Tahs Tangled Trio

The first time I saw Lda, she was standing in the doorway of their stone cottage with a knife in her hand and blood on her apron.

Not her blood. Rabbit blood, most likely, or maybe a hare. The apron was rough linen, stained dark at the hem, and she held the knife the way someone holds a tool they've used a thousand times. No tension in the wrist. No white knuckles. Just a woman in her doorway, deciding whether I was worth the trouble of greeting.

I was worth it, apparently. She wiped the blade on her thigh and nodded once.

"You're the one Tah hired."

It wasn't a question, so I didn't answer it like one. "I'm the one who walked three days through bog and bramble because your husband promised coin for a wall that needs building."

That got me something. Not a smile exactly. More like the shadow of one, passing over her mouth and gone before I could be sure it had been there. She stepped back into the cottage and I followed, ducking under the low lintel, and that was the beginning of everything that came after.

The cottage smelled like smoke and dried herbs and something sweeter underneath, something I couldn't name. Bundles of yarrow and rosemary hung from the rafters. A fire burned low in the hearth, and over it a pot of something that made my stomach twist with hunger. I'd been eating cold oats and hard cheese for three days. The smell alone was almost enough to make me forget why I was there.

Almost.

Tah came in from the back room, wiping his hands on a rag. He was older than I'd expected. Not old, but older. Maybe forty, with gray threading through his black hair and lines around his eyes that spoke of long years squinting into weather. He had the build of a man who'd done hard labor once and still remembered how, shoulders broad but starting to soften, hands calloused but careful.

"You made good time," he said. "I'm Tah."

"I know."

He laughed at that. A real laugh, short and rough, like rocks tumbling downhill. "Fair enough. You're Aric?"

"Aric, yes."

We shook hands. His grip was firm but not punishing, the kind of handshake that says I'm sizing you up but I'm not going to make a thing of it. I respected that. I'd met too many men who thought a handshake was a competition.

"Lda's the one who'll feed you," Tah said, nodding toward his wife. "I'd do it myself but I burn water."

"You burned the bread last week," Lda said from the hearth. She didn't turn around. "And the week before that, you set the oven cloth on fire."

"Once," Tah said. "That was once."

"The bread was twice."

I stood there with my pack still on my shoulder, watching them, and something in my chest loosened. I didn't know why. Maybe because they were easy with each other in a way I hadn't seen in a long time. Maybe because the cottage felt lived-in, not just occupied. There were books on a shelf by the window, actual books, their spines cracked and worn. A child's wooden horse lay in the corner, though I saw no child. A second chair by the fire, pulled close to the first.

"Sit," Lda said, finally turning. "You look like you're about to fall over."

I sat.

She put a bowl of stew in front of me, and I ate like an animal, too hungry to care about manners. The stew was venison, I thought, with root vegetables and something peppery I couldn't identify. It was the best thing I'd eaten in months. Maybe years.

"You'll start on the wall tomorrow," Tah said. He'd taken the other chair, the one by the fire, and was watching me eat with an expression I couldn't read. "The north side's crumbling. Winter's coming and I need it shored up before the frost."

"I'll need to see the damage first. Figure out what materials you have."

"We've got stone. Plenty of it. There's a quarry half a day's walk from here, but I've been pulling from the old ruins on the east side. Good stone there, already cut."

I nodded, my mouth full. The ruins. I'd passed them on my way in, half-buried in ivy and moss, the kind of place that had been old when the world was young. I'd wondered about them. Now I wondered more.

Lda sat down across from me with her own bowl. She ate slowly, deliberately, watching me the way a cat watches a bird. Not predatory, exactly. Assessing.

"You're young," she said.

"I'm twenty-three."

"Twenty-three and building walls for coin. What happened to your family?"

The question landed like a stone in still water. I kept eating, kept my face neutral, but something must have shown because Tah said, "Lda."

She shrugged. "It's a fair question. He's going to be living with us for a month. I want to know who I'm sharing my table with."

I set down my spoon. The stew was still warm in my belly, and the fire was warm on my face, and I was tired in a way that went deeper than bone. I could have lied. I'd lied before, to other people, in other places. But something about this cottage, this couple, this moment, made lying feel like a betrayal of something I couldn't name.

"Plague," I said. "Two years ago. Took my mother and my sister. My father was already gone. I sold what was left and started walking."

Lda's expression didn't change, but something in her eyes softened. Just a fraction. Just enough.

"I'm sorry," Tah said. He meant it. I could tell.

"So am I."

We finished the meal in silence after that, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. It was the silence of people who'd said what needed saying and were content to let the rest wait.

That night, I slept in the back room on a pallet of straw and wool. The cottage creaked around me, settling into the earth, and through the thin wall I could hear Tah and Lda moving in their bed. Not talking. Just moving. The rustle of blankets, the shift of weight, the occasional murmur too low to make out.

I closed my eyes and tried not to think about it.

I failed.

The work was hard. Good hard. The kind of hard that leaves your muscles aching and your mind quiet.

The north wall was worse than Tah had described. Not just crumbling. Collapsing. The mortar had turned to dust and the stones were shifting, one on top of another, waiting for the right push to come tumbling down. I spent the first three days just clearing the debris, sorting the salvageable stone from the rubble, mapping out the damage in my head.

Tah worked beside me when he could. He had other duties, animals to feed, a small patch of land to tend, but he made time for the wall. We didn't talk much. We didn't need to. There's a rhythm to working with someone, a wordless understanding that develops when you're both focused on the same task. He'd hand me a stone before I asked for it. I'd step back before he needed the space. By the end of the first week, we moved like men who'd known each other for years.

Lda watched.

She was always watching. Not in an obvious way. She'd be hanging herbs or mending clothes or stirring something over the fire, and I'd feel her eyes on me, steady and considering. When I looked up, she'd be looking somewhere else. But I knew. I always knew.

On the fourth night, she asked me to help her with the garden.

The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink, and the air had that cool edge that comes with early autumn. She was kneeling in the dirt, pulling weeds, and she didn't look up when I approached.

"Sit," she said. "You can reach the ones on the far side."

I sat. The ground was cold through my trousers, but I didn't mind. I started pulling weeds, my fingers working automatically, and for a while neither of us spoke.

"You're good with your hands," she said eventually.

"I've had practice."

"Not just the wall. The way you move. You're careful. Deliberate."

I wasn't sure where this was going, so I said nothing.

"Tah is careful too," she continued. "But he's careful in a different way. He thinks before he acts. You act before you think, but you act well. It's interesting."

"Interesting."

She looked at me then, really looked, and her eyes were the color of honey in the fading light. "You don't like being observed."

"Most people don't."

"Most people aren't worth observing."

I pulled another weed, roots and all, and tossed it onto the pile. My heart was beating faster than it should have been. I didn't know why. She was just a woman. Just my employer's wife. Just someone who'd been kind to me when I had nowhere else to go.

But she wasn't just anything. I knew that. I'd known it since the moment I saw her in the doorway with the knife.

"Why did you hire me?" I asked. "There are builders closer. Men with more experience."

"Tah found you."

"Tah found a notice I posted in the village. He could have hired anyone."

She was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke, her voice was softer. "He chose you. I didn't ask why."

"But you wondered."

"Of course I wondered. I wonder about everything." She sat back on her heels, brushing dirt from her hands. "I still wonder."

The sun had dipped below the treeline, and the garden was falling into shadow. I could barely see her face now, just the shape of her, the curve of her shoulders, the tilt of her head.

"I should finish the weeds," I said.

"Yes."

Neither of us moved.

The days blurred together after that. Work, meals, sleep. The wall rose slowly, stone by stone, and I started to feel something I hadn't felt in a long time. Pride, maybe. Or purpose. The feeling that I was building something that would last.

Tah and I fell into an easy companionship. He told me stories about the land, about the ruins on the east side, about the people who'd lived there before. He didn't know much. Just fragments, passed down through generations, half-remembered and half-invented. But I liked listening to him talk. His voice was steady, grounding, the kind of voice that made you feel like everything was going to be alright.

Lda was different. She didn't talk much, but when she did, every word mattered. She asked questions I didn't know how to answer. She looked at me in ways that made me feel seen in a way I wasn't used to. And at night, through the thin wall, I heard her with Tah, and I lay awake, and I burned.

I didn't know what I wanted. That was the problem. I wanted her, obviously. I wanted the curve of her hip under my hand, the taste of her mouth, the sound she'd make when I pushed inside her. But I wanted him too. The weight of his body, the roughness of his hands, the way he'd look at me when he thought I wasn't paying attention.

It was wrong. They were married. They were happy. They'd taken me in, given me work, given me a place to sleep. And I was lying in their back room, fantasizing about both of them, like some kind of animal.

But I couldn't stop.

Two weeks in, the wall was half-finished and I was half-mad.

I'd started taking long walks in the evening, just to get away from the cottage, just to clear my head. The land around their property was wild and beautiful, rolling hills and dense forest, and I'd walk until my legs ached and my mind went quiet.

One night, I came back later than usual. The moon was high and full, casting silver light over everything, and I could see the cottage from a distance, warm and golden, smoke curling from the chimney. I stopped at the edge of the clearing and just looked at it for a while.

Then I saw them.

They were in the garden, Tah and Lda, standing close together. He had his hands on her face, cupping her cheeks, and she was looking up at him with an expression I couldn't read. They were talking, too quiet for me to hear, and then he kissed her.

It wasn't a quick kiss. It was slow, deliberate, the kind of kiss that says I've been waiting for this all day. She melted into him, her hands coming up to grip his shirt, and I watched, frozen, unable to look away.

When they broke apart, she said something that made him laugh. That rough, tumbling laugh I'd come to know. And then she turned, and she looked directly at me.

I should have moved. I should have pretended I hadn't been watching. But I couldn't. My feet were rooted to the ground, and her eyes held me there, and I knew, in that moment, that she knew everything. Every thought I'd had. Every fantasy. Every night I'd lain awake, listening to them, wanting them.

She smiled.

It was a small smile, barely there, but it was enough. It was an invitation. Or a challenge. Or both.

I turned and walked back into the forest, my heart pounding, my hands shaking, and I didn't return to the cottage until the moon had set and the first light of dawn was creeping over the horizon.

The next day, I avoided her.

It wasn't easy. She was everywhere, in the kitchen, in the garden, in the doorway, watching me with those honey-colored eyes. But I kept my head down and my mouth shut and I worked like a man possessed, finishing more of the wall in one day than I had in three.

Tah noticed. Of course he noticed.

"You're pushing yourself," he said, handing me a waterskin. "Slow down. We've got time."

"I want to finish before the frost."

"We will. But you'll be no use to anyone if you collapse from exhaustion."

I took a long drink of water, letting it cool my throat. He was standing close, closer than he usually did, and I could smell him. Woodsmoke and sweat and something underneath, something warm and masculine.

"I'm fine," I said.

"You're not."

I looked at him then, really looked, and I saw something in his eyes that I hadn't seen before. Concern, yes. But something else too. Something that made my stomach flip.

"Tah..."

"Lda told me," he said quietly. "About last night. About you watching."

My blood turned to ice. "I wasn't... I didn't mean to..."

"I know." He put his hand on my shoulder, and his grip was firm, steady. "It's alright."

"It's not. I shouldn't have... you're married. You took me in. And I..."

"Aric." His voice was calm, so calm, and his hand was warm on my shoulder. "It's alright."

I didn't understand. I didn't understand any of this. But I stopped talking. I stopped trying to explain. I just stood there, with his hand on my shoulder, and waited.

"We've been watching you too," he said. "Both of us. Since the day you arrived."

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. The world had narrowed to his face, his eyes, his hand on my shoulder.

"Lda wanted to wait," he continued. "She said you needed time. But I think you've had enough time, don't you?"

"I don't... I don't know what you're asking."

He smiled. It was a different smile than I'd seen before. Softer. Sadder. "I'm not asking anything. I'm telling you that if you want, tonight, you can come to our room. And we can figure out the rest together."

He let go of my shoulder and walked away, leaving me standing there, breathless and shaking, with the half-built wall behind me and the whole world tilting under my feet.

I spent the rest of the day in a daze.

I finished the section I was working on. I ate dinner. I answered questions when they were asked. But my mind was elsewhere, caught in a loop, replaying his words over and over.

Tonight. You can come to our room. We can figure out the rest together.

What did that mean? What did any of it mean? I'd heard of such things, of course. Men and women who shared their beds with others, who found pleasure in ways the priests called sinful. But I'd never... I'd never thought it would happen to me. I'd never thought anyone would want me that way.

And I wanted them. Gods, I wanted them. Both of them. In ways I couldn't articulate, couldn't understand.

When the sun set and the cottage fell quiet, I lay on my pallet and stared at the ceiling. The fire had burned down to embers, casting faint shadows on the walls. Through the thin partition, I could hear them moving. The rustle of fabric. The creak of the bed.

I should stay here, I thought. I should pretend I didn't hear him. I should pretend none of this happened.

But I couldn't.

I rose. I walked to the partition. I stood there for a long moment, my hand hovering over the rough wood, my heart beating so loud I was sure they could hear it.

Then I pushed the curtain aside and stepped through.

The room was lit by a single candle, and in its glow I saw them. Tah was sitting on the edge of the bed, shirtless, his chest broad and scarred. Lda was beside him, her hair loose around her shoulders, wearing nothing but a thin shift that left little to the imagination.

They were both looking at me.

"I didn't know if you'd come," Lda said. Her voice was soft, almost gentle.

"I didn't know either."

Tah held out his hand. "Come here."

I went.

The distance between us was only a few steps, but it felt like miles. I crossed it slowly, giving myself time to turn back, to change my mind. But I didn't. I couldn't. I wanted this too much.

When I reached them, Tah took my hand and pulled me down onto the bed beside him. Lda shifted, making room, and then I was between them, their warmth surrounding me, their breath on my skin.

"I don't know what to do," I admitted. My voice was barely a whisper.

"Then let us show you," Lda said.

She kissed me first.

Her lips were soft, softer than I'd imagined, and she tasted like honey and something else, something I couldn't name. Her hand came up to cup my jaw, her fingers gentle, and she kissed me like she had all the time in the world.

I'd kissed people before. Girls in my village, back when I had a village. But this was different. This was deliberate. This was someone who knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to take it.

When she pulled back, I was breathless. My hands had found her waist, and I could feel the heat of her skin through the thin fabric of her shift.

"Good," she murmured. "That's good."

Then Tah's hand was on my shoulder, turning me toward him, and his mouth was on mine.

It was different with him. Rougher. More demanding. His stubble scraped against my skin, and his hand gripped the back of my neck, holding me in place. I'd never kissed a man before. I'd never even thought about it, not really. But now, with his lips on mine and his tongue in my mouth, I couldn't remember why I'd ever thought it would be strange.

He pulled back, and I was gasping, my whole body trembling.

"Alright?" he asked.

I nodded. I couldn't speak. I could barely breathe.

Lda's hand was on my thigh, sliding upward, and I turned to look at her. She was smiling, that small, knowing smile, and her eyes were dark with something I recognized. Desire. Need. Hunger.

"You're shaking," she said.

"I know."

"Do you want to stop?"

"No." The word came out too fast, too desperate, but I didn't care. "No. Don't stop."

She leaned in and kissed my neck, her teeth grazing my skin, and I moaned. I couldn't help it. The sound escaped me before I could stop it, and I felt her smile against my throat.

"Good," she whispered. "Let us hear you."

What happened next was a blur of sensation. Hands on my skin, pulling at my clothes, baring me to the warm air. Lips on my chest, my stomach, my hips. I was lost in it, drowning in it, and I didn't want to be saved.

Tah's mouth found my nipple, and I arched off the bed, gasping. Lda's hand wrapped around my cock, and I nearly came right then, right there, before anything had even really started.

"Easy," she said, laughing softly. "We've got all night."

"Don't make me wait."

She raised an eyebrow. "Bossy."

"I'm not... I didn't mean..."

"I know what you meant." She stroked me slowly, deliberately, watching my face. "You want this. You want us."

"Yes."

"Then say it."

"I want you. Both of you. I've wanted you since the day I arrived."

Tah made a sound, low and rough, and then his mouth was on mine again, and Lda was moving, positioning herself between my legs, and I was lost.

She took me in her mouth, and I cried out, my hips bucking, my hands fisting in the blankets. She was good. Gods, she was good. Her tongue swirled around the head of my cock, her lips sliding down my shaft, and I could feel the pressure building already, the heat coiling in my belly.

"Not yet," Tah murmured. His hand was on my chest, holding me down. "Not yet."

"I can't... I can't hold on..."

"You can. Breathe."

I tried to breathe. I tried to focus. But Lda was doing something with her tongue, something that made my vision go white, and I was losing control.

She pulled back just before I tipped over the edge, and I groaned in frustration.

"Patience," she said. "We're not done with you yet."

"What are you..."

But then Tah was moving, stripping off his trousers, and I saw him for the first time. All of him. He was thick, and hard, and I felt a flash of something between fear and anticipation.

"Have you ever been with a man?" he asked.

"No."

"Do you want to be?"

I swallowed. "Yes."

He smiled, that same soft, sad smile, and then he was kissing me again, his hand wrapping around both of us, stroking us together. The sensation was overwhelming, the friction of his skin against mine, and I moaned into his mouth.

Lda was watching us, her hand between her legs, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. "Gods," she whispered. "You're beautiful. Both of you."

Tah pulled back, his eyes dark with want. "Turn over."

I did. I turned onto my stomach, my heart pounding, my whole body trembling. I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know what to expect. But I trusted them. I trusted him.

His hand was on my back, gentle, soothing. "Relax," he said. "I'll go slow."

I felt something wet against me, his fingers, slick with oil. I flinched, and he paused.

"Alright?"

"Yes."

He pushed inside me, slowly, carefully, and I bit down on my lip to keep from crying out. It hurt. It hurt more than I'd expected. But underneath the pain was something else. Something that felt like pleasure, like completion, like coming home.

"Breathe," Lda said. She was beside me now, her hand stroking my hair. "Just breathe."

I breathed. I relaxed. And Tah pushed deeper.

By the time he was fully inside me, I was shaking, my whole body covered in sweat. But I didn't want him to stop. I wanted more. I wanted everything.

He started to move, slow at first, then faster, and I was lost in the rhythm of it, the push and pull, the fullness, the heat. Lda was kissing my neck, my shoulders, her hands roaming over my body, and I was caught between them, held by them, wanted by them.

"Harder," I gasped. "Please."

Tah groaned and obliged, driving into me with a force that made the bed creak. I cried out, my fingers clawing at the blankets, and Lda's hand found my cock, stroking me in time with his thrusts.

I wasn't going to last. I couldn't last. The pressure was building, coiling, and I was teetering on the edge, ready to fall.

"Come," Lda whispered. "Come for us."

And I did.

The orgasm ripped through me, violent and overwhelming, and I screamed. I screamed their names, both of them, and I felt Tah shudder behind me, felt him spill inside me, felt Lda's hand still stroking me through the aftershocks.

When it was over, I collapsed onto the bed, boneless, breathless, barely conscious. Tah pulled out of me gently and lay down beside me, his arm draped over my back. Lda curled up on my other side, her head on my shoulder.

No one spoke. There was nothing to say.

I lay there between them, feeling their warmth, their breath, their heartbeats, and I thought about how different my life had been just a few weeks ago. I'd been alone. I'd been drifting. I'd been waiting to die.

Now I was here. In this cottage. In this bed. With these people.

I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what would happen next. But for the first time in a long time, I didn't care.

I closed my eyes and let myself drift.

The morning came too soon.

I woke to sunlight streaming through the window and the smell of bread baking. Lda was gone, but Tah was still beside me, his arm still draped over my back, his breath slow and even.

I watched him sleep for a while. The lines on his face were softer in repose, the gray in his hair catching the light. He looked peaceful. Content.

I wondered if he'd regret this. I wondered if I would.

"Stop thinking," he murmured, his eyes still closed. "I can hear you thinking."

I laughed, surprised. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Just... be here."

I was here. I was more here than I'd been in years.

He opened his eyes and looked at me, and there was something in his gaze that made my chest ache. Something tender. Something real.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"I don't know. Good. Sore."

He smiled. "That's normal."

"What happens now?"

He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "Whatever we want to happen. This isn't a one-time thing, Aric. Not unless you want it to be."

I didn't want it to be. I knew that with a certainty that surprised me.

"I don't want it to be," I said.

"Good."

He kissed me, soft and slow, and I kissed him back. And when Lda called us for breakfast, we got up and got dressed and went to the table, and everything was different.

And everything was the same.

The wall took another three weeks to finish. I worked on it every day, stone by stone, but now the work was different. Now I wasn't just building a wall. I was building a life.

Lda taught me things I'd never known about my own body. She was patient and demanding in equal measure, and she never let me settle for less than everything. Tah was gentler, more careful, but no less passionate. Between them, I learned what it meant to be wanted. To be loved.

Because that's what it was, I realized. Love. Not the kind of love the priests talked about, not the kind that fit into neat categories and easy definitions. But love nonetheless. Real and messy and complicated.

We didn't talk about the future. We didn't make plans. We just lived, day by day, and let the world spin around us.

But I knew it couldn't last. I knew there would be consequences. The village was half a day's walk away, and people talked. People always talked. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed. Before someone said something.

And when that happened, I didn't know what we would do.

I still didn't know, even as I stood on the finished wall and looked out over the land, the forest and the hills and the ruins in the distance. I didn't know what the future held. I didn't know if we'd survive it.

But I knew one thing. I knew I wouldn't face it alone.

I turned and walked back to the cottage, where Lda was waiting in the doorway with a knife in her hand and a smile on her face.

And for the first time in a long time, I smiled back.