The snow was falling faster by the time I got back to bed with the tea. Lucy was sitting up, wrapped in the covers with just her head poking out, her eyes wide with excitement as she watched the huge flakes floating down past the window.

“Oh thanks. Did you remember the sugar?”

She said as she extended just one arm out of the cocoon of duvet and blanket, in order to take the mug of tea. I looked at her quizzically, trying to work out how on earth I would get back into bed, but also trying to communicate to her that I might be a bit chilly if she stayed like that.

The snow was too exciting for her to notice my concerns about the present dearth of covers.

“Look at the size of those flakes, Paul! If it carries on like this we are going to have the best powder coming off Saulire tomorrow.”

It was easy to work out that this was her first season, but I had no desire to spoil that. The wonder was gone for me; powder was all well and good, but actually I craved something rarer. For me, the dream was empty, groomed pistes.

Mikhail focused his thoughts, checked his pulse, his heart rate; he stared at the boy trying to decide if the balled fists were frustration, or the beginning of a foolish attack. The uncertainty was a temptation to let go of his self-control, to let his heart race and the adrenaline flow, but he knew that better results could be guaranteed by cleaving to his training. Nonetheless, he freed a dagger into his left hand as he watched the boy’s face and shoulders as the moments stretched out before his heightened senses like minutes.

There is was, a twitch in the shoulders, the arms rising. Mikhail looked at the floor and cursed in the back of his mind. Matrocite! The fool was casting; what a waste. The boy’s arms came higher, hands unfurling like blooms and then twisting into arcane gestures. Mikhail’s ears heard the shout of the casting, but he no longer cared, he had already activated his blink talisman.

He could smell the boy’s sweat as he laid his right hand on his young shoulder while the left pushed in deep.

“What do you think you are doing?”

Gregor had sprung to his feet as the door was cloven in two. Two hooded men stepped into the workshop. The one in front laughed gently under his breath;

“Quiet boy! We are here for the golem, we know that he has it here, watched over by you and the new apprentice. Stand aside.”

Gregor was not about to surrender, he was about to officially become a Magus. He had been ready for The Assay for almost two years, he could take them. He stared at the intruders and balled his fists, drawing power silently, hoping to use the advantage. He felt it surging into him from below; only he and Pyrellius knew how to draw on the Mana stored in the slabs of Matrocite that made the workshop’s bland looking floor. When he was ready he quickly extended his arms, hands describing the appropriate signs and screamed;

“Körper Toten Tantzen!”

The Intruder laughed and suddenly he was behind Gregor, sliding a stilletto between his ribs; Gregor could not even cry out, and dying all he could think was ‘how?’.

The workshop was in complete disarray when Gethin rushed back to find the door broken in two. He had realised that there was a plan afoot to draw him away from his Master’s work and steal or sabotage it when the girl that he had snuck out to meet never showed up. He cursed under his breath and started to prepare for the roasting that he was going to receive from Gregor, let alone from their Master. Gregor was about to subject himself to the Assay, and when their Master, Pyrellius, was not in residence he was Gethin’s superior, despite not yet being dubbed as Magus.

Pushing the wreckage of the door aside, Gethin peered into the half-light of the workshop, straining to see if the thieves had breached the cabinet at the far end that would, no doubt, have been their target. He could not make it out and so started to pick his way across the floor without breaking any more glassware. He looked up for a moment as a bird flew past his head, escaped from one of the cages, and then he nearly tripped over Gregor’s body.

She is beautiful. I do not know her, or anything about her, but something basic and simple within my mind has already decided that I want to have sex with her. This is not how I really am, this is not the real me, this is the animal that thought and sense hold at bay.

My eyes slowly trace the line of her forehead, down the side of her face, her soft neck and onto the plateau of her chest where the line plunges between her breasts, out of sight behind the material of a vest top. Unbidden I imagine us naked together, her mouth wrapped around me, smiling up at me with her eyes and then my orgasm splashing onto those perfect breasts as she squeals with delight at its sticky warmth.

My conscious mind wrestles for control. I remember that I have not even said a word to her, that it is my duty as a mature and decent human being to see her as a person, not simply a giver and taker of pleasure. My mind demands of my libido that I control the base, hold in check simple desire, and prize connection; meaning above release.

As I stepped from the cold rain into the dingy bar I wondered if I had found the right place. I scanned the room and saw three aging barflys, a half-dead, middle-aged female bar tender, and a dog. The woman was smoking, flouting the recent changes to regulations with regard to smoking in bars, but it gave me hope that she might not give a shit about me smoking in her place. She clocked me;

“Evenin’ sugar. What can I getcha?”

I thought about this for a moment and decided not to veer too far from obvious domestic brands. Of course if I had found the wrong place I would be leaving, but there was no sense in making waves;

“Bud’n’a shot o’ Blackjack, please Hun.”

She smiled, winked and went to work. The barflys nodded, as if to say ‘A young’un but he knows how it’s done’.

Ten minutes later I was on first name terms with Ted, George and Frank who were propping up the bar and more than that I knew that they all served together in ‘Nam. Steph behind the bar had apparently been sweet on each of them at some point…