Ch: 98.5 Cats in The Cradle
“Tallumzz…” Ivy called into the depths of the workshop. A lamp was burning in the far back corner, at the big smith’s workbench. A soft, steady whine came from the huge form, hunched over his work. “Tallum!” She barked. clapping her hands loudly.
He jolted upright and the sound stopped. “Is it late? Am I late?”
“If it was any later you would be early for tomorrow. What was that sound, what are you hiding?” She peered over the big smith, and failed miserably. Even seated on a low stool, he towered over the diminutive mage.
With a duck and a wiggle, she slipped into his arms and turned around, turning him into a comfy chair. “What has you up so late? Is that…”
Coin sized bronze and iron disks, gears, threaded rods and strangely shaped casements covered half the table. Parts cast in iron or stamped from sheets of brass, bronze and steel lay everywhere, each carefully numbered and tagged.
Small clay pots of grease and oil stood by along with trays of meticulously sorted screws and bolts. The smith had a gearwheel in his huge paw and was ever so carefully adjusting the angle on a few teeth.
His tool had a small spinning burr of stone on a steel rod, projecting from a blocky handle, clenched delicately in his enormous hand. His tool spun back up with a tinny whir.
“I’m almost done… last one. Don’t wiggle.” Even so close, even curled up in his spacious and warm lap, his voice was soft and low. She carefully snuggled in and sighed.
A few short, comfy minutes later he put down his tool and pulled a tiny bronze cuff from his ear. “All done… let me clean up.” He tucked the earcuff onto a wooden flange built into his tool, as though made to hold it.
He slipped the trays of parts and the tool into a sturdy bronze and oak chest beneath his table. He locked it with a well oiled click and draped a stained, mended and much used sheet over the whole bench.
“What’s got you staying up so late, goofus? You don’t have that much work backed up and Amicus doesn’t need those bronze sculptor’s tools till later in the week.” She demanded.
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“Gary’s wheeled contraption and the buzzy tool he gave me got me thinking…”
“You mean ‘The Wardco Buzzomatic Multipoint Wondertool™’... that buzzy tool?” She asked sweetly, already giggling at the face he made.
“I’m not calling it that, but yeah. Those ‘sandwich motors’ of his are so crude and primitive, so wasteful…” He ground to a halt, then fired right back up again. “I thought I might try a few things, while they are all away. Some of the ideas I have need a few enchanted parts…”
“That was like, four dozen words… all in a row, you must be all… excited… about this idea. Sure lover, I’ll help with whatever you need, you know the deal…” Her coral pink lips parted in a smile of pure, naked lust.
“You know what I want… you are gonna give it to me.”
“But Ivy… people will see.” He complained as she pursued him slowly across the shop.
“That’s more than half the fun, lover… let them watch, they might get some ideas of their own.” She purred, while pulling an arrangement of leather straps and buckles from her storage ring. “So handy…” She murmured softly, as she stepped into the harness and cinched it over her hips.
“Now bend over, I’m gonna put it on and ride you, right here big boy.”
He blushed a fiery red, so hot she could feel the warmth sheeting off of him, deliciously. “I can’t, not right here in the shop, anybody could come in…”
“That’s the whole point… I want them to see. Hold still while I get it strapped on…”
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Amelia and Harlan were enjoying evening tea in their front garden, when a loud yelp of pain came from the workshop. Tallum’s voice, unusually loud and in distress, roused them to investigate.
“...it’s not bleeding, we didn’t even rip anything back here, you’re fine, big baby.” Ivy’s voice was calm, even a little excited. “Let’s try again, let me have some of that slippery ointment, I’ll slather some on and you’ll be fine.”
They heard Tallum give a quiet grunt of effort, and Ivy scolded him. “This is nothing… I handle way more than this all the time, as you know, you big baby.”
The big man’s parents shared a deeply concerned glance in the workshop entrance. Silently, they discussed what they had just overheard, in the way that old married couples have… and withdrew just as silently from the scene…
The soft sound of leather straps, creaking under strain followed them to the main forge, as though whatever might be going on back there, were getting closer.
“Mistress Amelia, Master smith Harlan… we were just coming to show you something fun…” Ivy’s voice called from behind the blushing pair. “Check out what I’m making your boy endure…” She said cheerfully.
“Hey every body!” She shouted to the whole craft ward.
“Look What I’m Doing To Tallum!” She bounced up and down on him a few times whooping with excitement and pleasure.
The poor boy had leather straps around his shoulders and a red goose egg forming on his forehead, shiny with healing ointment from the medical box in the forge. Ivy rode on an arrangement of leather straps, hooked to the big man’s harness.
High up on his shoulders the tiny blonde mage’s smiling face peered down on the smith and his wife.
“I’ve never been tall before!” She shouted with pure joy.
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