Greencoat: A Tale by A.M. Hartnett

I pricked my ears and raised my eyes, peering past the leg I had stretched out before me. I looked first to my mistress who sat by the fire and then to the door. Something was coming.

No, it wasn’t her, not the girl that came around here every few days, not that silly little thing in the red shawl, not she who’d had the audacity to shoo me out of my own chair so that she might take it for herself. This was different. No crunching of pine needles underfoot or the clinking of milk bottles in her basket.

This was a creeping.

The thing moved on its belly but it didn’t touch the ground. It circled the little cottage, sniffed the air, and coiled in delight when it found the scent that pleased it the most.

Then it changed its shape.

My fur stood on end and I hissed. My mistress shushed me and when I persisted she clicked her knitting needles together in warning.

“Grandmother? Grandmother, I’ve fallen.”

“Lisette?” My mistress pursed her lips and looked to the door. When she rose I darted between her feet, tripping her up in a futile attempt to keep her from letting the thing in.

“Sonny! Shoo!” She kicked me gently in the ribs and I retreated, scampering under the bed where at least I would be safe.

“Lisette, where are you?” She called once she was outside.

“Over here, Grandmother! Hurry! It hurts!” The thing had moved further down the path and crouched in the brush. “It hurts so much!”

I shut my eyes but I couldn’t shut out the gurgling when it grabbed her, nor the sickening crack as her neck was snapped.

In the next moment a shadow darkened the door. The thing had taken a body: a tall man with a thick russet hair and eyes like mirrors. He was dressed like a gentleman in glossy Hessian boots and a coat of rich green velvet.

He rooted through my mistress’ things and tore clothes from cupboards. He paused at the foot of the bed and lifted the lid of the chest that held the girl’s overnight things. He took greater care now, stroking and nosing her woolen stockings like they were silk, and he did the same with her undergarments. I felt him shudder.

I hissed and then jerked back when he dropped to his knees and narrowed his silver eyes at me.

“Come here, puss puss.”

Before I could react he had snatched me up by the scruff of my neck and dragged me out from under the bed. I thrashed but my claws missed their mark and I only caused myself more discomfort.

He gave me a firm shake. “None of that nonsense. Are you the only one here? Where is the girl?”

“Murderer! Filth!”

The inhuman fiend understood me as I knew he would and he cooed, “Temper, temper. You’d be wise to watch what you say to me or else I’ll make a fiddle out of you. Now where is she? I watched her on the Needles Road on her way here.”

He gave me another shake. “She hasn’t arrived yet. She always dawdles, picking up the needles and chattering to herself like a simpleton.”

He pursed his lips and then he dropped me. Back under the bed I shot. I was grateful to still have my skin and stayed put as he moved about the cottage. I remained cloistered and guarded beneath the bed but I was roused by the clink of glass against glass. My belly grumbled in response. Warily, I slunk to the end of the bed.

He was stripped of every stitch and his physique impressive. He squatted, watching me while he poured a frothy stream of cream into a saucer and then pushed it towards me.

“Here, pussy. Here’s a bit of nice cream for you.”

I hesitated. I didn’t trust him for a minute but my stomach shuddered—it had been hours since I had last eaten—and warily I pattered to his feet, eying him with suspicion as I lowered my head and tongued the cream.

“Good puss.” Greencoat ran his hand from my ears to my tail and thus I was won over. After all, my mistress was no more and I would now have to take charity where I found it.

After I’d had my fill he scooped me up and plopped me onto the bed. He engaged me in conversation as I lay on his chest and purred merrily while he stroked my ears.

“The girl, how old is she? Has she been with any man, do you know? Not even the woodcutters who use the Pins Road?” He had been watching her for some time, it seemed, and had it in his mind to seduce her. Already he’d intercepted her where the main road forked into the Pins and Needles Roads and he had wooed her until she became nervous and fled. He told me that where he came from he was king and that there were no women. Once in a while he came “up top” to take one. He had been doing so since the first woman walked the earth, he said.

I told him all that I knew: that I thought she was simple and how whenever she came I was kicked from my warm place beside my mistress so that the girl might sleep next to her. I called him a fool for wanting such a horrible creature for a bed-mate but he only laughed at me and said that I might stay at the foot of the bed while he had her so long as I didn’t get in the way.

Just as the twilight was beginning to fade I heard the little fool’s feet crunching the debris along the path. He set me aside and huddled beneath the covers to hide his face. Jealous of the intrusion, I glared at her when she cracked open the door.

“Grandmother? Are you all right?”

He mimicked my mistress’s voice perfectly. “Fine, my love, just tired. What did you bring me?”

“Two bottles of milk, a fresh hen from the butcher, a loaf and a bottle of wine.”

“Put them in the pantry, dear.”

She bit down on her bottom lip as she studied the figure in the bed. So she wasn’t completely daft as I had thought. She knew that something was amiss.

“Undress, my child, and come to bed.”

In the air there was a current of something passing between the two that made my neck prickle. She fumbled with the ties of her cape and let it pool at her feet like a crimson stain. Shrouded in shadow, he twisted his head to look over his shoulder to see what I saw. Down to her underclothes now, she approached the bed with the backlight from the weakening fire illuminating her silhouette.

“Take off your shift and stockings.” He murmured, his voice beginning to change now. “You won’t need them anymore.”

Off went the flimsy white garment and she stood trembling, hands clasped over the vee of hair between her thighs.

So she wasn’t as young as I had thought she was. She was always buried under the frumpy sacks she wore and I had mistaken her for thirteen or fourteen. Instead she was a grown woman, shapely with well-muscled legs of a woman who worked and high breasts tipped with pink crests. Even I found her body pleasing compared to the sagging, grayish body of my former mistress. I flicked my tail in approval.

“What now, Grandmother?” She whispered and he sat up until his handsome face was clear to her.

“You!” She gasped and took a step back but there was a heaviness that settled in her brown eyes that weighed her down. “Where is my grandmother?”

“Gone. She left me in her place to warm you.”

Not quite the truth and not quite a lie. I purred at his shrewdness. It seemed to placate the girl. I could practically read her mind as she reasoned that her Aunt Bella had come to take her grandmother to the big house by the sea for a few days. Then she looked to me, wondering why I had been left behind with a servant instead of brought along to sew my seed with Bella’s dainty she-cat.

Greencoat swung his legs over the edge of the bed and pulled her between his legs. At first sight of his prick she looked away and I can’t rightly say I blamed her. It no longer hung limp but was alive, straining from his balls and glistening at its purple head.

He pressed his hand flat on her belly. “Have you never seen a man before?” She shook her head and dared to take a shy peek. “It won’t bite. Put your hand on it.”

Lisette let her black hair fall over her eyes like a curtain. “It’s a wicked thing to do.”

“It most certainly is not.” He retorted and grazed his hand over her pubic hair, hiding it from my sight when he slipped it between her thighs. “See, it’s not wicked when I do it to you.” He watched her face while his hand squirmed and explored. She kept her eyes lowered but her pleasure was clear in the way her cheeks smeared with pink. She moved closer and her trembling fingertips skimmed the wet tip of his bobbing cock.

I strolled to his hip for a better look. I had never seen a man and a woman perform this ritual before and I was highly fascinated. With my kind there was little coaxing involved. If I was in his place and she had yet to lift her tail and offer herself she would have felt my teeth. I jumped to the floor and squeezed between her legs, looking up to find two fingers curled inside and thrusting gently in and out between her pink slit.

While I watched from below he leaned forward and clamped his mouth around her nipple, using teeth and tongue until it was hard and swollen. Then he began to suckle until her head drooped backwards and she sighed. All the while she was absently kneading the pliable skin of his shaft with increasing vigor.

He leaned back on his hands to watch with a drunken kind of smile while she worked his cock. “Put it in your mouth, Lisette.” Her eyes grew wide as saucers and she snapped back as though he had bitten her. “If you do it for me I’ll use my tongue on you.”

Still, she hesitated, causing me to sniff and remark, “Who does she think she is? Doesn’t she know what I’d give to have my mate clean me?”

But I found out it wasn’t for cleaning. He had finally coaxed her onto the bed and they lay at opposite ends with the girl on top of him. I settled on the pillow to watch. He had used his fingers to explore the dark fuzz and, pressing his finger against the puffy hood, revealed a little bud from within. I had never seen such a thing before but he knew what to do with it, mouthing it while his fingers delved inside her again.

For all the noise she made it was no wonder she gave his prick so little attention but he didn’t seem to mind at all, he was so busy with his task. He made a purring sound while he flicked his tongue over the nub until she gasped and I saw her “quim”, as he called it, swell and squeeze around his fingers. Once she had composed herself they climbed under the covers and he nestled on top of her.

“I’ve never …” She whispered against his ear and then met his mouth.

“All the better.” He replied and reached between their bodies. I couldn’t bear to watch the messy business that was to come and so I leapt from the bed and stole outdoors to relieve myself. I glanced back to see him heave his hips against hers and hear her cry out.

When I returned they were still at it beneath the covers as one grunting, panting, pulsing entity. I wondered if at some point she had started to put up a bit of a fight, for he had her hands clasped together over her head. She was no worse for wear, however, not with his other hand squirming between their bodies.

She had her pleasure first, bucking against him, and then it was his turn to rise up with his teeth bared. Ah, I envied him at that moment. It had been so long since I had ventured from home or enjoyed the pleasure of a passing stray. They collapsed together, sated, and I took my place at the foot of the bed.

There was much muttering afterwards in which he quizzed on her on this and that, whether she had enjoyed herself, muttering crude words into her ear while she blushed and laughed at him before repeating those words. It was all so incredibly dull that I fell asleep, only to be roused when the bed jostled and they both got out to wash themselves.

And then they were back at it again. The silly little bitch nearly crushed me as she rolled over onto her hands and knees as he asked her.

“Vulgar slut!” I snapped. Well, with no concern for my welfare I had no concern for her decency and settled myself underneath her.

Upon getting over the initial discomfort of this second invasion she lifted her bottom to him and he took her with ferocity. Round and round their bodies I went, ogling her jiggling breasts while he rode her. Then I crept down further for the best vantage possible of where their bodies met.

I don’t recall ever making such a fuss myself yet there they were, doing it as I did it on all fours, Lisette huffing and puffing, Greencoat with his hands around her waist, pulling her body back and forth in rhythm with his thrusting. I could see his heavy balls slapping against her sticky folds and his long cock plunging in and out, harder and faster with each stroke. Even their moans could not drown out the wet sound of their coupling.

And at last there was the culmination. He pulled away from her almost completely and then slammed back in. She let out a groan and I got out of the way just before she crashed face-down on the bed where I had been laying. It wasn’t the last of it but I’d seen enough. To get away from the racket I went back outside to make my bed on top of the woodpile.

Morning was just beginning when the door whined open. It was Greencoat, fully dressed and with bright eyes, smugly facing the dawn.

“Was it worth doing away with my mistress for a tumble?”

He merely grinned and then he ceased to be, fading back into that unseen thing I had first detected the night before. I trotted back into the cottage to find her still asleep. My belly rumbled and so I hopped on the bed and meowed loudly.

Her eyes fluttered open and she stared uncomprehending at me. I purred to win the affection of my new mistress, pressed my fuzzy head to her brow and was taken into her arms. She pinched her mouth and glanced around the cottage for signs of her lover.

Silly fool, he’s just a tomcat, like me, I thought to myself when we stood in the doorway. You won’t see him again. You’ve given him what he came for.

When she left I trotted behind her, keeping up all the way down the Needles Road even when she tried bully me back to the cottage. Whether she liked it or not and vice versa I was hers now. Some days later when the body of her grandmother was found there was much talk about how I must have known and that’s why I followed, and how she must have fallen outside and been devoured by wild animals.

The peculiar look on the girl’s face amused me. When asked she just said that the cottage had been empty. She never told anyone of the grey-eyed man who had bedded her. The loss of her maidenhead was of no real consequence; at least not to the woodsman she married not long after.

For me it was a blessing. Her woodsman had given her a good home and I wanted for nothing, gorging myself on the scraps the little ones dropped for me. I spent most of my remaining days fat and content on her lap or swatting at the chubby hands of her children when they sought to draw me into a game by tickling my belly.

In her quiet moments she often thought of her lover and when she did she would say to me, “Do you think …No, I don’t think he could do such a thing. He was probably just a traveler who found the place deserted.”

Even if she could understand me I don’t think I would have told her who he really was.