holy Office. She knew that once the Inquisition got a toehold, there was no stopping it. Any claim, of False Christianity, regardless how frivolous, would be zealously investigated and prosecuted. This would lead to arrests, torture, confessions, trials and executions. Everyone whose name was cried from the rack would be brought in for interrogation and the wretched souls would soon name and incriminate others. So it would go, on and on, until the excesses of horror became so egregious that even the masses could bear it no more. Then, only time, (a feeble impediment), would stay the insanity. She sighed, as a tortured vision of tomorrow filled her awareness. If you lose control, a voice whispered, get ready for the smell of burning flesh.

She yawned looking over at Ferdinand. He looked up from the corner of his eye, smiled, and put aside his book. She loved this part of the day, in bed alongside her husband, making small talk, and, if God willed, enjoying a physical expression of their love. Isabella relished these moments when they shared the intimacy of intercourse. It was always cathartic, an experience that lifted the heavy burden of responsibility from her heart.

The King scooted closer and leaned over kissing her lips. His hands went into her nightgown and began massaging her small breasts. She thought. We’re so well suited in so many ways. Isabella tossed the pillow onto the floor and settled into the mattress. Spreading her legs she smiled with invitation. He came to his knees and wrestled between her thighs.

“Are you ready to be mastered little sparrow?”

“Are you in one of those amorous moods? “

“My mood is dark as mead.”

“Then let it flow into my chalice.”

He began feeling about for her opening.

“Allow me---,” She reached with her fingers.

“Ah yes,” he groaned as they closed gently. “ I think we’re about to cross the threshold.”

She coaxed the tip inside. Arching, she spread, lifting as he pushed deeply. She felt his eagerness slide through the wetness, and extend to length. A tremor passed.

“May I have this dance?” he whispered.

“I’d be delighted.”

His girth filled her with a delicious warmth and pulsed in the clutch of her womb. It seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting with every heartbeat. Nerves tingled and her body resonated with happiness. She shifted squeezing her sphincter. A tendril of delight raced the length of her spine.

The King pulled up on her waist, and drove deep. Their stomachs met. She arched up with her hips as he held her buttocks. In the grip of one another they spanned the mattress until the strain became too much. Then they settled into it. Ferdinand drove deep and his erection filled her with a rush of opulent pleasure.

"Straddle me." she whispered.

Her husband raised his knees going to the outside as she closed her thighs.

Rising up Ferdinand loomed like a specter. The moonlight flowed through the arching windows in a glow of soft yellow. He thrust grasping her wrist, arm extended. His breath came heavy ot as teasing tongue toyed with nipple. Back and forth it flirted causing a frustration of delight. She began to squirm.

“Don’t tickle me,” she pleaded.” It tickles.

He pulled back and thrust deep once more.

She groaned.

Ignoring her pleas his tongue began to tickle in earnest. She thrashed and floundered.

“Please, don’t do this to me---“

He was unrelenting. His lips moved from one breast to to the other.. She began laughing uncontrollably as he kept it up. What started as a giggle turned to racking sobs and then cries of hysteria.

“No more! Please stop,” she begged

“Do you promise to be good?”

“Yes! Yes!” She pleaded.

Then, when it seemed she could bear the anguish no more, he relented. “Very well, but I’m expecting you to behave.”

Her breath came haltingly in jerks and starts. “I’ll be contrite--- I promise.”

He began a measured stroke and she followed his lead. As he pulled back she arose and as he pushed in she fell back. Their rhythm was practiced and they moved with a coordination born of long experience. What started slow gradually built in intensity. Faster came the beat and he rode, guiding her hips, urging her to follow his lead. In and out she kept pace, wallowing in the turgid heat and, matching the tempo of his urgency.

“Give it all to me,” he said.

“---You have it , take it.” she replied.

“It’s not enough.”

“What more is there?”

“Your soul, damn you! The place your spirit cowers when your world rages about."

This banter was an accent to their sexual intimacy. It was something they had discovered early in marriage. Their verbal sparring incited a narcotic like desire that sprang from the flesh. It induced a stupor. The mood came slowly, like the effect of strong drink. It dulled the obscenity of heaving limbs taking base union from reality into the surreal. Writhing together, it catapulted their intercourse from the physical into the sublime.

“Don't do this.” She pleaded.

“Give me my due,” he exhorted.

“What more is there?”

“Why do you persist in holding it back.”

“I'm trying, honest I am?”

"Then open your soul to me." He smacked her hip.

“She moaned and from deep inside a maternal yearning stirred.”

He sensed its presence.

“Thats it, you know what I want!” he smacked the other hip.

"Oh goodness, she comes she comes!”

“Good girl, now submit yourself!”

Isabella surrendered. "I'm yours”

Abandoning all restraint Ferdinand loomed over her. From his deepest reservoir came a burst of frenetic energy.

She welcomed it.

Release trumpeted in his loins.

She arched her back.

He buried his cock.

She reveled it it.

“Yes! Yes!.”

With that, Isabella splayed her legs as an orgasm brought its long awaited surcease. Her blood coursed in a rush of carnal pleasure. As he surged it came again and again, even greater than the last.

***

When the throes subsided, the two remained locked in each other’s arms. She lived for these moments when all her fears and anxieties were spent and she was at last at peace with herself. After awhile Ferdinand broke the spell.

“You’re the sparrow of my happiness.”

As always she answered, “And you’re the love of my life.”

But she was distracted somehow by a sense of something not quite right. It was a feeling of incongruity. It dawned suddenly when she reached up feeling her earlobe.

“My earring came off--- I lost my earring.”

“It must be here somewhere.”

She threw back the covers and together they began to search.

Where could it be? she wondered, anxiously.

“Look on the floor,” he offered.

She scrambled from the bed, took the night stand taper and, began sweeping it about.”

“Are you going to help me find it?” she said in annoyance.

He sat mute, staring silently with the edge of a smirk.

“It was my mothers. Damn that hasp, she warned me.”

Isabella continued to search as her anxiety mounted. “Aren’t you going to help?

“You need to check close to where you were laying.” He said tongue in cheek.

She crawled back onto the mattress and swept the candle back and forth. With a start she felt his hand take her jaw.

“Not now!” she scolded, thinking he expected a repetition.

He turned her face and she stared into his visage.

“What is it?” she snapped---”

Then suddenly the realization dawned. The missing earing was there, hanging from his ear.