Category: Uncategorized (Page 8 of 44)

“There are too many names there, don’t you think?”

Leonard looked across the cloister, curious to see who was speaking. He did not expect it to be an old friend. Greg had been one of a small handful of people that Leonard had counted as friends in his seven years at the school; they had neither of them been mainstream people back then, and looking at him Greg had not joined the mainstream quite yet, but then neither had Leonard.

“You know that is just what I was thinking, uncanny that! How are you old friend?”

They crossed the intervening space and embraced in a way that they never could have done whilst pupils. Leonard could not contain his curiosity any further, and so he asked;

“What on Earth are you doing here, Greg? I mean I surprise myself by being here, but you?”

Greg smiled;

“I’m speaking at the same event as you. I imagine someone more conventional dropped out at the last minute and I was the only remaining alumnus with any kind of success in their life, albeit not strictly within the bounds, so to speak.”

“Just relax Sally, you’re going to do fine, I promise.”

She fixed him with a look that was somewhere between resolve and fear and nodded that he should begin.

“So, to begin with, can you describe the first memory that you are aware of when you first discovered that you could give yourself pleasure by touching your own body?”

“You are sure that this will remain anonymous?”

He nodded and smiled reassuringly;

“Yes Sally, I am sure. This session is not being recorded in any way, and as your interviewer I do not know your surname, and I am not resident in the same state as you. Every precaution has been taken to make it entirely safe for you to be completely honest with me, thus assisting the research team as a whole to gather the most accurate detail.”

She gathered herself, and nodded once again, then took a deep breath before she began;

“Well it was not until I had been married for four long years that I first learned about my own pleasure, and it was actually through an indiscretion that I uncovered this private joy.”

“Would you like another drink?”

Her smile confirmed Patrick’s assumption that she was in no rush to leave, even though George was waiting for her at home. He moved slowly, enjoying the ritual of putting ice into their glasses, of gently pouring the precious amber liquid over the ice and hearing it float and strike the sides of the glasses.

“Here you are; you should enjoy this, it’s a special edition from the Islay Distillery, I was lucky to find it.”

They sat there, gently sipping their drinks, the silence hanging between them was not quite uncomfortable, but it was not a familiar or welcome one either.

“Patrick, why did you ask me to come here this evening?”

He took another sip of his drink and then placed it on the desk, before rising out of his chair and walking over to Serena’s chair. She looked up at him as he took her glass from her hands and put it aside as well.

“Patrick?”

He placed his hand on her cheek and moved closer, intending to kiss her. She thought about it for a moment, and then she let it happen.

The campfire was crackling away, flames rising a couple of feet off the floor and everyone was crowded around enjoying the heat and the spectacle, as they often did on nights like these on patrol. There was no reason to hide from the enemy tonight, as none of the twilight scouts had reported any movement in the surrounding hills for twenty miles in any direction. For now at least they could relax, albeit with the usual watches posted, and enter into the “campfire way” as they all referred to it. There would be storytelling, perhaps a joke or two and then when the mood naturally took them that way, there would be at least one song before the first to sleep would say their good-nights and head for their tents.

As was often the way, the young men encouraged Inigo, the old armourer who tended the men’s weapons and chain, to go first. He stepped into the firelight, put one foot up upon the hearth and began to weave a tale as old as the hills, that they all knew only too well. Of course the joy was in his telling.

The beach was teeming with people and activity when Greg finally made it down there. Not only was there a Capoeira group having a exhibition style match come demonstration just a few yards to his left, but there were any number of what he liked to call ‘activity people’ getting ready to go.

Canoeists with their surf kayaks, dingy sailors rigging Mirrors. Lasers and the odd one or two more uncommon types, and power kiters getting ready to fly, up and down the beach. One or two hang gliders were being packed away, and looking away towards the far headland Greg could see several more still riding the updraught from the on-shore breeze.

It was basically as he had remembered it from the times a few years before when he and Dana had spent their weekends out there, looking for some peace and beauty away from the hustle and bustle of London. When they had drifted apart he had known it, in part, because she stopped asking him to go down there with her on the weekends. Now he was, oddly, happy to be back without her.

As Lucas bent down to enter the low door of the teepee he caught a waft of incense and felt the warmth coming from the brazier in the middle of the floor and he was immediately taken back to his days of LARPing, and the Burgundian that Hector had offered up whenever the nights got too cold.

A chorus of ‘come in’ shook off his memories of times past and he clambered in through the door hole, covered the opening with the weighted canvas door, and he settled himself down on a pile of cushions.

They were all strangers, of course. The reason for doing this retreat had been to meet new people. Instead of organising it as a group outing for his friends, he had booked a singles trip to the lake.

There was a joint going around that he refused and a bottle of something going in the opposite direction, which he discovered was toffee vodka. As he looked around at all the other happy faces, and the candles and pillows and rugs he decided to relax and enjoy himself; Danica would have been so happy to see him that evening.

“Thanks for meeting me. I know it wasn’t what you wanted to do, I mean I know it’s hard for you to see me, and well, thanks.”

Karl looked up from the menu and nodded, fixed Susan with an assertive gaze;

“Well clearly you have something to say to me and I think the three years we were together have bought you this much indulgence from me, but I will be honest and tell you that I’m not feeling patient. I mean it’s bad enough that you cheated on me six weeks before the wedding, but to do what you did… No groom to be should walk into a room to see his best friend’s wife eating out his fiancée who is screaming her pleasure without even thinking about how much more likely it must have made the possibility of detection.”

Susan’s shoulders slumped a little and she quickly shot glances left and right to see if they were overheard by the other diners and then turned back to her former partner;

“I’m so sorry, Karl. Still I know that you don’t want another apology so i’ll get to it. You see, the thing is I am pregnant, Dear.

Of course the doorbell went just as I was getting into the shower, I mean when else does anyone come to your door? So there I am, wrapped in a couple of towels trying to sign for some package that I don’t even remember ordering without showing the delivery guy everything I got, and the water’s getting in my eyes from my hair and well, by the time I got the damn thing inside and the door shut I was in a foul mood.

So I’m stood in the hallway, dripping onto the rug and staring at this package that’s about the size of a small dog andwondering what Earth it can be. Is it those speakers I am waiting for? No they were not due for another week. What about a gift from someone, out of the blue? Unlikely, my birthday was still three months awat, and besides I wasno longer at an age for pyhsically large gift giving.

I decided to put off the grand unveiling and get back in the shower, but as I turned to walk away there was a tearing sound and what felt like a feather duster being run over my legs, as a cat shot past me.

The wind fel good in Faran’s hair and face. Climbing to the top of the East Tower had left him tired and flushed, but the cooling wind was, along with the spectacular view of the bay, the perfect tonic.

It had been ten years of war that had laid the foundation for the tower he was now stood atop. Once the Garlanians had been beaten back into the sea it was Faran’s grandfather Retief the Bloody that had commanded his people to raise up a tower overlooking the three bays, from which the guard could keep a weather eye for sails on the horizon.

Of course the Garlanians had since become allies and partners in trade, and the war was far back in history, but the East Tower still had its uses. On hearing her footsteps behind him he wheeled round and grabbed her waist; Hiera had been trying to sneak up on him, even though he was there at her request and he had known she would be there somewhere. She squealed with delight, then rained kisses down on his face as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer.

Winding the tapes between his fingers was the ritual that took him out of the world and placed him mind and body into the bubble of the bout. From this point onwards nothing else would matter until his opponent was out, or he was.

On the edge of his awareness he could hear Frank checking his bag; best cut man in the business, and the oldest, but he still checked the bag three times before any match. The noise finished and he felt Frank’s hand on his shoulder; a silent encouragement, a notice that Frank would be by his side.

The tapes were wound, and without fanfare Jerry was holding out the first glove, always the left first.

Gloves on, quick warm-up, hood up and start for the ring.

He stepped out into the gaze of the arena and the crowd went wild. His heart skipped a beat, just as it always did, and then he raised his right hand and started to jog down to the ring, hood falling back just as planned.

Into the ring, gently hopping from foot to foot, adrenaline now at full effect.

In the other corner; smiling.

Shit.