OLD MAN LOGAN

Disclaimer: I neither own nor profit from any of these characters, they are all the property of Marvel and the Mouse.

Chapter One: Man and Wife

British Columbia, Canada, 1880's

John Howlett was as good a man, as fine a gentleman and as good a husband as any man could ever be.

He was a good-looking man, tall, and well-made, with fine, soft reddish-brown hair and amber eyes that had great wisdom and kindness in them.

John was the personification of the benevolent country squire; he used his wealth and his position to help those less fortunate. While lesser men whiled away their time and their money of gambling, social functions, and the tedious routine of the monied classes John took his position as Squire Howlett very seriously; there was not a villager in the town nearest his estate who had not benefited from his generosity and did not praise his name.

In stark contrast, the groundkeeper of his estate, Thomas "Black Tom" Logan was a drunkard and a ruffian, who told wild tales of a misspent life as a tramp, a soldier and a convict. When he was deep in his cups, he claimed that he was over a hundred years old, and spoke of Paris during the revolution when the heads of the wealthy rolled, and of his bloody escapes from heathen military prisons in the far flung corners of the empire. His tales of his life and times were lurid. Terrible stories of blood and violence, glory and debauchery, squalour and poverty.

Old Black Tom lived alone in his cabin with his bitterness and his whiskey, and was glad of it.

There was a wildness about his looks, a roughness that was made ugly by his black disposition. He was a short, hairy, stocky man with a barrel chest, and a head of bushy black hair that crowned his perennially angry face, in which were set two blue eyes reminiscent of those of a rabid wolf.

He was a frightening man, and Elizabeth was frightened of him.

The doctors told her that she had to spend more time outdoors, that it would hasten the end of the long illness she had suffered after the stillbirth of her first child. She enjoyed the outdoors and her husband's estate, but fear of Black Tom sent her rushing for the safety of the manor house.

The sight of him did something to her, something terrible, and unpleasant.

Even the sound of his heavy footfalls, accompanied by his foul muttered curses in his guttural Irish brogue was enough to se her heart to racing with fear, and send her running.

John found her fear of the groundskeeper somewhat amusing.

"Black Tom? He's no danger to anyone but himself. They call him "Black" because of his dark looks, because he's Black Irish and he has black moods, not because he's some kind of monster. He used to be a soldier, he joined the army as a young man to escape famine and poverty in Ireland. I believe the poor fellow saw a lot of action in his thirty years of service, and a lot of it awful. He was held prisoner a few times, in some far-flung regions of the Empire, under horrifying conditions. He claims to have been transported to Australia as a convict, he must have been terribly young at the time. But, then again he claims to have been born in 1760, as well."

"Can he really be that old, John? His stories are so convincing."

John Howlett laughed.

"You fear him so, but you listen to his drunken ravings?"

"No. But I hear them repeated, by the other servants."

"From the look of him, I'd say the man was no older than thirty-five or forty, but I imagine he's in his fifties, I've seen his medal for thirty years military service. He gets a small pension from the Crown, for his service, and uses it to buy himself books, which his cabin is stacked with from floor to ceiling in one corner, and whiskey in cheap taverns where he can find the sort of women who are beguiled by the tales he spins from the experiences of his life and the books he devours. The man's just a broken-down ex-soldier and a bitter old drunk. He's not an ogre, my dear. He's a pathetic character, really, but as long as he does his job well, I have no quarrel with him. And you should have no fear of him."

But Elizabeth did have fear of Black Tom, terrible fear, a fear that sometimes kept her awake at night.

She would get up from her bed, where John slept, and go stand by the window and look out over the grounds.

From her high bedroom window, she could see the groundskeeper's cabin, the light in the window burning all night.

Sometimes she saw the groundskeeper himself, standing by the tallest tree closest to the house, looking up at her window, as if he was waiting for her to come and stand in it.

That was when she feared him most of all.

***

It was a lovely day, not long after her conversation with John, just as winter was beginning to turn to springtime, one of the first warm days of the New Year, a day Elizabeth was enjoying with a good book when she heard that familiar heavy footfall, and that terrible train of horrible oaths.

Her blood froze, the very marrow in her bones was chilled to zero, and for a moment she was paralysed with fear.

She saw him in her mind's eye, standing under the tree, looking up at her window with his wolfish eyes, and then she dropped the book, lifted her skirts and began to run helter-skelter, the way a terrified small child runs.

Except this time she was running headlong in the direction the groundskeeper was coming from, instead of away from him, and, crashing through a hedge, she ran right into him.

He smelled of the earth, and of tobacco and cheap whiskey, and the fabric of his clothing was rough.

She jumped away from him and in her haste, fell to the ground.

"And where would you be goin' in such a hurry, Miz Howlett? Now you've got your dress all dirty, haven't you?"

He tried to help her up and she skittered backwards, and fell into the hedge.

Black Tom's feral face broke into a smile and he laughed.

It was a hearty, booming sound, quite unusually cheerful coming from a dour, bitter man, consumed with such world-weary hate.

Or so he seemed to her.

"You're not afraid of old Black Tom, now are you?" he asked.

He helped her to her feet, whether she wanted him to, or not.

"No, Mr. Logan. I was just…surprised."

"Ye looked it. What were ye runnin' from?"

"Some kind of animal. It chased me."

"Oh. I see."

He was still smiling; he knew she had been running from him and he found it amusing.

He sniffed, and she thought perhaps he was ill, but no, he sniffed for the same reason animals sniff, to catch the scent of something.

"Ye're bleedin' Miz Howlett. And yer dress is all torn. Ye've picked the wrong hedge to fall into." He said.

"Yes, well, I'll just go back to the house and get cleaned up, thank you, Mr. Logan."

"And I'm to let you stumble there on your own, trippin' over yer torn hem and bleedin' all over the ground. And with some frightenin' animal on the loose? I'd best walk with ye."

He took her arm, and Elizabeth walked with the groundskeeper with her heart hammering in her chest and a scream trapped in her throat.

She knew why he stood by the tree and stared up at her bedroom window; a woman knows these things, and they had quite a bit of the wood to walk through.

Her dress was already torn and she was already bloody, and though he was no taller than she was, he was a powerfully built man.

No one would be the wiser.

It would be hopeless to resist him.

"And here's your book."

He bent down to pick it up.

"So, you like Milton, do you? I prefer Byron, myself, but then, I suppose his work's more suited to a soldier than a lady."

"Actually, so do I, Mr. Logan. But I find that, lately, I find Byron…disturbing."

That made the groundskeeper laugh, again.

"And there's nothin' disturbin' about the war between Heaven an' Hell?"

They were out of the wood and coming closer to the house, passing the tall tree.

"I can manage from here, Mr. Logan."

"I reckon ye can, at that. I'll see you in your window, Miz Howlett. If it's convenient, ye might wear the lavender gown, with the ruffle at the front."

He winked at her.

"Mr. Logan! I'll do nothing of the sort! Do you know what would happen to you if I told my husband about this conversation?"

"Sure I do. But ye won't. Ye look pale, Miz Howlett. I'd best walk ye right to the door."

When they got to the door, Black Tom tipped his hat, sarcastically, if one could do so, and chuckling to himself, walked past her, and on his way.

***

That night, Elizabeth put on the lavender gown, and after John had fallen asleep, she got a candle and went to the window.

She was afraid not to, afraid of what he might do.

When she parted the curtains she saw him there, under the tree, holding a lamp against the black, moonless night.

Elizabeth closed the curtains and ran back to bed.

She buried herself under the covers, trembling in fear.

It was quite a long time before she could get to sleep.

***

The more Elizabeth thought of it, the angrier she became.

What right had he, a drunken Irish convict, a common soldier, to laugh at her, to make sport of her, let alone to make impertinent advances to her, to insist she appear in her window dressed in certain nightclothes, as if she was one of his women, some slattern he enticed back to his cabin from a disreputable tavern?

She was the lady of the house, after all.

He was some ragged ruffian who would likely have died from drink, or hanging, or would have ended up a common tramp if it wasn't for John's generosity.

That was how he started life, a street urchin and a common tramp of an Irishman, and that was how he deserved to end it.

Imagine him, laughing at her!

John had probably discovered him lying drunk in a doorway or an alley, and he gave the man a job, and a home, and this was how Logan repaid him? By making improper advances to his wife?

The man was little more than the wild animals he was charged to control.

Her anger at being so treated by the bandy-legged, insolent groundskeeper quite overwhelmed her usual fear of him.

She refused to be treated as the object of his crass fantasies.

On the occasion of her walks, Elizabeth no longer avoided the groundskeeper, indeed, she made several trips to his cabin to confront him, over the period of the next two weeks or so.

She stomped around his rough-hewn little porch and banged on his equally rough-hewn door, demanding he answer.

But Logan was either out and about on the estate or worse, inside, laughing at her fury and her indignation.

At long last, she raised such a fuss that he could not ignore her, and after many days and fruitless trips had passed, he answered his door to her.

Elizabeth angrily pushed past him into his rough-hewn little one-room cabin.

"Now you see here, Logan, I am the mistress of this house and you are employed her at my husband's pleasure. I'm sure he would not be pleased to know you've been making sport of me—"

"Am I now? And here I thought I was the groundskeeper, an tis you who are employed here at your husband's pleasure, madam." The groundskeeper joked.

"Those are precisely the kind of impertinent and improper suggestions that I will no longer countenance. I refuse to live in fear of you, sir. I do not find you or your tall tales charming, or interesting, not do I find you the least bit attractive. You will stop coming to stare at me in my nightclothes, and you will cease making these tawdry and unappreciated advances to me, or else I will tell my husband about you, and then you will be sorry!"

Elizabeth was well aware that she was shouting at the man, and it wasn't like her to shout, but she was terribly angry, as terribly angry as she had once been terribly afraid.

"Oh I will be, will I? D'ye fancy, then, that a man like me, who's lived a hundred and twenty some years in and on and around about every continent on this world would find himself upset to be losin' such a sorry situation as this one? Or is it your bastard Mr. Howlett I'm to fear your rich, bloodless English son-of-a-bitch of a husband? What's he going to do to me? Give me a good talking to? If he was even half a man his wife wouldn't be standing at her window all night; she'd be sleepin' in his bed with a smile on her face."

The very idea that he would make such an impertinent suggestion infuriated Elizabeth even further.

"I will ignore that crass statement, sir, because I am a lady, and I imagine that the kind of women you are accustomed to dealing with are not."

"True. But I know when a woman's interested in actin' like a lady and when she's not, and I don't think you came here to show me how proper ye are." He replied.

"Are you making advances towards me?"

"Me? I'm not the one who comes and stands at her window in her small clothes, so that when the moon hits her right anyone below can see right through 'em. I'm not the one who's come to your door, howlin' and poundin' it down. I been tryin' to be a gentleman and treat you like a lady. But, there's only so much a man can take, and then, he has to be a man, after all."

Black Tom could move quickly, quickly as an animal could, and he had his arm around her waist before she could protest.

Elizabeth was pressed against his rough clothes again, smelling earth and tobacco and cheap whiskey, and something else that she supposed was just him.

There wasn't too much whiskey on his breath, which was heavy, and shallow.

Elizabeth's breath was as heavy and shallow as well, and her heart was pounding in her chest.

Heat rose into her face and she blushed, furiously.

"Let me go, Mr. Logan! I don't know what you are about!" she insisted.

"Sure you do, my girl. You're not so old, not even thirty, I daresay, but you're a married woman and ye've just buried a son, poor woman. That's because you got him by that soft John ye've married. His blood's too thin to survive in a wild place like this. Not like mine. You want a son ye can be proud of, a good, strong boy? I may be able to give ye what you're looking for."

He tried to kiss her and Elizabeth squirmed away.

"No! I don't want to! Get your hands off me, you beast! You animal!" she cried.

He let her go.

She was surprised that he let her go, and furious that he was laughing at her again.

"Alright. Have it your way, my dear. I've no shortage of women that I've got to resort to force, and I'm old enough to know better than to try. I suppose this job's done, and I'll be leaving here now. But, how about letting an old soldier who's going on his way in the world, once again, have a kiss goodbye? What can that harm?"

"I am not a vindictive woman, Mr. Logan. I do not wish to see you turned out of my household. I will let you have your kiss, and your situation, if you will promise to leave me alone. Do you promise?"

"If that's what you want, Miz Howlett, then you have my word."

He put one arm around her waist and drew her to him, slowly, and with the other he turned her face to meet his, holding her flush against his body so that there was not a bit of space between them.

She didn't know why she was letting him kiss her, and why she did not protest when he dropped his hand from her face to touch her breast as he kissed her, but she was afraid, again, terribly afraid, and then the fear left her.

And Elizabeth was angry again, and the anger left her.

That was when she realised it was not fear or anger she felt for Black Tom Logan; she had never feared him or been angry with him; she had desired him, desired him always.

She lay awake at nights in fear of him only that he would come to her dreams.

She had longed to go to him; he was something wild, beckoning to her from under the trees, and his presence roused something wild in her that she never could have dreamed existed.

If he was like a wolf in the night, then she was no sheep; just a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Black Tom broke the kiss.

"Do you still want me to leave you alone?" he asked her.

"Don't make fun of me, Mr. Logan. You know I don't."

His face softened, just a little.

Almost imperceptibly.

"I'm not making fun of ye. I think about you in that big house, lyin' in your feather bed with soft John, an' it makes me want to burn the place down. I would have left here long ago, if it wasn't for you. What does a man like him know about a woman? Why does he deserve a woman like you?"

"Mr. Logan…Tom…I…I don't know what to say."

"What do you say to him, Elizabeth?"

Elizabeth blushed.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what do you say to soft John when you come back from your window, and you can't sleep because you're hungry for a man?"

She knew just what he meant; he was talking about, talking about her desires.

Elizabeth barely thought about her desires, she never spoke openly of them to her husband; how could she speak about them to another man?

My God, am I going to take this man for my lover? Here, in this place? On that bed?

Well, why shouldn't I? Haven't I spent enough lonely nights, between cold sheets? Didn't I waste my youth, waiting for the promised fulfilment that never came?

Didn't my child with John die inside me, because I have become old before my time, because I have withered on the vine, because I have been so neglected as a woman that my body has forgotten what it means?

He's a strong man, a virile man; he can make me a woman again, and give me sons.

Give me fulfilment.

And love.

"I say…please."

"You say what, then?"

Elizabeth tried to turn her head from the older man, to hide her tears, but he wouldn't let her.

"I say, please. Please, my darling, I feel so lonely. Please. Because I am so very, very, desperately lonely, Tom! And since my child died, died in my body so that I gave birth to…to a corpse, I have been desolate! I have tried to be a good wife! I have! And John is a good man. A decent man. A good husband. But, he leaves me lonely, and cold, and now I fear, I am old beyond my years. Too old to really know what it is to be woman. To have a child. To love a man. To know…fulfilment."

A black look passed over the Irishman's features, a black look of bloodlust and rage that made Elizabeth know why it was they called him Black Tom.

It passed, quickly, into that softening of his features that made him look handsome and virile and strong.

"I promise you, Elizabeth, ye'll never have to beg me. An' I can give ye all that ye;ll never get from Soft John."

***

About a week before her wedding, Elizabeth's older sister, who was already married, explained to her exactly what it was that a man did to his wife, or to women of loose moral character who didn't care if they were married or not.

Some of it Elizabeth had heard before, but not all, and it didn't strike her as being disgusting, just a little curious, was all.

Her sister told her that, at first, it was unpleasant, and that one was embarrassed to be in one's underthings, or to be naked, and moreso to see a man in such a state. The act itself was terribly unpleasant the first few times, no matter how careful your husband was, but, after that, when one got used to it, one found that it was a pleasing experience, sometimes, actually quite delightful.

There was a certain knack to it; it was the sort of thing you figured out as you went along, with your husband's help, and his patience, and then you began to see what all the fuss was over.

The idea, then, was to be brave through the initial unpleasantness, knowing that a certain kind of happiness and fulfilment that could only be had from a husband awaited you.

In her marriage, Elizabeth found neither.

Her initial experiences with John were not that unpleasant, but the act never became a pleasing or delightful experience, either, and since the death of their son, more and more infrequent.

She was amazed then, by the feelings aroused in her by the groundskeeper.

He closed his shutters and fastened them, and bolted his door, and quite without shame he took off his clothes, every stitch.

Elizabeth had never seen a completely naked man before, except in paintings, and Tom was almost fearsome in his nakedness.

He was quite hairy, on his arms and his chest and his legs, even on his shoulders and in the middle of his back, and indeed, powerfully built and muscular.

She found herself staring at him, looking him over from top to toe, even glancing at his manhood, and when he caught her looking, Black Tom wagged it at her, and laughed.

"Bet you never saw anything like this, before, eh, my girl?" he leered.

Elizabeth had already taken off her dress, but she was still wearing her chemise, her corset and her drawers, which was as undressed as she ever got with John.

"Shall I take my clothes off as well?"

"No. I'll do it."

He held his powerful, hairy forearm in front of him and made a fist of one of his huge hands, and before Elizabeth's wondering eyes, three long, sharp, bony claws about a foot long and as thick around as one of his fingers tore out of his hand, from between each inside knuckle.

"Oh my God!" she gasped.

"I figured you ought to see 'em sooner than later. I'm not gonna hurt you, but that's more than I can say for your clothes." Tom chuckled.

Elizabeth tried not to be afraid as Tom approached her, but there was something exciting about the heaviness of his breathing and the growl that rumbled through his chest as he cut the laces of her corset and she burst out of it.

It fell around her feet.

He made the claws retract back into his arm, and before her wondering eyes, the cuts they had made in his hands healed.

She lifted up her arms and Tom pulled her chemise over her head.

They were part of him, he had control over them, and feeling his strong, warm hands untying the waist of her drawers, Elizabeth couldn't be bothered about the claws.

We are all God's children, after all.

When she was naked, instinctively, Elizabeth tried to cover herself with her arms, and dart towards the bed, but Tom wouldn't let her.

He kissed her again, the way he had before, and the sight of his body, the touch of his hands, his fingertips, his lips, they inflamed her with what she supposed was sexual passion; she had never felt it before.

She found herself in his bed, naked as a needle, both of them, naked as a needle and, the strong feelings of passion, pleasure, and delight that swept through Elizabeth crowded shame from her mind.

She embraced Black Tom with a sort of wonder, feeling weak and strong all at the same time.

He kissed her and touched her all over her body, even in shameful places she suddenly felt no shame in, and she held him fast against her, unable to stop the moans and cries from escaping her lips.

Then, suddenly, Elizabeth was tormented by something that was like an ache in her womb, but not really.

"Tom, oh Tom, I…I need you." She gasped.

She could no longer stop herself from touching him, she kissed his chest and ran her hands all over his body, and finally, gingerly, haltingly, she grasped his manhood, and the way he made a sound like a moan and a growl made that strange ache worse.

Elizabeth felt giddy and molten as she led him to the quick of her with an unsteady hand.

"Are you ready for me, my girl?" he growled close to her ear.

"Yes…oh, yes…" Elizabeth gasped

He said something shockingly base in her ear, crude but yet tender, and she felt their joining with an outburst of delight unlike anything she had experienced before, a pleasure that only grew, and mounted as he moved inside her, seeking her lips to kiss her, which she gave him, gladly, opened herself for him, gladly, embraced him in all her trembling limbs.

She wanted more, more of him but she didn't know how to tell him so, squirming beneath him, then, somehow Tom knew, quickening his pace, and the force and depth of each stroke.

The feeling swelled in her, sweeping over her whole body until she felt as though she would burst.

The sweat from his brow and his wild hair dripped onto her forehead; Elizabeth cried out, louder and louder, moaning and keening against Tom's grunts and growls and groans.

He kissed her, fiercely, sweeping his tongue around her mouth; he had not done that before, and she could taste herself on his lips.

And, in a curious way, then, she did burst, a culminating burst of delight that made her understand what it was her sister had spoken about, tightening her limbs around her lover with mad, reckless abandon.

Tom swore, terribly, and abruptly withdrew from her; she could feel his manhood jerk against her breastbone.

He had spent on her rather than in her, which she supposed was rather gentlemanly of him, and the doze she began to slip into was interrupted by something cold and wet and rough on her breasts, and opened her eyes to find Tom wiping her off with a wet cloth, which he then used to wipe off his manhood.

He tossed the cloth into a bucket in the corner and fell into the bed beside her.

"See? I even tidied you up a bit. I am a gentleman, you see."

Elizabeth laughed and she reached for him, glad that he was willing to hold her in his arms.

"So, that's what all the fuss is about." She said.

"Fuss? What fuss?"

"I never had any feelings like that with John."

She looked over at the groundskeeper and he laughed his great laugh and smiled.

"Well then, I have taken your maidenhead, in a way, haven't I? That makes me your husband. Not soft John."

"Yes. And I shall be faithful to you, Tom. I will never say "please" to John, again. I don't think he will miss it, if I don't say "please" to him. Will you be faithful to me?"

He got a very queer expression on his face, Old Black Tom, and held her so tightly in his arms that it almost hurt.

"Till death do us part, Elizabeth. Ye have my word on it, may the Devil take me now instead of later if I'm lying."

Elizabeth closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

She had taken a long and strange path to love, and found it at last.

Longer and far stranger, however, was Old Black Tom's.