Fonding and Permission Finale

"Ah ... Yes, I know the feeling. That's hard."

"It's been getting harder ... I could let my imagination run away with me when I was fourteen. Now I just know there's no-one there. I'm getting too realistic ... Or maybe my imagination's going."

She laughed. "I haven't noticed that in you."

"Anyway," he went on, driven now. "I look for half-hidden places to go wild ... I can't remember all of them. There were dozens ... I once lay down in a strange garden in our village at two in the morning. It was just something about the place. The shadows, where eyes probably weren't hiding but might be ... I'd been flirting with it for ages ... Then there was the park at night. It was harder to find places by day. One time I climbed into a deserted quarry and a hot-air-balloon flew over. It was high up, but I still wanted to duck out of sight. But I didn't. I took the chance and held out. It was intense ..."

"You're ahead of me there," she said as though comparing stamps. "I never had a hot-air-balloon."

Felix felt exultant, telling her these secrets, knowing she could appreciate this part of him rather than responding with crude guffaws or frowns of contempt or distaste.

"And I rode my bike into the forest one night," he added, unable to stem the flow. "I found a dell among the firs to hide my clothes. There was this long straight road ... I just got on my bike and rode off into the dark distance naked. I nearly stopped when a torch lit up a few hundred yards ahead ... But it went out again and I rushed on ... That was one of my fiercest ever ..."

"I love the forest," she said dreamily. "You're never sure what's round the corner ... Were you ever caught?"

"Once," he said, starting to laugh as he told of it. "I'd gone to the bog --the actual swamp, I mean. No-one normally goes in there and it's a challenging path, so I felt safe."

"But ..."

"Well, I was wearing all of a jumper when two old ladies turned the corner fifty yards away," he said, trying to keep his composure. "So I bolted. I grabbed my stuff and ran barefoot through the mud until I fell over and lay there a complete mess, waiting for them to go away."

They were both laughing when a thought silenced him abruptly. A jarringly obvious, recent untold story had occurred to him. It needed telling and if there had ever been a time to tell it, this was it ... but it would be harder than the others.

"While you had penumbra," he began. "A woman tried to interest me in herself."

She fell still. "Oh ..." she said with a serene, conoisseur-ish air. "Did it work?"

He felt himself blush. "Not properly," he said quickly. "Nothing happened," he said. "I felt confused. It was awkward."

"In what way?"

"Well, I felt sorry for her and I felt her charm ... but I also felt I shouldn't give in to it."

"Because of me?"

"Well ..." He felt stupid. "Yes."

"Okay," she said, sounding like a physician hearing the expected symptoms. "So I guess it's time to prove I'm a girl of my word."

"How do you mean?" He thought he understood but asking seemed wiser.

"I'm free and so are you," she said seriously. "Just let me know if anything does happen. Like I said, I want to know you."

"I will." He half wanted to add 'I doubt anything will', but found that he couldn't quite.

"Is she someone I know, do you think?"

"No idea ... Do you know Julia Pewcheer?"

"Julia Pewcheer ..." It was odd but reassuring to hear her say the name so calmly. "No, doesn't ring a bell at the moment."

There was a short silence.

"Do you ever miss July?" he asked.

"Sometimes, yes."

"Is that why you made Fonding and Permission?"

She nodded. "I knew I'd still want love and adventure when I went back home. I needed to do something, but everything I'd tried before Fernando suddenly seemed lame and lonely."

"That's the danger, isn't it?"

"I know!" she said emphatically and he heard frustration in her voice. "So I debated with myself for days, wondering if the risk was worth it, how to make it safer. I kept coming back to it. I read stories by sane-sounding women who said go for it. Once I'd started, it was easier to keep going. I was full of ideas. I launched the site in August."

"And the pictures ...?"

"I took some here or on holiday. Others are from Spain. David took most of them. Fernando is present in a few."

"I only saw one fingertip."

She laughed. "In the one with all the clothes?"

"Yes."

"Yes ... That's his." She sounded a little distant. "That was in our cabin."

"Did anything ever happen with David?"

She looked up thoughtfully. "No," she said, almost as though realising it for the first time. "I mean, nothing big."

Felix wondered what counted as 'small', given all he had heard.

"I often wondered how he felt, just taking pictures and never really getting involved. I couldn't quite tell, because he was usually dressed. I could see he liked it when he wasn't. ... I didn't want him to feel left out, but I wasn't sure I could take the alternative." She paused. "I didn't forbid him to touch me. He'd sometimes sit down and stroke me a little while I was with Fernando. That just seemed to fit in naturally when we were all a bit out of conrol, but it never led much further."

"Did you like it, though?" He wanted to ask where she had let him stroke her, but it felt unsubtle.

She thought again. "Yes," she said. "It was nice."

Felix's head was spinning again. He had learned so much about her in so short a space of time. But his desire to know more still reigned supreme.

"Do you know who's seen it? The site, I mean."

"You three," she said. "And a number of mystery men."

'And Anthony Summerdale', he thought. He wondered whether to tell her, but postponed the decision. "Have you ever regretted any of this?" he asked, deciding he did not need to know more about the others for now. "I mean, suppose someone took pictures on the beach and face recognition technology gets going?"

"I've worried," she said heavily. "That's why there are no clear faces ... in the pictures." She paused for several seconds, looking a little troubled. "But no, I don't regret it. I'm full Piaf about the whole thing. I think it's great. I took a risk for a reward that seemed bigger. It still does."

"Sounds sensible."

"And I was just horny as a herd of goats." She gave him a look. It lengthened, broadened and shone.

"I ..." Felix laughed and came to a halt.

"Hm?" she said cheerfully.

He knew what he had considered saying and it was almost exactly what she had said ... There was still so much to talk about: Anthony, the mystery of how he had ever found her site ... but none of it seemed relevant just now.

"This duvet," he said, raising himself and blush-frowning down at both it and her as though trying to solve a thorny puzzle. "Does it ... will it ... move ... today?"

She beamed back at him, then slid up against the wall, rolled onto her side to face him, raised the duvet with one arm, opening it to him, and looked back at him. "Like this, you mean?" And she patted the sheets at her side with her other hand and gave an inviting jerk of the head.

Without hesitation he lay down beside her and she closed her duvet over both of them, wrapping him in her warmth and a bewitching certainty of happiness to come. He looked at her head, resting close to his now, one moment bowed towards him in devotion, then raised to dazzle him with her radiance.

"I always imagine this before going to sleep," she said softly.

"Me too."

There was far too much beauty. Her face above all. He saw every mark and scar and roughness and none of them repulsed him. Every little fault she was showing him was one more proof of her trust and her eyes shone through all of them. He saw and felt the soft warmth of her clothes: the scarf, of course, but also the plain grey pyjamas that he might have thought a prison inmate's; and, as she removed them, the pieces of green-and-purple mesh she had set in place underneath, and the spiky letters embroidered across them.

"What does your bra say?"

"It's not very talka-- oh ..." She thrust out her chest a little. "Can you read it?"

He bent closer to her heat and found that it is hard to focus on a window when you like the garden beyond. "'H-a-n'," he began. "'Handle with flair'," he read, tracing the curve of the letters over her quivering breasts with one hand.

"My own stitching," she said, her voice so close he could hear every crack in it. "I thought good advice never goes amiss." She put one hand to a strap and struck a pose that hit him like a hot wind. "Do you think I can pull it off?" she asked, grinning.

He looked at her shrewdly and nodded. "Are you sure you're sick, Tessy?"

She shook her head. "I guess the game's up," she said, her face shining. "I'm ready."

He gazed at the length of her, revealed to him in the half dark. So much was right about her. She was five and a half feet of marvels, far more than one human's fair share.

She guided his hand behind her back to undo her bra, but he slowed, just as the catch opened. Her hand had slid under his shirt and alighted on his belly, yet not stopped sliding. His flanks shivered involuntarily under her fingers. How had she found his most ticklish spot?

The hand changed direction ... He looked up, met her eyes and read their candid request. Trembling, he gave another nod. A moment later, her fingertips touched his belt.

"Have you ever felt a girl's hand here?"

He shook his head, unsure he could speak, and shuddered as her slim fingers descended further. No-one else ventured here. Hands here were death threats to his pride and honour ... But had those two ever met a threat sweeter or more deserving? How could he not yield to this priceless girl, not give her, who had touched him in so many other ways, permission for the last one? The scales tipped.

Amazed by himself, he reached down with slow fingers and undid the button and zip still holding her back. He gasped with pleasure as her whole hand flowed into his underpants. She slithered closer, bit her lip and their half-closed eyes met as her insolent fingers closed around his hard cock.

"There we are ..." There was a purr in her voice now. "Like this?"

He smiled and gave a quick, shallow nod. There were no more secrets. He knew she felt all his silent hunger for her, all of it, real as a rock in her hand.

"Does it jump like this, too, when you touch it?" She might have been talking about a kitten.

He nodded again. "It might spit, too, if you're not careful," he managed.

"Shhh ..." she said very gently, putting her other arm round him, drawing very close to him and resting her head against his shoulder. "Just relax."

"Okay ..."

"I'm just stroking you. Nothing special ... "

"Okay ..."

Pride had vanished from sight. He felt like her spoilt pet, freed of all duties but to please and be pleased in her hands, free to let her hear the deep sighs and laughs he never let out in front of anyone else.

"Close your eyes?"

He did and found he could bear her, could resist the gale trying to blow him off a cliff.

"Lie back," he heard her say, her voice hypnotic. "There's no rush ... we've got all night."

He failed to answer, wanting nothing but the courage to feel every new surprise she was delivering, the magic his own hands were incapable of: her fingers teasing his stretched balls, now massaging them as their short nails dug into the wrinkles, then suddenly grasping his shaft firmly and drawing the skin upwards. He gave another gasp.

"Risky," he breathed.

"Shhh ... Think something unsexy."

"I can't."

"Homework!" she said with a little more force, clearly trying not to laugh.

"Politics!" he gasped.

"Cars!" she shouted, never letting go. He laughed. "There," she said. "That's better."

He felt two fingers wipe delicately across the bald head of his cock, collecting some of the little trickle that had begun there. Then her hand withdrew, and the gale subsided to a breeze.

"Look?"

He opened his eyes in time to see her looking down at her own bare breasts, at her middle finger smearing a wet little heart around one nipple. Then she laid her moist index finger on her tongue, licked his taste from it and laughed at him.

He leant forward to kiss her, laughing with her, and kept kissing her while she touched him, while her hands on his cock and back told him what her mouth had no breath to. The cliff beneath him quaked, but still he managed to cling to it.

She knew his struggle. Of course she knew. "Just relax," she repeated, detaching herself. "Close your eyes."

He did so again and felt a light tug on his trousers.

"Let's get you out of here."

He nodded, eyes shut, and felt her pull them down and away and drop them off the edge of her bed. He heard her laugh as his released cock sprang up and slapped his belly. Then he felt her weight shift and a trembling knee settle on either side of his waist.

"So ..." There was a note of fate in her voice.

He opened his eyes in time to see her towering over him like an outrageous, steaming statue, loving herself with her hands, then asking his to help, taking it, guiding it to the last, forbidden barrier and stretching the cotton to let him slide it underneath ... He watched, wide-eyed, as she lowered herself onto his fingers and then, at last, into his embrace. He welcomed her warm weight. It was not a burden. It proved her reality, just like her shape in his arms, both now, the friction of her skin all over his and the music of her sighs and pants as she rubbed herself against him. So much life. He buried a hand in her hair and traced her heaving spine with the other: down from her shoulders, through the valley of her arched back and up the steep, round cheek-hills beyond. He squeezed them until his ears were full of her laughter. Back up to her wild curls, back down again, but this time his fingers caught hold of the little strip of fabric in between and gave it a little pull.

"Hey ..." she said, feigning protest. But she did no more than turn her head and watch with benign astonishment as he peeled the panties away.

'The curtains are wide open,' he thought.'There are windows on our level across the road. And what if Tanja comes in now? She'll find her cousin spread naked across her friend, find the two of them rolling around, a bundle wrapped in hugging arms. She'll see us tumbling out of bed, getting up, playing catch, her standing naked by the French window with a raised tennis racquet for defence, daring me to approach, me rising to the challenge, us wrestling and falling back onto the sheets ... She can probably hear the laughs and bumps bedsprings anyway. See if I care ... carefree ... careless ... safety ... rubber ... rubber!' It came out of nowhere and pushed him back and away from the cliff.

"Tessy," he said. "Tessy!"

"What?" She came to a halt, spread-eagled and breathless beneath him.

"We need protection."

She looked at him seriously for a moment. "But we don't."

He looked at her uncomprehendingly. "But ..."

"Heard of the pill?"

"Oh ..."

There was an awkward moment. The flow had half broken. Had she done this on his account? He felt humbled, almost ashamed that she had felt the need to interfere with her body, never saying a word.

"I took it," she said softly, looking him full in the face. "I hoped we'd fuck tonight."

He hugged and kissed her in answer. And when they moved again, he felt bolts in the storm of her touches, kisses below his navel that could not be her mouth's, because that was welded to his own, some just the brush of their mingling hair, some a scratching peck of her lips, some firm, wet snail-grips sliding along his cock, asking to swallow it, then slowly, shudderingly more than asking ... and his mind, leaving his body or maybe growing beyond it, plunged headfirst into her roiling heat.

"Got you, Felix," she gasped, managing a wink before her expression went to pieces. Could this still be Theresa, the girl he had gone to school and uni with, the woman quietly studying at the back of the classroom? Memories flitted by and faded in the glare of the present. How mad of life to put her here now, laughing, bouncing and panting on top of him while he blazed inside her. Then she fell still, parted across him, throbbing. She murmured something by his ear.

"What, Tessy?"

"Can I taste you?"

He gasped. He had never believed she would ask for it. What a choice ... "You want to?"

She nodded, rose from him and beamed down at him, her body giving his cock another playful squeeze, then mouthed something unreadable that seemed to end with 'you off'.

"Be quick," he managed.

He felt her release him, then watched as she crab-crawled down him, bending over as though to drink from a stream. And wouldn't she? ... He was going to last as long as a carrot in a rabbit hole.

"Watch."

He obeyed, helped by her propped pillow, and held her fierce smile with his own as her hands spread his legs and retook his cock. Her hair tickled his thighs as she tilted her head. And he reached out with both hands to stroke it, her, sweet beyond sweetness, ready to stoop so low, to kiss his shame. He watched her tongue reach out.

Her eyes still on his, glorying in the wrongness, she licked the length of his cock, closed her lips over its tip and drew him deep into her hot mouth. The cliff crumbled into the waves.

***

Ten thousand miles of darkness lay over Summer Drive and the dead windows of most of its houses offered no reprieve. High above the shadows of number 16's porch, dim, orange light fell through a French window, unseen from the empty road. And no-one witnessed the moment it went out except for two people sharing a tiny pocket of each other's warmth.

"There we are," said Theresa, withdrawing her hand from the bedside lamp. She picked up the forgotten mug of tea.

"When they saw you on the beach," Felix said into the shadows, as she drank. "Didn't it ever feel like you were ... coming apart?"

"How do you mean?" she asked, putting the drained mug back and lying down again.

"Because ..." He struggled. "Just doing this with you is already so good. It's like ... like you've saved the world for a while ... So wouldn't mere sex have been enough for you two, if you were that close?"

He heard her sigh. "I know what you mean ... Maybe you're more modest than me, but I ended up wanting more than just enough that day. More than Fernando. It's true that made it less intimate. We weren't each other's only stars any more. It was more like we were part of something bigger ... Then again, that distance made it more daring to let him inside me. It was more like Calella again ... Maybe it was right to finish the holiday like that ... coming full circle and shrinking in each other's eyes again. I know it sounds like psycho-babble, but that's what it was like." She paused, maybe to find the right words. "Like I said in the Bear's Cave: I can't always say 'you alone will always make me happy'. Or'happiest'. Is that already an insult?"

"No. But it feels like it would be if I said it to you now."

She chuckled. "Let's not overdo it," she said. "But maybe you're right. If I'd been this close with Fernando, we might never have done that."

They drew together under the duvet in the silence that followed. 'I'll go to pieces when I lose her,' he thought. 'I want to die with her, if ever she must.'

"You're trembling," she said gently.

"I seem to be, don't I?"

"Are you worried?"

"Maybe." He wondered how to put it without worrying her. "I think it's vertigo. I've never been this high, with this much to lose."

She gave no answer for a moment.

"I know it's stupid," he added. "I should just be grateful, really ... enjoy the scenery up here."