Fonding and Permission Finale

No, everything was equally far-fetched. Their online meeting was inexplicable, even as it screamed for an explanation. Maybe wild coincidence really was the answer.

He picked another question from the queue: how had he not recognised her? True, Harvest Maiden hid her face and Theresa had let him explore her body in darkness only ... The memory's sheen felt tainted now ... But no, she had let him see all of her in the changing room just hours earlier, given him time to look, risked his guess. Yet he had missed the wood for trees. He felt foolish and inadequate, as though he had failed a simple test.

"Your hair, Tessy," he said to a passing beech trunk.

Harvest Maiden let her curls fly, but Theresa-at-uni always kept them in a bun, and that was how he had thought of her until a few days ago. He had never thought back to her open hair at school, to just how much of it she had, not until she had undone it among the lockers and woken his nostalgia. But she had given so much more to him there that he had barely noticed ... He smiled wanly.

Theresa was Harvest Maiden Pushup. The revelation kept pouncing on him with fresh force once he thought he had grasped it and tried to turn to other matters. He couldn't stomach it in one go like a weather report. Most likely, he would feel all the exquisite shock anew when he woke up tomorrow ... if he found sleep to wake from.

The road wound through a cluster of farmhouses that heralded the village ahead. There was half a mile to go to his parents' door. He halted at a T-junction, wondering whether to prolong his walk, but decided against it and headed home.

His resolve lingered long enough to touch the question of tonight's date and he felt himself make another decision: they were going to talk about this at the next opportunity. He would find a way to raise the subject if she didn't. The conversation promised to be tense, but so was this fruitless shadow theatre. The sooner they both had clarity, the better.

There was a jingle from his trouser pocket as he arrived at the front door. He pulled out his phone, wondering whether anything she might write could shed light on all the questions still in the queue.

Hey Felix.

I hope you're safely warm and well after braving the cold with me. I was starting to think I'd escaped the elements unscathed, but the November Earth and Air seem to have poured cold Water on that, in spite of the Fire you lit ;-p It probably didn't help that I spent a lot of yesterday singing and talking. I was flying too high to care about the sore throat, going to bed, but got out today with something flu-oid and went back in pretty promptly. I would have called, but I can't talk without ridiculous pain. Knowing my defences, I'll take a few more days to be fit. So I can't make the Bear's Cave tonight. I'm really sorry about it. I'll give you a call as soon as I have enough voice back. I'm in bed for now, proofreading Tanja's essay ... wish we could do it together :-)

Hug yourself from me.

Tessy

PS: Thank you again for not forcing me to choose between you and freedom. I hope you know how much that means. I want you to remember that you never need to hold back on my account either.

***

The Gelateria Valentino was a fifteen-minute bike ride from home. Felix rarely went there these days, and he knew time was limited. His parents were hosting a weekend family gathering this evening and he had his part to play in the preparations. He hadn't expected to join it, but Theresa's message of this morning had put paid to his alibi.

He had read it several times, trying to draw extra reassurance from it. It had done him good already and he knew to honour her fairness, even though he had never wanted the freedom she was granting him. Gratitude and intimacy had helped him accept hers on Friday night. It had been easy to renounce exclusive love while he had it. Now that she had gone for a while and tales of her adventures reached him instead, he felt the weight of his promise.

He had taken his time to write her a warm get-well, then volunteered to go shopping for the gathering, the ice cream parlour at the back of his mind. He needed only a few minutes at the grocery stall and was at Valentino's within the next five. He chained his bike to the stand, took off the saddlebags and went inside. He felt no hunger, but ordered an orange juice for good manners' sake, headed for the furthest corner and sat down. Making sure his surroundings were free of doors, windows, reflections and cameras, he pulled the laptop from the non-shopping-saddlebag and set it up with its back to the rest of the room.

It was probably November's fault, but the place was empty except for an elderly woman and a toddler working through a Dame Blanche together. The radio was turned down, so he could catch their exchange.

"Gra-han?"

"Yes, duck?"

There was a lengthy silence and he looked up to find the little girl's face had darkened.

"What's up, duck? Spit it out."

The girl's frown hardened further. "Ducks are nasty."

"Deary me," said the woman seriously. "What about Quickie and Quackie?"

"They don't count. They're furry."

"What's wrong with the feathery ones?"

"They make poop," said the girl, her voice grave with recently uncovered scandal. "And then they go dead."

Felix grinned at her summary of life. Yes, this had been a good place to go. He typed the password and waited for the operating system to start.

"But everyone does, Maisie."

"And they go yucky after. We saw one on a water with lotsa worms."

"But we all do, du-- darling," said the grandmother gently. "Grandpa's probably yucky too now."

Felix grimaced, opened a browser window, typed 'fondi', watched it complete the URL and pressed Enter.

"I won't go yucky," the girl said stoutly.

"Oh? How will you do that?"

"I always brush my teeth proper!" She gave a broad smile to prove it.

"Very good, Maisie ... But who'll brush your teeth when you're dead?"

The girl seemed stumped, but only briefly. "Mummy", she said confidently.

"I'm afraid not."

"I'll ask her later! I'll say please!"

"Oh, I hope you do."

Felix was trying not to laugh audibly. He looked at the old woman while the website loaded. She was diminutive but sat firmly upright. She caught his glance and he found hers keen and sardonic. Her eyes had a watchful, battle-tested look, but her face creased into a well-worn smile. She nodded sideways at her granddaughter and winked. He winked back. Would Theresa look something like this one day? He remembered telling her he hoped to find her beautiful in age. Did he still?

Felix looked back at his screen. The pattern of branches and birds had appeared. He straightened up. He reread the instructions, clicked woodcock, penduline tits and nuthatch, and waited ...

There they were again: dozens of blank tumbnails, like a long row of locked vaults, outwardly identical but each holding its unique gems: vaults he had been given the keys to but had never taken the time to examine in full. He had saved them for other days, left this whispering labyrinth at the back of his mind. Now he was back at its hidden gates after dark and found its luring mystery eerily transfigured. He felt it had turned against him, that he was setting foot in a vast, forbidden enclosure, whose gems awoke as fanged beasts at sunset. But he needed to count and face them before he could sleep soundly.

"Relax," he murmured. "It's all just pixels." Nice try anyway ... He took a deep breath and began his journey down a path he had once taken by daylight. He remembered the album name as he read it:

'A walk in the woods'

There she was, right in the middle of that sandy trail with only a fluttering scarf for cover: the first picture he had ever seen of Harvest Maiden Pushup. Yes, that was Theresa. Of course it was. He didn't need to see the face she was hiding.

He had steeled himself for this moment, but to see his lover of a day showing the world her body was hard to prepare for. He still ached for her, but was suddenly ashamed of it. He had thought her his secret, unappreciated and unmissed by the blokes of the Earth. She had made him feel unique and chosen. But now she had grown beyond his reach and shrunk him in the process. He felt lost in a crowd of clamouring peers, diminished in her roving eyes, forced to compete for her or let her go.

And he felt sad at the thought of having to fight. Friday night had conjured something far deeper than victory: a place beyond battles, a haven of goodness, where they could gain each other without defeating anyone, where you bonded because you matched. Could that not exist? Was everything competition and she just an entitled princess waiting to be conquered? The more she asked for that, he felt, the less she deserved it. He hadn't struggled through adolescence only to become someone's Darwinist fool. He stared at her and her beauty trembled in his eyes, threatening to break. Yes, did he still want to be hers?

Shame struck from the other side, softly but deeply. Had he only loved her for making him feel larger than life? Was he not the modest, caring heart he thought himself? He sat waiting as shame fought shame.

"Stop it,"Felix said quietly.'You're overreacting,' he thought. 'spiralling into fantasy. Make the effort and remember who she really is. Remember how much she did for you, before questioning what you mean to her.' He closed his eyes and took a long moment to let his memory of her unfold.

Gratitude returned and it helped him make a decision. He would protect his innocence. He would love her, truly care about her, share her joy and be glad of her praise without demanding to be their focus. If he knew her, she would reward that. If not, he would be sorry but safe from much of the pain.

"Should be easy," he muttered, trying to encourage himself.

He looked back at her picture, feeling his smile and some tentative self-esteem return. His eyes, steadier now, took in what she had covered herself with.

Felix gaped. He knew the garment and where it came from. He closed his eyes again and saw it in her hands, heard her words, less than two days old: 'he also made me this scarf.' ... This must be the gift from her first lover ... And she had only met him this summer, so these pictures were months old at most ... And he had almost recognised the scarf on Friday night ... What if he had? He stared at it, shaking his head at the near miss, then slowly closed the picture and moved on ...

Did he really need to do this? He knew the big picture and it mattered more than the little ones. And he felt a growing need to close everything and have another good, long walk. But something drew him insistently and he knew it to be more than quelled jealousy. It seemed essential to know how far she had gone ...

A kind of semi-calm had settled on him. He still knew nerves just before seeing each new picture, and there must have been more than a hundred to come. But he felt cool-headed, duty-bound and in charge now, a solitary inspector taking his time to read a deserted crime scene, if crime it was.

Every few pictures seemed to show somewhere new. She had stood, sat and lain down in a dozen rooms in who knew whose houses, strange gardens, forests, fields, beaches, a lamp-lit village road at night, a cemetry ... Some of the buildings hinted at warmer climes and he noted the short shadows they cast and the palm trees and maquis in the background. Mediterranean, somehow ... But he never saw a place he knew.

Nor did he ever clearly see her face. She had retained that hard nugget of discipline while doing her utmost to share her expression. Some pictures left out her head entirely, but in many she had no more than turned it or dropped it back or forward just beyond recognition. One showed her open- mouthed shadow on the wall. In yet others her face was veiled by cloth, hair or hands, by paint or by the translucence of a wet shower curtain. In a handful, she was fully visible but her head was far out of focus. There were also other faces, some very far off, some closer, one mere yards away, the other side of a window whose sill she sat on, legs parted. But none seemed to have seen her.

Nor was there sound anywhere. He had brought headphones to be on the safe side, but she had kept her voice even more secret than her features. And if anything moved on her site, it was well hidden. He clicked each of the photographs, wondering whether they might be films in disguise, but to no avail.

But she had not been passive. He could sense her restless excitement even in the frozen frames, in her arched back and thrust-out chest, in the goosebumps that those close-ups showed ... She had taken care to make the most of these moments and there were pictures where he fancied that the eyes he could not see must be closed in young ecstasy and her mouth agape with shallow breaths. Hadn't he dreamed of seeing this one night?

Who had taken these photos? And again, how many had seen them? He imagined her thanking her devotees for the pleasure their attention had given her, then lying back to savour it. Had that really happened? He couldn't persuade himself it hadn't.

An unidentified wave rippled through him. He knew no name for the emotion. It began as jealous fear, but love and longing interfered and lent it unfamiliar overtones. Look down on this or up to it? Would he ever have dared to do it himself? Could he have done it so sweetly? He knew the answers and envied her courage. How timid and sedate his own life was ...

No, he thought, shaking himself. Those were the thoughts that left you dead on the rails for playing chicken. He heard the little girl again, blissfully unaware of his turmoil.

"Gra-han?"

"Yes, darling?"

"Why was that woman so loud?"

"Shhh! Which woman?"

"The one what brought the ice cream. She was very noisome."

"Oh, shush, Maisie! And it's noisy. She was talking on her phone."

"Why-y?"

"Grown-ups do that a lot."

"I talk a lot too!"

"Surely not."

"What was she talking about?"

"A sticker. You heard her."

"Why-y?"

"I can't read minds, du-- darling. It sounded like some beans needed spilling. Anyway, it's no business of ours."

There was a pause as the little girl gave this due consideration. Her face set into a slow, firm scowl.

"I", she proclaimed. "Will never be noisome because of beans."

Felix burst into a snigger and the grandmother seemed to sag from a severe bout of hip pain.

Ten minutes later he had found the king of beasts at the heart of the enclosure. But it might have been no more than the glimpse of a paw in the undergrowth.

The photograph was innocent at first glance. She had dressed in debonair summer clothes: loose, spacious, brown shorts and a knotted, white crop top. In fact, the album showed more clothes than most of the others put together. She was lying in a sea of them, as well as blankets and towels, as though she had fallen untidily out of a gigantic tumble dryer with them. She lay on her back, tilted to her left. Her left leg was angled, the right straight. She held what looked like a tennis magazine above her face with her left hand and seemed to be immersed in it. He could just make out the front page title: 'Single-handed delight in Flushing Meadows'.

There was a long, frayed gash down the right side of her shorts, extending almost from top to bottom. It seemed to Felix that any underwear she might be wearing should have made an appearance in it. But he saw only bare skin from hem to hem.

It was her right hand that next caught his attention. It rested on her raised right flank and belly, pointing down and inward, its ring finger extending just below the upper hem of her shorts, its nail half hidden beneath them. But its tip seemed a little too broad and dark and there seemed to be too much complexity between finger and nail ...

Felix checked his surroundings again, then zoomed in on her waist as far as he could. He frowned. The image made no sense at all now. The resolution was too low to be certain at once, but not only was the ring finger too broad-tipped. The nail seemed to be the wrong way up.

He stared at it for a second, making sense of the shadows, then let out a hiss, zoomed out and looked again at the roomy shorts and the wide angle of her thighs. Last of all, he noted a pinkish blur in one corner of the picture, which had also appeared in a few others.

'Single-handed delight' ... Just which meadows had been flushing here?

There could be no doubt. The picture showed her with two trusted companions: one whose hand obscured a corner of the lens as it held the camera, and one buried under that great pile of clothes and blankets beneath her. And she between them, reading about tennis while letting one watch and the other touch ... He looked again at the foreign fingertip rising out of her shorts to meet her own, trying to imagine the arm that must be reaching between her legs from behind and up at the front, just how much it must be touching ...

Felix gave the photograph one more long look, then returned to the album and, in reviewing its other pictures, noted that the accomodating, half-open angle of her legs persisted throughout, though there was never another pixel of the foreign hand to be seen. But there could be no doubt that she had spent many minutes with that paw in the undergrowth.

On an impulse, he decided to bookmark the final, revelatory image for further inspection, reading the address line as he did so:

https://www.fonding-and-permission.com/image-files/albums/Wawrinka/13.jpg

13? Had it really been that many pictures in the album? It hadn't felt like quite that many. Sure enough, there were only 12 icons. There must be a number missing. He frowned, holding the cursor over the pictures one by one to read the URLs ... Yes, there was nothing between 6.jpg and 8.jpg. Deeply curious now, he opened one of the images, changed the number to 7 in the URL and pressed the return key.

'Error -- file not found.'

Nothing, then ... Unless it wasn't an image file ... He deleted the file extension, then pressed enter again.

'Page loading. Please wait ...'

He did, speculating wildly. Half a minute passed.

A photo filled the screen. A high balcony, others in the background and whitewashed walls in between. She lay in a deckchair, facing the camera. Someone was lying underneath, embracing her from below. Her head was resting on his shoulder, half turned towards his own. His skin was darker than hers. They weren't wearing a stitch between them, but she shielded his nakedness under her own and was allowing his hands to protect hers. For once, neither had covered their face, but the photo had been edited to hide both of them behind a single soft-hued, soft-edged heart shape. He enlarged it and read the words in its centre.

'Access denied. Please condone that I cannot cater completely to your clandestine concuspiscence.'

***

Lisa Doll looked down at the largely white go board, counting.

"You won't believe it," she said eventually, her voice half submerged in the noisy conversation of various aunts and uncles. "We've drawn again."

"It didn't feel like it." Felix said, himself counting to confirm it. "I thought you were walking all over me."

"I thought you were!"

"No," he said. "I was way too invested in the middle."

"True," she agreed. "You shouldn't have let me live in seki here or win those bent four."

"I know. Maybe I wasn't all there." It sounded unsporting in his own ears. "No," he amended quickly. "Good game!"

Lisa Doll had beaten him without a handicap before, but he was sure distraction had played its part today. He was doing his duty in attending the party, but its noise was washing over him like too much hot water and he felt battered by the energy. He had no desire to join in the discussions on the failings of society and politics that inevitably boiled up in the cauldron of his opinionated relatives. Playing go with Lisa was better, but he was tempted to slip away entirely.