"Hold me," she demanded hoarsely, her breasts rising and falling faster.

"That's ten dollars, wench. And I suppose you'll be wanting another kiss with it... another twenty," he managed, sounding surprisingly calm.

"Blessit, Garner Townsend-" she flared, stomping a foot. The dormant Delilah in her was suddenly jarred awake. Garner had passions, too, however he controlled them. She'd get what she wanted. She fished in the bag for ten and twenty dollar coins and pressed them into his palm. He dropped them into his pocket and drew her into his arms to plunge into the hot, wet honey of her mouth again. In the last second, as he held her tightly against his hardening frame, his body flexed, thrusting his swollen shaft against her involuntarily. When he pulled away, they were both breathing hard, both feeling molten currents of desire coiling through them.

"At these rates," he grinned an exceedingly lecherous grin, "it's going to be a very costly night, wench."

"How much is a touch?" she ignored his scandalous teasing.

"What kind of touch?" he managed thickly.

"Private. And long. And firm." Her voice was a sultry rasp as her hands came up to nudge her breasts free of her corset, demonstrating. "Here."

"Twenty... both hands," he could scarcely whisper, watching her lush nipples harden before his eyes as her fingers trailed across them. She reached into the pouch and, without looking, miraculously pulled forth a twenty-dollar gold piece. Flashing it before his gaze, she dropped it in his pocket. His hands closed firmly over her pale, satiny breasts and his fingers trapped her nipples, working them expertly. Her eyes closed and her head dropped back as she arched against that contact and sighed raggedly.

When his hands stilled on her, she opened her eyes, looking straight into his black-centered gaze. She put her hands on his wrists and dragged his palms down her sides, onto her buttocks, as she rubbed erotically against his front. "Is this the same touch, or a different one?"

He managed to straighten only by not breathing and not thinking about the firm, silky mounds he was relinquishing. His entire body was on fire. Whatever had possessed him to attempt such madness?! "Different."

She reached for another coin. "Touch me again."

He did touch her, kneading her smooth, rounded buttocks, while suffering the glorious, self-inflicted torture of feeling her warm body against his arms. It took every ounce of Townsend determination he possessed to finally withdraw. He stood, trembling, afraid to move, as she picked up the bag of coins and swayed to the bed.

She slid across the soft linen and beckoned. "Take your clothes off. Slowly," she ordered, holding up another large gold piece, a "fifty." He peeled his gentlemanly garments with obedient leisure, watching the fires of passion flickering through her as she hungrily searched the emerging mounds and angles of his male body. She rubbed her legs over each other languidly and lay back on the bolsters. "Then kiss me, all over."

"You do have expensive tastes, wench," he groaned, climbing onto the bed beside her. "Another fifty, at least."

She pressed a coin into his palm and lay back, letting him do his work. He knelt beside her and began with a brief kiss on heT lips and then her temples and ears and throat. By the time he reached her breasts, he began to throw in a few free nibbles. And by the time he reached her hipbones, he was stroking her with his tongue and his hands, sending trickles of fire radiating under her skin and into her woman's cleft. Then her thighs, her knees, her feet... and back up the inside of her thighs... he was consuming her!

Her body became a living flame under his attentions, undulating, flickering, hot and glowing. It was heavenly torture; wave upon wave of pleasure too full, too wild for her to contain. And when he embedded a final kiss in her thatch of gingery curls, on her most sensitive flesh, a hoarse moan ripped from her throat and vibrated through them both. Garner rose onto his knees, between her parted legs, staring down at her loveliness, her openness to loving, to him.

"Lesson over."

He lifted the pouch and poured the remaining coins over her body, scattering them over her silky belly and soft breasts. She gasped as the cold metal showered her skin, but a moment later, Garner's hot male body slid over hers, too, trapping the hard gold coins between them. He kissed her hungrily and cradled her in his arms, joining their bodies with a series of strong, rhythmic thrusts.

They arched and trembled, giving, releasing; joined in passion, in will and in love. Then, as the peak approached, everything slowed, and in the calescent heat, they merged, becoming one. And when the raging tide in their blood subsided, they refused to part, lying wrapped in each other's arms, their legs entwined.

Some time later, Whitney wriggled contentedly and kissed his chest and his stubborn Townsend chin. "Did I do all right... for a shameful spendthrift?"

"You seem to have a great deal of natural talent for it." He tucked his chin to look at her with soft-eyed wonder.

"For spending your money or your passions?" she asked silkily. And he laughed, relaxing around her once again.

His face was so beautiful, she realized, with its fine straight nose and high cheekbones and graceful, expressive mouth. He made a very handsome man. Her thoughts began to drift and took a peculiar, womanly bend. He would probably make handsome children too...

"Garner?"

"Ummhummm?" He was drifting a bit.

"How much would you charge for... making me a baby?"

She felt him startle and felt the shaking of his body against her as laughter worked its way up through him. He drew back on his shoulder to look at her and turned her reddening face back to his.

"I won't charge for babies," he said, his eyes twinkling, "if you won't." He laughed again, pulling her against his chest in a tight hug. "You see the way it really works is... the good Lord lets us have babies on credit... and then we get to pay for them the rest of our lives."

Author's Note.

I hope you enjoyed Whitney and Garner. The historical setting of this book is based in fact that sometimes reads stranger than fiction. The Whiskey Rebellion was a surprisingly bloodless uprising by largely poor and loyal frontier farmers. Beset by external, enemies and fearful of internal factions, Washington and his cabinet believed "over-action" was preferable to "under-action" and determined, based on "intelligence" that was sometimes absurdly inaccurate, that a show of military force was imperative.

The "watermelon army" was hastily conscripted, ill-equipped, and populated largely by the east's landless poor. The brawling, uncivilized behavior of the troops was often an embarrassment to their "gentlemanly" corps of officers; George Washington himself was upset that in some places his men pillaged so that they "did not leave a plate, a spoon, a glass, or a knife" behind. As Garner Townsend illustrated, the very word "militia" became a term of contempt. In one instance, on the march west, the men of several units revolted, refusing to strike their tents for the day's march. Bewildered officers were forced to distribute an extra ration of whiskey and to give the men the day off to get drunk.

Some young gentlemen of fashion did agree to serve, but only in gentlemanly regiments (like mounted "dragoons") and argued endlessly over the style and color and "accoutrements" of uniforms. "Where egos and sartorial tastes went unsatisfied," historian Thomas P. Slaughter writes in his recent book, The Whiskey Rebellion, "refusal to serve or, in the case of draftees, purchase of substitutes were the choice alternatives for men of substance. Honor and ambition often supplanted patriotism as the highest priorities of both the resplendent dragoons riding west and those who petulantly stayed behind."

Of those rebels arrested and taken on the forced march to Philadelphia, only two were actually convicted of treason; both were pardoned by George Washington himself, upon the pleas of men of substance. The trials themselves proved an embarrassment to the prosecutors, so many of the men were released due to lack of evidence and witnesses. Observers recorded that only the most flagrant of judicial prejudice and misconduct permitted the two convictions that were obtained.

Thus Garner and Whitney's situation, as wild as it might seem, could actually have happened! A girl, raised in the cashless society of the frontier, a gentlemanly officer, resplendent with gold buttons and burning with ambition... It is my own family background and loose connections to latter-day distillers ("moonshiners") that provided some of the color of Black Daniels's distilling operation... and the "old uncles." And it is a bit of my own philosophy that everything probably does have its price... but that there are some things which should never be bought, bargained, or sold.

end.