Once, in a small town surrounded by thick forests, there lived a young blacksmith. All day long he laboured, turning out horseshoes, railings and all manner of metal goods for the people of the town. He loved his work and could think of no better way to spend his time than beating hot metal into useful things.
One day, hard at work in his smithy, he looked up and saw a young woman standing by the door. When she smiled, he recognised her as one of the two young women who had moved into a house in the forest just outside town earlier in the year. The townspeople kept away from them believing them to be witches or – worse – lesbians, but the blacksmith was an easy-going soul and always had a kind word for everyone.
“Good day, Miss!”, he said cheerfully. “Were you looking for something?”
The young lady was fingering some of the chains hanging in skeins by the doorway.
“These are very good” she said admiringly. “Did you make them?”
“Aye Miss”, the blacksmith replied, puffing out his (considerable) chest in pride, as making chain was a time-consuming task in those days without machinery and the hanging chains represented several weeks of work.
“I think I’d like to buy some”, she said with a smile. “Always useful to have chains – especially in the forest with so many wild beasts about.”
“Aye, Miss” the blacksmith replied again, and they took to haggling and soon the young lady was the proud possessor of several lengths of chain of different sizes.
“Can you make anything, from iron?” she asked.
The blacksmith paused. “Almost anything, Miss” he replied, cautiously, for he was an honest fellow.
“Could you make…say… a collar? An iron collar, with attachments for chains, and thick flanges for a padlock? And shackles too, the same but already connected to one another with chains?”
“Aye Miss” the blacksmith replied uncertainly. “But a dog’s better off with a leather collar, you know? Iron collar’d be powerful heavy.”
“Oh, this isn’t for a dog.” the young lady replied hurriedly. “It’s for a… a beast. A big, fierce beast that we trapped. A good heavy iron collar is just what it needs. And shackles, like I said.”
“Aye, very well Miss” nodded the blacksmith, secretly rather uncomfortable as he did not believe in cruelty even to big fierce beasts. “But you don’t need flanges and padlocks: I can do you a catch that no beast’ll ever be able to work.”
“No, padlocks are best.” the young lady replied earnestly. “Can’t be too careful.”
So the blacksmith agreed to make collar and shackles, and lengths of chain between them. He tried to make them as light as he could, but iron working in those days was a crude business and the collar with its great thick flanges weighed many pounds.
Nonetheless, the young lady professed herself delighted with them, and struggled off along the path into the forest carrying her heavy load, the blacksmith standing watching her outside his smithy, thinking her a winsome creature and desperately wishing he had offered to carry the heavy restraints himself.
 |
| These look rather unpleasant. Poor beast. |
Several weeks passed, until one day the blacksmith heard a soft knock on his door and opened it to see the young lady again.
“Good day, Miss!” he greeted her. Not a problem with the ironmongery, I hope?”
“No, no!” she replied brightly. “No, the beast is thoroughly under control. They’re just right for him. And actually, that’s what I wanted to talk about. You see, we were thinking of going hunting. To catch a few more beasts… just as big and fierce. And we were wondering if you could make…. Oooh, shall we say three more sets? Like those? Maybe a little heavier, if you can…”
“Hunting fierce beasts, Miss?” he replied, his brow furrowed with concern. “That doesn’t sound very safe, for a pair of young – “
“We’ll be fine” she said, decisively cutting him off. “It’s what we do. But we need the chains and shackles and things. Can you make them?”
“Of course, Miss” he replied, proudly. “It will be an honour and a pleasure.”
When the work was completed, it filled a large sack that the blacksmith could barely lift. So with much clanking and clashing, he heaved it onto the back of his cart and set off for the young ladies’ house. Along the winding path his horse trotted, before pulling up in front of the cottage. As he dismounted, he fancied he could hear some muffled cries, but when he paused and listened more intently, they stopped, so he decided it must have been only the wind.
He hauled the sack down and dragged it across to the door, knocking gently.
The young lady opened the door with a startled look.
“Oh, hello!” she said.
“Who is it, Melissa?” came a voice from inside. The blacksmith peeked around the door and saw a dark-haired woman, hurriedly closing a trapdoor in the floor.
“Just the blacksmith, Harriet” the young lady – Melissa – replied. “I think he’s brought the things I ordered – for the beasts, you know”.
Harriet came to the door and looked at the sack. “In there? What things?”
“Oh, you remember!” Melissa replied brightly. “You know: chains and stuff. For the hunt. When we go and hunt beasts?”
“Oh yes of course, the beast hunt” Harriet muttered and with a curt nod, she went back into the house. With a certain amount of effort, and still more awkwardness, the blacksmith managed to get the sack into the house, took his payment and departed, kicking himself for not finding some excuse to be invited in by the lovely Melissa.
Back at his smithy, all through the afternoon, he found himself working metal into the shape of a capital ‘M’, with increasingly curly and ornate serifs. He was in love.
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| Harriet and Melissa. I don’t know why they’re wearing nighties… it’s ages until bedtime. |
Four days later, in the forest, Melissa again opened the door to see the blacksmith standing there.
“Oh, it’s you” she said, immediately thinking it an extraordinarily stupid thing to say. “Is everything all right?”
“Well, yes and no, Miss”, said the blacksmith wringing his leather cap in his hands. “See, I don’t know if you heard the news in the town but… three young men went missing two nights back. They were on their way back home from the inn and they just vanished. Everyone’s in a terrible state about it.”
“Yes, we heard about that.” Melissa replied cautiously. “Very sad. I hope they’ll turn up… boys do run off from time to time, though, don’t they? Headstrong things.”
“But not these three, Miss!” the blacksmith responded, earnestly. “One of ‘em was due to be married today – and another his best man! Makes no sense they’d go a-running away before the wedding.”
“But what’s it got to do with us?” Melissa asked.
“Well Miss”, the blacksmith said, wringing his leather cap more than ever. “I was just thinking-like. With those three lads missing… missing in the forest like as not, this forest where the two of you live…”
“Go on…” Melissa said, narrowing her eyes. Harriet appeared, standing silently behind her. She seemed to be clutching something behind her back, but the blacksmith didn’t notice.
“And… and then I got to thinking of all those shackles and chains and things that I made you. Well, I thought…”
“Yes…?” Melissa said.
“Well, I just thought perhaps you could help look for them, Miss. Being such good hunters and that.”
“Oh!” Melissa replied in surprise. “Oh, I see. Because we… because we hunt things. We could help look for them. Yes, that makes sense. Perhaps we could… what do you think Harriet?”
Her friend looked equally surprised. “Yes, we’ll erm… we’ll certainly keep an eye out. When we’re hunting beasts.”
“Yes, we’ll keep an eye out!” Melissa confirmed. “If we see any clues, we’ll be sure to let the town know, all right? Good day, now!”
And she shut the door in the poor lovelorn blacksmith’s face.
***
A week later, the blacksmith was overjoyed to see Melissa walk into his smithy yet again.
“Any news, Miss?” he enquired, eagerly.
“News… about?” she replied, somewhat perplexed.
“The missing lads, Miss. I suppose you’ve seen neither hide nor hair of them.”
“Hide nor hair” she giggled, as if at a private joke. “No, I’m afraid not. No: I came with another job for you actually. Another set of shackles and chains… to collar one more beast.”
“My pleasure, Miss” the blacksmith replied. “Same as before, then?”
“Maybe these ones… we thought…a little bigger?” Melissa replied, looking up at the brawny young blacksmith. “Three more inches for the collar, I’d say.”
She glanced down at his hands. “And maybe an inch or two extra for the wrists – forelegs. For the forelegs. And good and strong and heavy, please: this beast is the strongest of all.”
“Aye Miss” said the blacksmith, and when her lovely form was no longer lighting up the darkened workshop, he set to work.
This time, he didn’t even try to make the devices lighter. His kindliness towards animals had been quite forgotten, in his desire to please the lovely Melissa. So he heated iron and beat and pulled, and quenched and bashed and filed, until he had a set of the most fearsome iron restraints imaginable. The collar alone weighed 15 pounds and when the ensemble was put together, he could barely lift it.
He put out the furnace, left the smithy and carefully locked it all up, as if going on a long journey, without even knowing he was doing it. He was about to load the restraints onto the back of the cart when he thought better of it, patted his horse on the nose and set off staggering under the weight of the heavy irons, all the way along the winding path to the cottage in the woods.
He paused to recover his breath once he’d reached the clearing where the cottage stood. He gazed at the cottage, then took a long look around as if taking in the fresh air, the trees, the sky and all of the smells and sounds of the forest. Then picking up his sack once more, he strode over to the door.
Melissa opened it, before he could even knock and stood there smiling at him. A shaft of sunlight through the forest canopy caught her hair and it seemed made of the finest spun gold, burning in the sunshine.
“Who is it, Mel?” came Harriet’s voice.
“It’s the blacksmith.” Melissa smiled, delightedly. “He’s brought his collar and chains.”
Harriet came to the door and hugged her friend around the waist. “So he has. Isn’t that sweet?”
“Isn’t it just?” Melissa murmured.
“You’d better come inside.”
THE END
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| In the years that followed, the blacksmith got to put his expertise at forming iron into the letter ‘M’ to good use, although he usually had to add an ‘H’ to it as well. |
Wonderful! He knows where he is going and takes a smell of the free air as he will soon be in that basement being branded and tormented by his lovely Melissa. Hope he doesn't arouse the ire of Harriet though. Femsup
This story is great! I wish it was on bdsmlr or some site where I could reblog it. Are you on any sites besides blogspot, Servitor?
Thank you. Yes, I was quite pleased with this one. I started writing expecting it to be another rather gruesome witch-based fairy tale, but I realised about halfway through that it is actually a simple love story.
I suspect Melissa and Harriet have come to an understanding about how to treat the blacksmith.
Thank you. Only tumblr, where all I do is reblog 2 random images a day from previous posts on this site (carefully chosen to avoid breaching tumblr's rules against naughtiness – rather Victorian, basically: torture, castration and slavery are fine, exposed flesh is too shokcing to show). It's basically intended just as an advertisement for this site.
You're welcome to copy it and reblog the story if you like, I suppose, preferably with an acknowledgment.
Best wishes
S
Great story as ever. Thanks for writing. I wonder what Melissa found so amusing about 'hide nor hair'? We'll probably never know. And what a lovely new leather skirt she had on too.
Very kind of you to say so, thank you.
I expect you're right: we'll never know. Young ladies do just sometimes giggle at random moments, for completely unexplained reasons, in my experience of the fairer sex. You'd think it would be a liability, when hunting beasts. Young ladies also like to wear lovely leather skirts – and when they do, the world is such a better place, why would you even want to ask any questions?
Best wishes
S
I don't get it. What did they mean "his" collar and chains when it's for them. I'm a smart guy, but this story doesn't make sense.
… Bob
Yeah, it's hard sometimes to understand what women mean by what they say. You can tell from the last section that the blacksmith himself is pretty confused.
What can I say? I think that as women become more and more in charge of this world, as the female preponderence at university and in more junior professional positions gradually works through to senior management, males are going to encounter more and more things that we're just not well-equipped to understand. Being smart for a 'guy' is just not going to be enough.
Fortunately, there's a solution. As long as we do as we're told and don't bother our little heads about things we don't understand, we should be OK. Unless someone more important wants us to be not-OK, which is fine too, of course.
I mean, I'm a 'smart guy' too but in a world in which half the population are women, that's a bit like saying I have a fast byplane, in a world of supersonic fighter jets. I'm OK with that, I know my limitations.
Thank you for commenting… Bob.
S
Thanks S. I think I understand now. It's all so confusing. I have to go now: my wife has found out I'm on the internet and … oh god.
OK. Sounds like you have someone at home who can explain things to you, as simply and clearly as needed, and that's the main thing.
I'm sooo needing a satin nighty now! kiss, sara
Wow mutant78 love your imagefap captions. Lots of lovely castration and chastity stories. Almost as inventive as servitor. Femsup
They're pretty, aren't they? I hope the beasts appreciate them. Oddly enough, I've heard they even have a cage in their bedroom. Quite how they stop the beast moaning and growling all night and disturbing their sleep, I have no idea.
Kiss back
S
Hmm, whatever shall I do this afternoon. I know: Imagefap!
Such a delightful name, that web site. And frankly, for some of us, it is nothing short of cruel taunting. But then I enjoy cruel taunting.