City Of Swords. Alex Archer

which stretches out beyond this car park, all twee and trim with its scissored grass and perky little flags.

      And suddenly it is just me, my cup of tea and the golf ball which has splashed rather neatly into it, covering my jeans with milky stains.

      The golf ball seems to be my guide. It is telling me something. Expect the unexpected, perhaps, or Don’t park near a golf course.

      I fish out the unassuming oracle and frown at it until it brings me my fate, in the shape of a man wearing-trousers and a shirt and a sheepish expression.

      “Sorry, sorry, oh God, did it fall in your cup?”

      “It’s fine. Tea from a flask tastes like plastic anyway. Here. Go back and swing, or drive, or whatever you golfers do.”

      “Swinging and driving both sound like more enjoyable alternatives.” He loosens another shirt button and pops the ball in his trousers pocket. “Swear not to tell anyone, but I hate golf.”

      I laugh. “I don’t blame you. Why play then?”

      “Friends thought it would cheer me up. A few rounds after my last day at work before I go home to my empty house.”

      “Christ. Life has it in for you, eh? I know the feeling.”

      He shuffles his feet inconclusively. He wants to stay but he feels he ought to go. He has a handsome, open face and gorgeously tanned forearms. For the first time in my life, I see that I am in a position to give, rather than seek, permission.

      “I’d ask if you fancied a cup of tea, but that was my last. I’ve got half a bottle of whisky in the van, though.”

      He smiles, edges a little closer to my folding chair and leans on the van bonnet.

      “That’s a very handsome offer. Don’t suppose you have ice?”

      “Alas, no.” I stand, and I am very close to him, close enough to feel his warmth and smell a mannish combination of toil and aftershave and breath mints. The base of his throat, disappearing down inside the loosened collar, is flushed. He has full lips but his eyes are tired. I forget what I was going to say. “Um.”

      “As it comes is fine,” he prompts, and I galvanize my sluggish self, heading inside the van to the coolbox.

      Something has happened to me, I think, trying to put my finger on what it might be. Everything seems to have moved slightly, my perception of my surroundings smudged like a charcoal drawing. Is it a paradigm shift? I keep having those. I think it’s something to do with him. Whoever he is.

      When I pour him his double measure of the spirit my hand shakes, and he has to keep moving the cup around underneath the glugging neck of the bottle.

      “Sorry,” I mutter. I can’t look at him.

      “You’re nervous.” He puts a steadying hand on my forearm. I drop the bottle.

      “Shit!”

      In my panic I simply stare up at him, breathing in jagged arrhythmic gasps. The thought comes to me. I can have you. If I want to. Nothing stands in my way but your permission.

      “What’s the matter?” His voice is gentle and his fingers are still on my sleeve.

      “I’ve never been—” I stammer, trying to frame the thought and failing. “I could do anything,” I finish lamely.

      He blinks.

      “I mean, I’ve been trapped for years and now I’m not, and there are things I want to do, but I’m not used to doing things I want to do, and when I look at you, you make me realize I want to do them…”

      “Things like this?” He bends his head and kisses me.

      I hold the breath, hold the kiss inside me, stare at him in wonder. He understands.

      “Exactly. Exactly like that.”

      “Then do them.”

      Yes. I put my hand on his cheek, hold his face still and cover his lips with mine. He tastes better than whisky, smokier, more fiery. I want to drink him up, explore him inside and out, take and lock that man shape and size of him in my memory. It’s a lush, fat feeling, and I grow lush and fat between my legs with each new collision of mouth, teeth, tongue. His hand fits the small of my back perfectly, and I mold myself around him, maintaining and deepening the connection until our bodies are so close there is nowhere else to go, no other border to cross except that final, ultimate line. And that is the one I want to cross the most.

      “I want to be bad,” I tell him, wrapped up and coiled around him, my lips against his ear. “I’ve never been bad. Will you be bad with me?”

      “You don’t need to ask me.”

      We manage a four-legged tumble into the van where my narrow bed lies white and neat, ready for mussing. I am on top of him, horizontal, pinning him down, having my way with him. The novelty of being near an attractive man who wants me spurs me on, makes my hands unbutton and stroke, makes my mouth nip and lick and kiss, makes my legs spread and rub. Lust chases nerves away, and I seek and find his weakest spots, relishing the throaty sounds of abandonment I win from my passionate stranger. He likes pressure behind his ears and gentle sucking bites on the soft flesh of his neck. He likes my palm, flat against his hot chest, jumping slightly with each thud of his heart. He likes my pelvis, nudging the hard mound in his trousers, grinding and teasing it until I have to take pity and unbuckle his belt.

      Space is tight in the camper, and every maneuver brings a clash of elbows or a bump of heads, but we don’t care; we laugh at the discomfort then muffle our laughter with kisses. Between grunts and squeezes, between pinches and ouches, we lose our clothes and our inhibitions. Down to our underwear, we slither and slide, trying to fit body parts wherever they will go. He has freckled shoulders broad enough to hang on to and a stomach that could never be used as a washboard, but who wants to use a stomach as a washboard anyway? I enjoy his yielding flesh, squashing my breasts up against it before sitting up on my knees, straightening my back and letting him look at me. I have been afraid to let men look at me, but now, seeing the hunger in his eyes, I can’t think why I hid myself for so long.

      “Get that bra off, you hot little minx,” he says, in such an upper-crust accent that I want to squeal and giggle. The combination of cut-glass vowels and filthy talk is potent; I reach behind and unclip. Release the breasts. Feel his eager hands on them, the rough skin catching my nipples in a way that ignites my crotch. I moan and sway on top of him, grinding down on him, inviting him inside. “Do you let just any man undress you and feel your tits?” he asks politely, steadying me with a hand on my bum.

      “Yes,” I groan, losing myself inside this fantastical reality, this real fantasy.

      “And do you let them take off your knickers and fuck you hard, too?”

      “All the time.”

      “Good. Because that’s what’s going to happen.”

      We grab for each other’s waistbands simultaneously, ripping off the final barriers before my mystery man quickly adds a prophylactic one of his own, then we are preparing, circling, inch by inch, closer, closer, then we are touching, the bulbous head stroking my soaked underlips, prodding my clit, taunting me. This is what you could have. This is what you want. This is what you need. What is he waiting for? I gasp urgently and try to wriggle into position so that I can impale myself on his mocking tool, but he is waiting for something. Waiting for what?

      “Do you want this?”

      Oh! Permission!

      “God, yes, please, put it in me, fuck me.”

      “All I needed to hear.” So easily he speeds inside, so quickly he fills me to the brim. I laugh with the unexpected delight of it, a person on a mystery tour finding herself at her dream destination. I work him, he works me, we work together until we come, hard, slapping each other’s arses, swearing and howling and making the van rock on its wheels.

      “I’m