All Is Well

"Brian Seamus Fitzdougal!" came the peremptory call as Brian walked into the town square. Devil take all of you, was his thought as he saw the town's three burghers in a row. Beyond them was the Rose and Thorn Tavern, where he would take a wee bit of supper and then make ready for his night's work. His stomach was wagging like an empty sack, and between food and him, between a nip of ale and him, were those three pompous men!

Still, they were his employers, after all, they paid him (reluctantly and with much wailing about the state of the town treasury) every month the grand sum of twenty shillings, which was enough with careful husbandry to keep a room for himself at a widow's house (no hint of scandal there, the widow took in six other men, and was a wrinkled prune of a woman) and to purchase bread he kept in his room and made two of his meals. That left just enough over for this nightly excursion he was now on after sleeping through the day, to wake up, get dressed and head for the Rose and Thorn for a pint of ale and a real, full supper. It made the rest of his night and day more tolerable. Not enough to take a wife, not enough to get drunk more than once a month or so, barely enough to let him buy an odd shirt or pants now and then to cover his nakedness (the long coat and hat were provided by the town and would be taken from him if they fired him, but it was warm enough for all the most inclement weather though a bit much for spring), but it was his living and he had to keep it best he could. Plenty of men willing enough in this year of 1681 with Ireland firmly under England's thumb and thousands with nothing at all to call their own, to come and take his job as the town night-watchman if he was to falter or fall ill for more than a night or two at a time.

So Brian arranged his face as pleasant as any man can be when he's kept from his breakfast and his drink for what promises to be a half-hour or more, and stepped up. "Yes, sirs." he said in a semi-brisk manner. "What is it I can be doing for the lot of ye?"

"You can keep an eye out for Donal McFarland, you can." said Ernan Ferguson, the head of the council. "Word has it his band has been coming this way, and we'll expect you to do your duty by this town if he comes here during the night hours."

"And what would you be having me do with a lot of ruffians then?" Brian asked in return. "Shall I bean them all with me lantern or set it down and thrash them all with my bare hands, then?" He was pointing out how they wouldn't give him any sort of weapon, not even a simple truncheon. "You hired me to watch for fires and for disturbances and ring the alarum bell or fetch the constable from his bed as needed. What else would you be wanting of me then?"

A second councilman, Niall O'Shaughnessey, cleared his throat, a pompous, old, gray-whiskered faker he was, Brian thought as he kept a flat line of his mouth as he looked Niall's way. "We have realized your problem and taken appropriate actions." he began. "You must realize that we had to take several factors into consideration...."

Brian cut in, not politely, but once he got going, Niall could roam on for an hour or more and never say a word of sense in all the sounds that were born in his gullet, "Could one of you others tell me the appropriate action ye have all taken afore I stand here and die of the gout from lack of moving myself a bit?" His eyes looked over again at the Rose and Thorn, source of his one moment of light in his daily life. "I've got to be starting my rounds as soon as the first star shines at me, ye know, and the sun is nearly down as it is and me without a bite in my stomach since the bit of bread I choked down at this day's dawning."

"We have imposed a full curfew." said the third councilman, James Whitehouse, a stinking Englishman if ever there was one. He was the younger brother of Lord Whitehouse, who owned most of the land about the town and who could thus force his representative onto the council. "All you need to do is report anyone out on the streets an hour after full dark. Take down their names the first time, the second time, it's a fine for them, and the third, they are locked up for two weeks."

"So I'm to hold me lantern in one hand, and write on a pad of paper with a pencil with me other one then?" Brian said.

"This is a town of good people." Ernan said. "You shouldn't see a single soul outside beyond the curfew. Surely you can manage those few who aren't well enough, can't you?"

"Well." Brian looked again at the Rose and Thorn. "I'll give it me best then. But again, if it's a crowd of them, I'll not be taking names."

"The curfew includes that." Niall said ponderously.

This time he was cut off by Edward. "Any group of more than three is automatically dealt the harshest penalty." he said. "So if you see a group of three or more, just go fetch the constable at once, is all you have to do."

"I'll do it, then." Brian sighed. "Though if you find me with my throat cut in an alley in the morning, don't expect me to be listening to your apologies. If you fear a group of cut-purses are about, shouldn't you hire on another constable or two for the nights, instead of just me?"

Their faces told him the town's budget wouldn't do that nohow.

"All right then." Brian said in lieu of an answer. "We'll see what we'll see, then. May I go now and fetch my supper before it gets too late and I'm violating the curfew and have to write meself up along with the others?" Indeed, the sun was set and the first star would be shining at any moment.

"Quite right." Ernan said. "Be off on your duties then." He took out a watch from his pocket with all ceremony as he had the only one in town except for Lord Whitehouse perhaps. "I'll expect you to call out the first all's well at precisely seven o'clock."

Brian for himself looked at the clock on the tower of the councilhall. "That's less than fifteen minutes, it is!"

"Then you'd better be off on your rounds, hadn't you?" Ernan said.

Brian growled under his breath and lit his lantern and began his rounds. No supper for him tonight! "Curse those fools for keeping me chatting and me already late for my dinner." he muttered. "If I see Donal McFarland and his crew, I know what I'll do, I'll point them to the councilmen's houses so they can start their pickings there!"

Well, his heel of bread in his pocket was a bit larger than he usually brought, he could break it into two pieces and make it through the night, and in the morning, he could buy himself a real breakfast. Hadn't had one of those in many a week, he could get some eggs and rashers and wash it down with the pint of ale he'd been denied tonight. His blithe personality began to rise once more, and he walked the cobbled lanes and streets, stopping at every major intersection to call out his cry, "All is well, all is well!" He made it to the town square just after seven o'clock, and looked at the tower, then at the house of Ernan just down the road from there. "He has his own personal clock, he does, yet he waits for me to call out, does he?" He said to himself. "Let him wonder if his watch is fast by eight minutes, then! "Seven o'clock and all is well!" he called out. "Seven o'clock and all is well!"

As was his duty, he next climbed the watch tower on the opposite corner of the council hall and peered over the houses and buildings of the town. No sign of fire here to be seen. Out on the horizon he could see the lights of Lord Whitehouse's manor blazing. "Light yourself well." he muttered. "Soon enough there'll be flames that'll light you better than that, it will." Then out loud, he called yet again, "Seven o'clock and all is well, all is well!" That for Ernan Ferguson, the old fraud!

Around the town he went yet again. A circuit of the town would take him about forty minutes or so, another five or ten for the tower and search of the roof-tops, and then he could get a proper break. Through the streets, the lights beginning to go out here and there, for many it was who had to get up at first light and before to work their fields or work in the mines or go up to Lord Whitehouse's manor and scrub out his chamberpots and spittons. Some of the lights made it clear they waited to hear his call. "All is well, all is well!" It was done in reverse on the earlier hours, lights would come on as he called, but for now...it made a lonely feeling indeed for a sociable young man such as himself, to walk and to call, while about him, everyone turned off their lights, turned away from him, and went to sleep.

A couple of boys interrupted his rounds, youths unable to sleep had crept out to continue their play. He sent them home (curfew was begun, after all) with a stern warning but didn't put any of their names down in his book. Lads must play sometimes, after all, and didn't many of them work all day along with their elders? That they could play was enough to make him charitable toward them.

By the end of the second circuit, he was at the town square a good five minutes before eight o'clock. He smiled and made his second call (let Ernan check his watch again and curse him a little, it would only make Brian's guardian angel smile, he reckoned), then ascended the watchtower. Again, no lights, save...was that a light in the forest over there? Someone camping in the woods? No, it was gone now. He watched it longer, but it didn't reappear, and he decided it couldn't be a fire loose in the woods. Someone had cooked a quiet meal at night and now extinguished their embers. "Eight o'clock and all is well, all is well!" he called again.

By eleven o'clock, no lights shone anywhere in the town beyond his own. This was the quiet time, and he made his calls a little softer because of that. He had to call, there were many who would wake up because they didn't hear him, so used were they to the watchman's call. His stomach growled and he stayed on the tower an extra ten minutes, used the time to eat that second piece of bread. He'd be ravenous by daybreak, but that would only make the eggs and rashers more delightful! Perhaps he'd have enough coins on him to also have some sausages as well?

He began his rounds again, moving a little faster than before to make up some time. On days when he was delayed, it was often enough to see a face peering from the window to see him pass by, looking for his light. The entire town depended upon him to keep them safe from fire and harm as much as one watchman could. He'd reported a fire the second week of his start as the night-watchman, it made everyone call him a very dependable man. He'd done the same a half-dozen other times in as many years. So he made his rounds and called his call. At least the night was pleasant, cool but not cold, and no hint of rain, making his rounds in the rain was a miserable way to earn his coins....

From an alley, a small noise and a flash of white that could only be a man's stockinged leg caught his eye. He held the lantern high. "Hold on there, who are you?" he called out. "I'm the night-watchman; come out and be recognized!"

"All-all right." came the answer and the figure crept out timorously as any mouse from its burrow.

No young lad out for a bit of night-trouble this! This man was younger than he, but still well into manhood. Perhaps the seasons had turned completely around a score of times since his birth and perhaps not...but they didn't have much more to turn if they hadn't.

"What are you doing out here?" Brian asked. He knew nearly everyone in the town, but this one was new to him.

"Waiting." came the rather insolent answer.

"Waiting, are ye?" Brian challenged this impertinent lad. "What is it that you're waiting for, then?"

"For you." the young man said, coming out of the shadow entirely.

Brian's first thought was that the man was part of a band about to attack him. "And who else is with you, then?"

"I'm alone." the man reassured him.

"And why are you waiting for me, then?" Brian asked suspiciously.

"And haven't I been watching you every night the past six years or more?" the man asked. "You walking by my window every hour every night, fair weather or foul. Me upon my bed alone and nobody about but me and my lust a' keeping me awake, and there you are, walking my way, many the night I've wished you'd come to my window and crawl in bed with me. Well, with the curfew on, and everyone is gone but you and me, I figure that I would at least come out here one night, and find out if perhaps my heart is speaking to me truthfully about what I see in your face when I look out in the night, the way it shines like the morning sun and calls like a choir of angels and the body that beams like the moonlight and begs me to come over and kiss it, the voice that haunts my dreams at night, that calls me out here now that spring has kissed the air, now that the people are all asleep, now that the streets are empty and we can now, at last, at long last, be alone, me and you." And the young man ardently held out his hands toward Brian.

"You're touched!" Brian accused this young admirer. "I don't know you, even, and you want me to...too...you're touched, I say!"

"Say rather I long to be touched." the man said to him.

"You're daft and I won't do anything with you but take you home and turn you over to your mother or whoever has been caring for you." Brian said. "Come along, then. Where is your home?"

"It's...it's back this way." the youth said. "But won't you let me make love to you, just this once?"

Brian decided best not to answer. "Which way from here?" he asked when they got down the street.

"Cut through this alley." the young man said, "It's just down the way."

Brian was puzzled. "I don't think I've passed down these streets." It was impossible for him to walk every street, he concentrated on main avenues and counted on that to cover most of the town. But there were places that he never went. And this was one of them.

The man stopped midway down the alley and turned. "Well, then, where is your home?" Brian looked about. Not even a window here, a set of two blank walls, the house that had been in this particular alley had been torn down in years past and the walls left to form this sort-of alley.

"Here." the man said and came up to Brian.

"What's here, then?" Brian asked.

"You are." the man said and he dove at Brian, not in an attack but in ardor. Those lips touched Brian's and a hand clutched Brian's groin at nearly the same instant. The other arm came up and around him and Brian felt the man's organ hard against his right thigh.

His suspicions about this man had been allayed, this was no robber, just an ardent suitor of sorts. All he had to do was to say no and the man would leave him alone.

All he had to do....was say no. All he had to do.... Faith! He thought to himself. Easier to bring the stars down out of the sky than to say that one word. His body felt the heat of the passion of the young man pressing against him, and his own body...burned. He was the one who was to watch for and put out fires, but how was he to give alarm of the fire that now burned within him? The young man had this fire within him and by touching him, by clutching him, by the contact between them, he, too, had been consumed.

So when the man's lips left his and began to work down his neck, he only turned his head to one side to let him kiss there as well. His cock was hard as an iron rod in his pants, and the man's hand had begun working on his buttons there.

Around them, the town was sleeping. No sound came from anywhere about, not a cat nor dog was stirring, nothing moved in the quiet night air. It was as though the curfew had draped them around all over, that all creation was observing it, only the two of them were awake and here.

"Just one time with you." the man murmured. "One time, and then, if you choose, I shall vanish as I came, and you'll not see me the more."

"One time." Brian moaned. "Yes, then, one time."

"One time." the man knelt and then pulled Brian's prong out of his pants. "Then let me make this one time be the best you ever had."

Those lips...flowed over Brian's cock, swarming over his shaft like molasses, it was less like being taken into someone's mouth and more like sinking into a warm mud. Brian shuddered at the feeling of that mouth, those lips, they clutched and wormed themselves down further on his prick, taking him deeper...deeper...deeper!

"Uhhhhhh!" Brian moaned. The sensations rushing through his body was like nothing he'd had before. His own working of his prick in the afternoons when sleep eluded him was more of a gentle rising of pleasure. This was more like the sound of a cannon's roar when the fuse was lit, it made his entire body quiver from the rippling effect of it, like the wash of the feelings was forcing him to move back and forth, irresistible as the tide.

Moving back and forth. He was fucking at this man's mouth while he was being sucked! God, he hadn't even realized he was doing it until now! It was bigger than him somehow, enough to make him lose himself! How had he missed this all his life?

"Ah, the heat is in me!" he murmured to this man who held his soul in his mouth. "I never knew it was there until you lit it inside me!"

The man let go of his pud with an audible slurp. "Then let me burn you down to an ember." he said.

The pants of the man were held together with only a couple of buttons at the fly, they came apart and there was nothing underneath. Letting them drop to his ankles, he took a hampered step and then leaned forward to rest both hands upon the opposite wall. "Here is the flame to burn you entire." he said over his back to Brian. "Now be the moth that throws itself upon the flame."

"I fly, I fly." Brian muttered. Setting his lantern down upon the stones, he advanced upon the glowing buttocks. His lantern made them into a pair of twin moons, both just past half-phase, and lit by suns from opposite sides of them, and he dove into the overlapping dark halves to find the crater within. His cock still slimy from the man's mouth met the opening at the opposite end and used the lubrication to wend its way inside! The man threw back his head and crooned as Brian's manhood delved into his nether garden and pleasure sprouted as he drove it into the welcoming warmth and wetness.

The man crooned as Brian did his best to split him in two, when Brian got his entirety inside, the man said, "Now, now, I shall be able to sleep my nights in peace for I have had you within me. Take your pleasure, take your way, take my life, it is all one for now I am complete!"

These words, this adulation, was driving Brian's desire in a way he had never felt before. To be wanted, more, to be worshiped, as he was this night...it was the opposite of his usual lonely night vigil in every way. He wanted this man, not just this one time, but every time, every night, over and over again!

It leant an intensity to his thrusts, he grasped the hips of the man before him and he used the leverage to ram in and out of him as hard and fast as he could go. The sounds of his hips slapping the man's buttocks were a wet, meaty sound, they were punctuated by the grunt of the man at the end of them, slap-uh, slap-uh, slap-huh!

For himself, Brian could only gasp in frantic breaths as his body held control, it didn't care if he died here doing this, it was intent only upon fast and furious ramming into this man's ass, he would do this and do this the once-in-a-lifetime way that it was building toward, he wanted to reach that elusive goal, the ultimate climax, he had never felt it before but he could feel it waiting there for him in the depths of this newfound lover. He would fuck him tonight and then tomorrow, they would begin a new life together, he and this man, he wouldn't be alone anymore after the work was done and his room waited, with shutters across the windows to shut out the light of day and the sounds of life, so long denied him, he would have a bit of it now, he would have this, he would finally mean what he had been saying, all is well, all is well!

"All is well." he murmured as he felt that first tingle that told him climax was fast approaching. "All is well, all is well!" Those came out in shuddering syllables, the volume was painful but growing along with the rising joy within him, he couldn't help it, the words that had been a litany of so many years were now the only ones he could find, not even groans, not even moans, only the words he had sang so often for so long, "All is well, all is well!" he gasped.

"All is well." the man chimed in with him. "Pour it all within me, let my body know it's been taken and taken well, taken all, all is well, all is well!"

"All is well, all is well, all is well!" Brian said yet again and now his voice was getting stronger. Where the air was coming from he didn't know, orgasm was clawing at him as it always did, yet his voice grew stronger and louder with every moment, while his ecstasy blossomed into fullness, his voice went into a full-fledged, full-throated, full-borne shout!

"All is well, all is well. All! Is! Well!" And then it was over, his cock jerked and squirted, his breath vanished from whence it had came and he was mortal once more, while climax raked him over its coals of delight, his body sprayed his come into the man beneath him, the joy of ejaculation wrenched his body, sucked the air from him, left him gasping and groaning and about to collapse, and he was done, he was finished, he had come and all was well, indeed, all was well!

Dazed from it (it had been the ultimate delight he had known it would be), Brian groped his fly shut and then staggered over to pick up his lantern once again. Turning, for he needed to know much more about this man now that they had coupled, such as his name and where he lived, he found himself...to be alone in the alley. His erstwhile lover had gone into the shadows from whence he'd come. Ah, well, the night wasn't yet half over, Brian would continue on his rounds, and this time he'd note the windows and who was there, he'd find this man once again.

For the rest of that night, he made his rounds, and he looked as well as he could without peeping into windows, for hadn't this man said he'd mooned over Brian as he made his rounds? Yet while any number of windows had borne faces, especially until he managed to get back onto his regular rounds, for people did awaken when he didn't call out on time, he didn't find the man who had proclaimed such love. Brian searched and searched...and searched in vain.

When full light had come, he put out his lantern and stowed it and went out to get his breakfast. But the eggs and rashers tasted like ashes in his mouth. He went out and found the three members of the Council looking for him once more!

"What can I be doing for you?" Brian said, in no mood to be any more polite than he had to be.

"We want to know if anything unusual happened on your rounds last night?" Ernan asked him.

"Nothing worth mentioning." Brian said.

"You were late making the round about midnight." Niall said. "I never heard you call the midnight hour."

Brian swiftly came up with a lie. "I had a call of nature to attend to, and to be honest, I fell asleep for a moment or so there." he said. "I made up the rounds before two a.m., you must know that I made up the time."

"But you saw and heard nothing unusual?" Ernan pressed.

"Nothing I said, and nothing I meant." Brian said firmly. "And what should I have heard and seen that I didn't?"

"You didn't see someone break into His Lordship's warehouse and make off with a dozen or more barrels of goods." Edward put in harshly. "If you can't see something like that, then why are we paying for a night watchman to begin with?"

"I don't understand how even brigands would be so bold as to make such a large theft without some way of diverting the night-watchman." Niall mused.

"I've said from the beginning that I couldn't be watching for everything." Brian said stoutly. He knew darned well how they'd been so bold...and what the diversion had been!

"Well, we know that." Ernan said in a conciliatory tone. "You're a good night-watchman."

"I'd be better if there were three of me instead of me myself alone." Brian said.

"You know the town budget can't afford it." Ernan protested.

"And what about His Lordship's warehouse?" Edward demanded.

"I'm not hired to watch the warehouse special." Brian said. "You should hire someone to watch it for you if you want an eye on it at night."

He left the three arguing. Niall was a bit of a worry, but Brian felt sure he couldn't unravel what had happened. For himself, he had gotten a meeting to remember. And Donal McFarland's gang was known to stay around a while when they found a new place to rob. He wondered if they'd trot out the more-than-willing young man to divert him the next time around.

"Long as they only rob the filthy English landlords." he decided as he wended his way back to his room. "And they leave their fellow Irishmen alone, I'm a' keeping my mouth shut."

He whistled as he wended his way home through the men heading for their jobs. Yes, all was well, all was well.

THE END
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