1 comments/ 9449 views/ 0 favorites Belonging to Someone Else By: SweetOblivion Laura Black had the air of belonging to someone else when Mark Andrews saw her again after three long months. She was sitting on a bench overlooking the bay when he eventually spied her out. He'd walked to the top of the road, past the many guesthouses and up onto the headland in the hope of catching a glimpse of her. He knew that she used to like to sit there on a sunny evening reading a book or simply staring out at the sea, taking in the view of the boats coming in with the tide. It was always a place that he checked out when he was in the mood to look for her. The last time they'd physically touched he'd actually found her up there during a storm. She'd been quite as upset as the clouds and the restless, relentless sea that evening: their last evening together as a couple. He had held her silently, her head resting against his shoulder for one last time as forks of lightning lit up the dull, overcast evening sky. They'd stayed there in silence for a whole hour absorbing the force of the storm, until they were quite drenched to the skin. He'd tried to oblige her to take refuge from the elements in an inn that was both hospitable and warm. She had looked at him and he had realized the gulf between them, even before she shook her head one last time and had walked away towards the lighthouse without looking back. He'd had no choice but to consider their relationship over from then, as she had never come back to him. When he'd returned to the apartment that they'd shared, he found her belongings untouched and abandoned. He'd kept them. He'd hoped against hope that she would come back one day, but gradually came to understand that she wanted to be free from possessions and not just from him. Mark had seen her from a distance several times in the past few months, but it was as if she had a radar alert to his presence. She used to disappear before he ever got close. He just had to turn his attention away from her for an instant and she would have fled. So be it. He didn't want to feel like some useless stalker. If that's what she wanted, then that was her choice. Today, however, she didn't leap up and run when he appeared over the crest of the hill. She seemed to be concentrating, quite intent on her book, disregarding the rest of the world. Her head was bent forward over the hardback book and stray wisps of her hair, though tied up, flicked across the back of her neck, drawing attention to its pallor and her vulnerability. Laura was apparently completely focused on the novel on her lap, turning the pages slowly as the summer breeze flipped the hem of her yellow summer skirt up. This was his chance to revive his fortunes with her if he played her right. He walked slowly across the stone parkway, keeping his eyes fixed on her seated form. They were both quite oblivious to the shouts of a group of youths playing football on a grassy area to the left of them. They ignored the intermittent shrieks of two young children, discovering the pleasures of rolling over and over down the grassy hillside towards the quayside below them. "Hello, Laura." "Hi Mark," she said looking up from her book and smiling as if nothing had happened between them since the last time they had shared that bench. "It's very nice to see you again." "May I sit with you?" "Please." "What are you reading?" "It's a story about mansions and pleasant far away lands." "And anything else?" "Well, there are several nice conversations." "Tell me about them. I'll listen." "That will make a pleasant change," she smiled. "Once..." "Don't you think," he interrupted immediately, "that I am too old to start 'once upon a time'? "Is one ever too old?" "That depends what for," he grinned. "For listening," she responded dryly and then snapped her book shut firmly, before looking out to sea. His face fell – cleverness doesn't always win evidently. He opened his mouth to retort, thought better of it and closed his lips, pursing them and looking out at the sparkling sun on the waves as well. After a while he decided to watch a yacht heading out to sea just to give him time to work out what she was looking at and how she was feeling. He watched in zigzagging between the buoys, the crew leaning out over the water, sometimes so far back that their heads were almost touching the water. A clock struck the hour in the distance and he turned towards it, glancing down at his watch to see if it was keeping good time. "You will never be able to sit still and listen for long, could you Mark?" She sighed. "I've known times when you could not sit." "That is neither here nor there as far as either fidgeting or clever comments are concerned; and, in any case, who was to blame for my not being able to sit?" "Let's take mutual responsibility for those occasions and our shared enthusiasm. We are both old enough." "Well, I did ask if one could ever be too old." "That you did, my dear." "Yes. I did. And I'm not your 'dear' anymore." "True." "So?" "So nothing." She shrugged and they relapsed back into silence. He closed his eyes and let the summer sun warm his face for a moment. Then he flicked his eyes open and turned his head toward her, observing her bending forward to place her book in her shopping bag. Then he watched as she brushed the bright yellow summer skirt down and then lifted herself off the bench to tug it down half an inch. "I do love to see you tugging your clothes down, Laura." "I'll bet you do. Brings back sweet memories?" "Memories of tugging you over my lap after seeing you tug your clothes down, Laura," he smiled and patted his knee meaningfully. He had a sudden desire to see her pulled over his lap with her pretty yellow skirt and her, no doubt, pale panties down round her knees, preparing to count the number of times that she had ignored him over the last few months. He could almost hear the sharp sounds of his hand making contact with her soft backside. And what else: ah yes the "jolly good" encouragement of some passing old colonel who would certainly relish the excitement of a young woman punished in public. Reality was so often a disappointment for Mark though. Or a relief, depending on your point of view – the health service does not need more appoplectic colonels on its books. Laura looked across at his face and then down to his lap, spotting the slight arousal, before her gaze returned to meet his. He saw the look of disdain and knew to expect a rebuke from her. "Dream on." "I'm never too old to dream." "And what do you suppose I am never too old for, Mark?" "Hmm...I'm not sure. Ladies benefit from all sorts of things..." "Think well, Mark," she warned, as she waved away a rather imperious seagull that had settled on the arm of the bench. The bird paraded up and down for a little while and observed her dispassionately. Having sized her up and decided that she was lacking in food and therefore substance, it then stared at her rather lugubriously, its head cocked. She laughed and murmured to herself: "Said the seagull..." "...nevermore." "Very good: what do you want, Mark?" "How about wanting you to give me a brownie point in Eng Lit?" "How about you think a little more before you speak?" "Oh...I think very well, though I admit constant education is something we all benefit from." "I'm glad to hear you stay constant to your educational ambitions." "Constancy in educational ambition won't make Mark a dull boy, I promise you." "Perhaps you should welcome some change in your life?" "Losing you was a most unfortunate change, Laura." "You retained my friendship." "Your friendship?" "Yes." "Why did you avoid me these last three months then?" "Friendships take time to form." "I'm grateful you stayed still and allowed it to blossom eventually." "You should always be grateful for small mercies." "Very pat but not necessarily, Laura. I often wish that I'd had greater tenacity during that storm." "I feel that I learnt all that I needed to under your wing. Your possessiveness in the storm was the proverbial last straw." "My teaching became moribund?" "No, but I needed to find new avenues to stretch myself. I needed a breath of fresh air to wake me up from the day dream that was our affair." "You could have stayed. I worried for you." "You saw me often enough to know I was fine and I saw you'd found new company." "True, but they were nothing compared to you – sorry substitutes at best." "I can't help the choices you make, Mark." "My choices came from your choice. You could have stayed with me and helped me move on." "And watched you over-employ your well-tried techniques on others? No thanks." "That's a little unkind." "Sorry, Mark. I was trying to be frank, not brutal." "It doesn't matter. Anyway, sometimes the old teaching techniques work well to enliven things." "You will have to educate me again in these tried and tested ways one day." "Why can't we begin again now?" "I'm not sure that I wish to be enlivened on this rather gorgeous summer's evening," she sighed and then slipped on her sun glasses and looked up into the clear blue sky, before looking down to check her watch. "And don't whine. It's unbecoming." "I was trying not to." " "Try harder next time." "Do you really have to go?" "There's no real reason to stay. Is there?" "May I walk you anywhere?" "Over to the lighthouse perhaps?" "That's a long way," Mark protested querulously. "Is it too far for you?" She sighed and waved her hand in the direction of the lighthouse that towered over the cliffs on the promontory to the right. "No, but..." She shrugged, suddenly remembering that stormy night when any protest would not have carried to her. She had walked right up to the lighthouse then. The rising wind and the crash of the waves stole away his demands that she come back with him. Now that he was with her once more, she turned away again. She looked up and stared up into the darkening blue-black sky, watching the dark evening clouds gathering before nightfall. The swirling cumulus seemed like black sheep flocking to the pen, coming together above the first thin beam of light, flashing periodically out to sea. 'It will always belong to us' Mark said, before reaching up to touch her hand lightly. "Why do you need us to go back there now?" Laura sighed. He would never understand. Sometimes she just needed to be on the edge, the comfort of the rushing breaking waves below. He had upset the equilibrium that she had been building without him by his sudden appearance, though she seemed calm and balanced. Was it any wonder that she wanted to go back there now? "Does it matter how far it is?" "I think the weather is turning," he warned. Laura shrugged. She tilted her head back into the elements, feeling her reticent friend behind her. She waited for him to follow her and he soon found her able to stand still and lean back comfortably against his chest, gazing over towards the tall, perpendicular structure. It towered pale and proud over the cliffs, leaning over the sea as waves dashed to their heedless end in the rocky shallows below the cliffs. The tower almost seemed to be observing the unsettled sea shrewdly pin-pointing its beady light around and about. Mark dug in his pockets for the residue of chalk that a student teacher would carry around with him. He bent down low and picked up a piece of grey slate. Then he scrawled the word "penny" on it. "You'd only pay a penny for my thoughts?" Laura smiled. "I wonder if you are observing me as carefully as you should, if you really wanted me again?" "No escaping." Mark's words challenged Laura relentlessly as they walked along the coast road slowly, making their way to the side of a bare craggy basalt outcrop. "Okay, I was actually wondering whether it was more narcissistic to seek a smooth patch of sea where it could better admire its reflection or to wait," Laura conceded. "What are you waiting for?" Mark threw the slate down. "Perhaps I was waiting for the impact of your lips landing gently on the back of my neck?" Laura held still as Mark, now close at last, responsively reached over and clasped his hands around Laura's shaking shoulders. Laura felt the heat of another's palms rubbing the fabric of her thin cotton jacket. Mark's face was pressed against Laura's shoulder as his hand brushed down that sleeve. Laura looked up towards the cliff edge and shuddered involuntarily. Mark clung on to her, like a pair of romantic poets caught in a revolutionary storm. Her thoughts leapt frantically all over the place: what if the lighthouse leant too far? Would it plunge over the edge of the cliff? Would the stone structure uproot itself from its solid rock foundations? If it did it could either topple in slow motion into the ragged sea for all the world like a felled tree or come crashing down, more appositely, like an oak uprooted by the rough weather - just like the crashing of Laura's most recent unsuccessful love affair. Turning her head, Laura saw Mark's fingers clasping at her elbow. Laura raised her eyebrows in mock surprise to see them seeking to pull her round, so that they faced one another. She would not resist for long - just enough to let Mark know that he could not do entirely as he wished with Laura's body. Mark inhaled the residual scent of Laura's fading perfume, offset by the salty brine that her exposed flesh had absorbed as they stood here. The fragrance stood out despite the wafting decay of moist seaweed and damp kale that covered the slippery rocks on which we stood together. He sensed Laura's heavy wrists and the ticklish, rough threads of her thick Shetland wool jumper as he pressed her hand in his. Their fingers entwined, clamped together like limpets on the rock, clinging onto each other through all that the developing storm could throw at them. Still they did not move. The sea mist veiled them from the rest of creation as they stood together on the headland. They were not gazing out at the storm now though, for Mark had succeeded in turning Laura round fully: a blonde woman nestling against a blonde man's chest. Her face was sheltered from the squalls that lifted the sea spray and spume off the incoming waves, flecking them both with the fine spray. "Come," Mark practically shouted in her face. "Come to me...come!" Laura could hardly mistake the urgency, but still Mark had to repeat himself over and over. He wanted to be heard above all, to conquer her wild side – to drive out the shrill cries of the seagulls nesting on the cliffs and the incessant roar of the waves breaking one after another below the headland. He tugged at Laura who eventually came to him, letting her feet trail, dislodging some of the looser stones and scuffing her sandals in the process. Laura felt angry with herself as she let him drag her: she was almost as furious as the wind whipping around them. She wanted movement to reinforce this sudden and wild desire. Let Mark pull her skirt up and touch the bare flesh of her thighs. Let Mark catch hold of her and bury himself in her. Let Mark attach himself to her form. The seabirds could attach themselves to the vertiginous rock face or the lesser creatures - so tenacious in this unique, tenuous microclimate. Mark could press her down onto the stones that he had dislodged. Mark could fix himself within her, thrusting fingers and more within her in silent complicity, subsuming his respect for Laura's unhappy frame of mind to the extremity of their natural desires. His feet slid, scrabbling for purchase on the loose stones as he pressed against Laura forcefully, almost crushing her to the ground. His hot breath warmed Laura's face. The proximity of their shared compulsive humanity brought Laura to boiling point. Then Mark got up and stepped gingerly down to the beach pulling Laura behind him by the hand. It was not a white sandy and empty beach, but stony and dark with the gathering clouds. The spray puts a familiar salty tang in the air, but it was cool and dank, much like Laura's mood. The clouds now lay dark and sombre over the water, peaked with scattered white caps as the wind surges periodically to whip them up. They had clambered down over the rocks in silence, stepping over seaweed only stopping every once in a while to look out at the sunlight streaking down onto fortunate small patches of dark water. When finally they stopped, Laura allowed herself to touch Mark back. She leaned back as they both sat on a flat rock at the foot of the lighthouse cliff, looking up into the evening sky to stare up at the beaming of the now unneeded light out, a light that polluted the dark as far as it could. Mark decided that the tower was jealous that it couldn't even match the stray beams of sunlight that the storm clouds allow to peak through. But, it did its job, silent and constant, knowing that when the garish sun goes away, it will be the one that is needed. Attributing thoughts to a stone and steel structure was easy. Empathising with other's thoughts was not so simple. Yet, looking beyond the hurt that Mark knew churned in Laura's stomach and the bruises of her heart, Mark comprehended well that she could be available to share the future. With his head on Laura's shoulder, Mark felt the long blonde hair tickle their faces. He could sense the weight as the blonde head pressed down against his chest heavy with hurt. At last, Mark could allow himself the freedom to touch his friend and former lover with unrestrained hands, raising her back up by whatever means necessary. Shoulders tense, arms tighten. Laura will let Mark take her hands as they turn to face each other instead of reviewing that towering structure on the cliff. Their fingers will touch and grasp each other as the breeze wafts their hair across their faces. A mist began to descend, blowing over the rocks as Laura looks into Mark's features for a moment. A half-hearted smile moved across her lips before she lowers her head to rest it on Mark's breast. Hands move to hips and rest nestled there: sensing each heartbeat, capturing each breath. Mark could only wonder if Laura could feel the tightening of his body as he kissed her damp hair. They sat like that for a silent era and then some. The mist penetrated their clothes. Mark's jacket protected Laura's back, but her skirt was becoming heavy and clung to her legs. "Come with me," Mark mouthed once more. "Do you want to be on firmer ground?" Laura replied, taping the crumbling edge of the stone meaningfully. "Just come with me: be mine again." "I want to be friends," Laura mused, "but you will never let go entirely, will you?" "Can you blame me? I like your hand in mine," Mark confessed and then stood up to look at the rising waves on the incoming tide. And it was as well he did, for as Laura stood up to shake out her sandals, she slipped and she scuffed her shoes against an angled stone and slipped on some moist seaweed that covered the rocks. She fell forward and he grabbed her, saving her from a bruising. She didn't look grateful though. A scowl crossed her face as she silently berated herself, before Mark slipped too and was obliged to use her body to lever himself up. They could have fallen and tumbled apart, but Laura did not allow even a step back. Mark did not give ground either. Mark's mind may have been lost in indecision, but his body reacted instinctively. His feet had sunk in the sand once he kicked his shoes off. It was cold and damp, but Mark never liked the abrasion of sand on his shoes. What did shoes matter? They distracted his thoughts. He was an automaton as his hands auto-piloted their way over Laura's hips to her lower back, lightly caressing her spine as Laura let her mouth press back onto his. Belonging to Someone Else "So tense," Mark murmured, even before they broke the kiss. Laura felt the vibration of those words in her mouth and pulled away momentarily. "Shall I massage your worries away, my friend?" "That would be kind and companionable," she stood up slowly and bent over slightly unnaturally from the waist to pick up her shopping bag, looked over and grinned at him and then said: "but don't get too many ideas." "Are you being provocative, naughty girl?" He growled. "I'm just enhancing your future dreams, Mark," she simpered falsely. "Should I explain the errors of your ways, while we walk back up to town?" "And what would be your expectation of me? How will you redeem me, as if I didn't know?" "I would expect you to listen as I explain and to accept as I corrected failure." "You know how I do so love being explained too - it's invigorating - but am I really condemned to fail all the time?" "You are if you wish me to be happy, Laura." "I will certainly give your happiness serious thought, Mark." "Some positions can help you to think about what's being said and what would be done." "Really – is your magical remedy some kind of yoga?" She giggled once more and then turned away from him looking out at the ships in the bay. He stayed seated as they both watched as a large ferry negotiated its way around the headland, between the buoys and slid past the island into the harbour to their left. "You are just like that boat, Laura." "How do you mean?" "You navigate carefully around my edges, but normally stay carefully within the limits that you are set." "I wouldn't want to end beached across your lap now would I? Think of the confusion and the rush of blood to my head that would ensue. And stop trying to work out if my skirt is translucent in the last of the sunlight. It's not." "Ah. Thank you. Some find it comfortable with the blood rushing to the head." . "I don't anymore. I yearn to be free. I like the wind in my hair – well, a summer breeze at least," she giggled and tugged the stray locks brushing against the nape of her neck back into place. "I know. I miss you." "I sometimes miss you too, Mark. I miss our place too." "Everything has its place, but sometimes each thing has to be shown where it needs to be." "I'd be bound to listen then, I suppose." "I'd prefer that you weren't a captive audience, Laura, but rather a willing disciple." "Can disciples walk barefoot on the grass?" "I think that's permissible." "I wouldn't want to be punished for breach of some obscure by-law," she said and knelt down to slip off her white strappy sandals. "Ooooh! That grass feels lovely and cool. And it's much safer than those darned rocks." "I love to hear you moan." "I quite like you to hear me moan." "I'm sure we can keep any such moans between ourselves." "Would you deprive that lighthouse keeper of his pleasure, Mark, after I've despoiled his grass?" "No, but I will not have him trespass upon mine even though you trespass on his." "That seems a little selfish and hypocritical, Mark." "I freely admit to the selfishness with respect to you, Laura, but the hypocrisy does not apply since I will only stand on the path." "You always were a stickler for rules." "You enjoy my rules." "And I love breaking your by-laws even better, though I'm not too keen on your mother." "I think you meants, dear." "What's the point of English if you can't twist the rules and requirements round your tongue?" "I can think of many better tasks for your tongue." "You are a hideously lustful and sinful man!" "I do not deny it. Well – go easy on the hideous." "A poor listener, impatient, selfish, sinful and lustful, Mark: even if we allow you the hideous, your remaining qualities hardly recommend themselves, now do they?" "You bring all this out in me, Laura." "So it's my fault now?" "Indeed it is. What's more you will find me happy to listen to all your cries, patient to the last sob and very giving as far as your derriere is concerned, once we get you home, young lady." "You need the right environment to show yourself off at your best then?" "I have my moods." "Am I to judge them?" "No – just accept them." "Now that is an education in itself: but it's not entirely relaxing, is it?" "You are a most guileful tease, Laura. You know the position. It's much less expensive and easier to arrange than any relaxation therapy or course in the eastern arts." "I would not say that I know it - I know of it." "Your memory is not what it was three months ago, Laura." "Senility creeps on in." "The position I would have you in," he continued undaunted by her sallies, "often proves to be effective as well as being surprisingly relaxing after it's finished." "Would that be for the positioned or the one who positions?" She said walking off across the grass, letting her feet sink luxuriantly into the soft, slightly damp turf at each step. "Oh...for you especially," he grinned mirthlessly and stood up to follow her down the hill. "Is that regardless of my role?" "You know your role, girl. Don't take the tease too far." "Yes, sir." "Your role is so simple that you'll remember what's been said, since I have other aids to make you listen and learn." "Lucky me!" "They do say that those who forget are condemned to repeat." "Don't menace me, Mark," she sighed. "There again, I rather think you might enjoy me undergoing such repetition." "It helps to repeat using number of senses, hearing and touch," he smiled and reached out his hand. "I'm not coming back to you Mark. I'm sorry." "So am I: very much so. We live and we learn." "They do say that everyone has their own learning style." "You listen to the words and you play with them, Laura." "I always have done. It used to delight you." "I listened to your responses and delighted in hearing the silences between the words and the motions of a rhythmic supporting sensation - sensation that leaves a tingle and a lasting colour in your cheeks." "You only loved me because you could spank me." "I loved you because you were mine." "That was nice then." "You don't know the pleasure I felt when you stopped and acknowledged that bond. And now you take your pleasure in the freedom from my restraint." "I've moved on Mark." I'm sad for you." "Oh?" "A little." "I'm sorry to have caused you distress, Mark." "Don't exaggerate, minx; and stop making me smile." "You smile through your disappointment then?" "I smile because of the empathy between us and because – well, I'm not even sure why..." "I'm certainly not sorry to have added to your empathy." "We make good friends and..." "Don't get sappy on me," she interrupted him brusquely. "You know how I hate that." "I can't help it sometimes. You are quite adorable." "Enough! I changed my mind – menace me some more. Remember the tingle. You can do better than that tingle, surely?" "Witch." "Tell me, pleeease!" "Oh! A tingle is variable to the level required to make its mark on your memory and a colour that through your pantyhose. This will enable you to see your lesson has been well learned." "I wanted you to tell me, not to lecture me, you silly man. And you know I do not wear pantyhose in summer - I find it encumbering." "I wasn't lecturing." "Then your last statement was very pompous." "It's no matter: we can both work together to make a lasting impression, girl." "I'm sure that the impression you'd like to make would endure." "This may sound chauvinist, but you might find it best to wear whatever is deemed best for your well-being, lest your lesson will have to be repeated." "It sounds and it is chauvinist. How could I ever forget the sartorial excesses of man!" "Do not forget the sheer willfulness of woman." "I won't, but I think you take pleasure in that sheerness." "I take pleasure in a job well done to your and my satisfaction." "I'm sure you are a consummate professional with all the girls." "Indeed I am with you: thorough, thoughtful and dependable. And I won't take your bait." "Such recommendations, sir and all from your own mouth." "I won't show you the pictures in your mind to back-up my statements. I believe in confidentiality for your memories." "I'll take your statements at face value and disregard the memories though they are clamouring to escape." "It's actually often best for me to get to the bottom of any problem you may have, Laura." "I thought you might bottom out soon, Mark, having wandered round the subject so guilefully for the past hour and however long." "Well, doesn't such a meandering approach help you meet your personal goals?" "I find your approach effective." "I will never rush to place you into any position. So much can be achieved with you stood up." "That's what my ex-boyfriends say along with the ungallant and porcine male commuters on trains these days." "A lady 'presenting' herself can help so much in any experience." "All presented and ready to be corrected so to speak?" "Yes...one often finds a close link between you pulling your skirt right up and your ability to recall what happens next." "Someone screams and pulls the communication cord?" "It's undeniable that public punishments are frowned upon." "You will have to wait until our walk is concluded for me to throw myself upon your mercy then." "The mercy of others is not something you need trouble yourself with, Laura," he frowned and took her arm, pulling it possessively through his own. She shrugged and obliged him. "So," he paused and turned to her, taking her other arm by the elbow and holding her close to him, in the shadow of the grassy hill that they had just descended. "So?" "Where do we go now?" She looked up and down the harbour road. Her glance took in the children's playground, the rather bedraggled Chinese restaurant and the open air kiosk where they dispensed tea on fine afternoons like this. "Do you prefer the tea-rooms or the bouncy castle?" "Such choices: and you know I didn't mean that." "Of course I knew. I can be so trying though." "You can indeed." "I do love your growl. It sends spines down my shivers." "Is that good?" "It's wonderful." "Is it wonderful enough to put your perverse commuting, perambulating and theatricals aside, Laura?" "And to focus on the perverse positions that you would put me in?" "There is a harbour wall to lay you across, Laura." "You might distract passing motorists." "The road is practically devoid of traffic." "Even so, I do not wish to be a road hazard for the lonely traveller." "Then behave." "Yes sir." "That respect may have come a little too late to avoid your having to shed your underwear." "You shed it so much better than I do." "That is as may be." "I tend to put things into my own perspective." "Let's cross the road. Look there's a little niche in the wall there, where we can explore your perspective." "Trust you to find a suitable perch," she giggled and let him pull her quickly across the largely empty road, dodging round the back of a parked van. They reached the wall breathless and a little giggly. "Now, Laura, lean forward." "Wow! Look at the swell of the water washing over the rocks, Mark." He looked over her shoulder and stared down at a couple of seabirds swooping low over the flat, eroded and exposed rocks. Then he pressed forward against her, driving her against the rough stone wall, practically crushing her belly and scraping her leg against a hard granite stone. "Hey be careful, aren't you taking friendship a little too far?" "I've hardly started. Pull that skirt up." "In public?" "What public?" "There's a fisherman on the quayside over there and two men supping pints outside the pub down the road." "They will hardly see you in this mist-laden dusk." "What's a little more pinkness at sunset?" "Exactly, but we are more likely to be in for a pink dawn." "Will you punish me all night?" "I'd be delighted. "Will it augur in a wetter new day?" "It may, but it will colour our friendship delightfully." "You mean you don't want me back, Mark?" "I'm not sure." "I'm not going back to you anyway. Let's just look on this as another episode." "That's cold, Laura." "Had you committed then you could have got more than a zipless fuck, Mark." "It isn't zipless. I know you." "You think you know me." "I know you love it, slut. Now do it, girl: pull that skirt up before I tear that skirt right off you." "Yes sir." "Thank you. Why is it so hard for you to listen closely to my instructions first time round?" "I enjoy your corrective advice too much," she giggled and hiked her skirt obligingly. "Shall I take your panties down?" He murmured and reached out to touch the soft white cotton, stroking her lovingly in all the places he had longed to be for so long. "Lovely." "You will shock the cormorants." "The cormorants have seen it all before." "Dirty beasts!" "Not as dirty as some, Laura. Why, you are quite damp!" "Dampen me some more, Mark." "What's the magic word, Laura?" "Tease." "Close. Very close." "Please." "Please what?" "Please, sir, may I have some more?" "Laura Twist – the world is your oyster. And talking of oysters, what have we here?" He smiled and pressed against the splendid curve of her still-to-be spanked buttocks. She could feel him reaching down with his hand and flexing his fingers into the inviting cotton crease, letting his digits rub the material into her sex, masturbating her slowly. Then he stopped and pulling the material to one side, before recommencing his deft manipulations, twisting and rotating his fingers against and into the ever more moist locus of her desire, set so nicely in that cleft of soft and now naked flesh. "Mmmmmm!" "Nice oyster." "Nice oyster catcher." "You...are a...slut...Laura Black," he murmured, accompanying each word, with a light tap on her pale panty-clad derriere. "I am," she panted and swivelled her hips to facilitate him. "Right now, I am exactly what you make of me, Mark Taylor." "I love it when I have your full attention, girl." "I will listen even more attentively," she smiled and nudged against his hardening cock, wriggling slowly from side to side. "Once the rush of blood has ceased, Mark, I will submit to your mercy." "Others can wait until another day?" "Yes, for now I will be all ears." "Just ears? I had so much more in mind." "Let me finish, Mark." "No, I won't. Unzip me, Laura. I want your "ears" now." "Twit," she giggled, but fumbled obediently behind her, reaching into his trousers and then pulling his boxer shorts open to reveal his hardening member. "Is all this for me, sir?" She murmured in time-honoured fashion. "It would seem so," he agreed, remembering how once she would have been kneeling and waiting to take him in her mouth after making such an observation. "I bet you have great plans for it." "I do. I am going to reinforce our friendship." "Laura-cunt-port is soon to be harbour to HMS Mark-cock once more?" "Laura, has anyone ever told you that you have a quite disgusting potty mouth when aroused?" "I believe the good ship cocky is relishing the thought of his potty later." "Ummmm – nice touch, Laura. Your "ears" are so delightfully soft, tight and embracing." "Mark." "Yes?" "Shut up and fuck me." "Is that what you want?" "Shhhh," Laura's mouth opened to Mark's kisses. "I want you to make love to me here and now." She let him kiss her again. She let his hands move over her body. She allowed Mark to palpate her breasts and all the time he was thinking about his next move. He hesitated for a moment. Then Mark eased the muscles in his knees to press against her leg, looking at her face, as his hands slid slowly down her torso. Cloaked by the thickening night, she closed her eyes as his face slipped across the soft swell of her breasts through her light jacket and down her tummy. His hands found the backs of her calves. He tugged her skirt up and once it was well on its way up the back of her thighs, he slid to his knees. Marks' fingers investigate the bare skin between her thighs as he gently pressed his face against the flat of her mound. Turning his face to nuzzle against her sex, his fingers slid under her to cup the curve of her cotton clad bottom. He could smell the scent of her arousal above the salty ozone perfume of the sea: so similar, yet so different. He watched a tear form in her eyes and stopped thinking that he was pushing her. "Mark." "Yes?" "Do it. Take me." Mark watched her hands pulling the hem of her skirt up obligingly. He wanted this. He needed this. He wanted to open her himself, so that he good press his mouth to her. He wanted to tongue her and to raise her up to the view of others: fishermen, drinkers, passing-motorists – the keeper himself. He didn't care anymore and neither should she. They were together at the edge once more. Her sexual perfume filled his nostrils. Her taste greeted his lips. The rising tide became accessory to their shared desire, driving the few men on the quayside indoors. His fingers probed and touched. It was as though he himself was penetrated. The dampness between her legs mimics his urgent desire. The surging of her hips to the connection with his mouth matched his too. The release that would soon follow was indistinguishable. Was it hers? Was it his? Did it matter? The air tingled as the mist thickened slowly into a fog. Mark's lust thickened, as he leant over her and took her at long last. Laura could practically hear him properly now. Through that panting and heavy breathing, Mark was crying a name, a name that was so very familiar, so essential and so entirely his: for she no longer belonged to someone else.