Honey

"What do looks matter?"

"Why me? You don't know me either."

"Cause you look young and impressionable." the hand released and slipped away. "And like someone with cash, buy me a vodka. I'll be by the pinball machine." and then she was gone. Maggie quickly overcame her fear and was then overcome with excitement. She turned to see a girl in silver with shock red hair walking away towards the pinball machine.

Sixteen

Joshua climbed wearily our of the car the fatigue of the long day hung at his limbs like weights. 'Soon' he thought to himself 'Soon I will be giving the orders and will be drinking gin and tonics in my office.' Little did he know that he would eventually look back of these times with envy. The responsibility and accountability of managerial positions would later wear at his back and ache between his temples, it would make his sleep light and unrewarding. Joshua and Audery had been married for eight years now and the secret they shared had brought them both much fortune. They did not believe that they could have come as far as they had in the prejudiced and suspicious world as 'bachelor' and 'spinster' alone, and even less if they were out.

He walked out onto the patio naked, the cold air lapped at parts of his skin that had not seen sunlight or night air for many years. The dull pool light flickered over his muscular body as he glided and swam across the pool. When he reached the other end he took a deep breath and exhaled all the worries of work. He knew that he truly was not satisfied with his tasks unless they pushed the limits of his capabilities. He liked to be challenged, so that he could rise to the challenge. Feeling more in control of his life again he swam back again to try to keep himself warm.

He wandered up the stairs in a thick fluffy dressing gown. He walked quietly up the stairs not wanting to wake his wife. He paused by her door to look in on her. They kept good care of each other with a friendly love that was neither dulled nor swayed by the passionate event that occurred unsolicited a year ago. He pushed the door open and listened for the slow steady breath of a sleeper. The sound he heard changed his life forever.

"Oaah." the faint moan wafted across the room.

Slowly as his eyes adjusted to the darkness the shape formed. The duvet high and hulking over the figure lying on the bed. The head of the figure turned to him and he knew those eyes, they were not his wife's eyes. Shrouded in light, he knew that the eyes saw him too. The eyes showed no fear. They showed no shame. They narrowed into what could only be a seductive smirk. Then a smile.

A hand extended out to him and a finger beaconed him. The open mouth let forth a long aching moan which she probably could not of repressed but she chose to enhance.

A cry leaked from his own mouth. A whimper of despair.

The duvet was thrown back and Audery knelt naked between those two naked thighs and stared at her husband who stood in the doorway, hand to mouth and wide-eyed with shock.

"Joshua." Audery whispered pleading with him to understand.

With that he ran. He bolted down the stairs. Audery came to the top of the banister and called out to him, begged him to stop. Jacqueline crept out behind Audery and leant against her bare back.

"I didn't think he would mind." she whispered in Audery's ear, completely dumbfounded.

Joshua ran down the stairs, knocking the dresser at the foot of the stairs with his hip. As he ran out the front door, wailing into the night the green vase on top of the dresser tipped and rolled determinedly toward to the edge. It reached the edge and just as persistently plummeted to the ground where it cleaved into three neat pieces and lay broken, shining it's infinitesimal iridescence from the floor.

Joshua sat on the curb half a mile down the road, dejected and perplexed as the wound on his hip where he struck the dresser bled into the thick fluffy dressing gown.

Seventeen

The sun shone through the windows, hardly dampened by the drapes. Two figures lay in the large bed, several condoms lay spent strewn on the floor. The sun's intensity glared off the opposite wall and filled the room with a gleeful light as Joshua woke. He felt gleeful and expected that the bright appearance of the sun was dew to his light and joyous spirit and not to do with the lateness of the day. An eleven o'clock sun is much brighter than a seven o'clock sun. Joshua rolled over and put an arm around the body dozing beside him.

He leant against the thick flesh to feel the warm skin against his. A delightful contentedness ran through his body like liquor.

Joshua woke again when Karl climbed out of bed. He gazed on the sculpture of perfection, his muscular buttocks flexing as he walked across the room.

"How old are you Karl?" Joshua enquired.

"What does it matter?" Karl replied turning to face him.

"I don't know. It doesn't matter. I jut feel a bit... old. It feels a bit immoral for some reason. I am thirty seven."

"How old do you think I am?" Karl asked with a charming smirk.

Joshua shrugged "Twenty-one?"

Karl laughed a hearty, sincere laugh that rolled throughout the house. "I'm twenty-nine." he said with calm honesty.

"But you're so... pert! Do you workout?"

"Of course I workout." Karl chuckled and walked out of the room.

Maggie lay in the bed snuggled against a shock of blood-red hair. She was amazed at the comforting sensation of having someone to hold through the night. Someone to hold her.

They lay still in their clothes from the night before, they had not engaged in any carnal acts, content to dwell in the sensation of the other's embrace.

There was a knock on the door and the red haired girl rolled over Maggie in a blur of silver and hid down the side of the bed opposite from the door. The door opened and Maggie's mother came in.

"Waky Pumpkin. Your bus leaves in half an hour. I have breakfast waiting for you."

"Yeah, thanks Mum. I'll be just a moment."

Mrs Paice leaned over the bed, took Maggie's chin and gazed deeply into her eyes. "You have been wearing too much make-up, Pumpkin. You have lipstick smeared all over your face. I'll leave my cold cream out in the bathroom for you."

If she had looked for it Mrs Paice would have seen lipstick smeared all over Maggie's neck as well. Mrs Paice left and closed the door. Maggie rolled over and looked down at her secret.

"How am I going to get you out of here?"

"I'll leave after everyone else."

"The doors will be dead bolted. And I can't really trust you in the house alone. I still don't know you."

"That's pretty blunt, but fair enough." the silver girl said as she sat up and strode over to the window with her shoes in hand and looked out. She squeezed Maggie's hand and kissed her on the lips. "I'll see you 'round, Pumpkin." she said and swung her legs out the window and stepped onto the roof of the veranda. Stepping lightly she walked to the edge of the roof and leaped onto the lawn below. A silver flash shining in the early morning sun, the light rippling over her body as she ran over the lawn, through the trees and out onto the road, never looking back.

"Yeah, it was fun." replied Maggie to the disappearing woman whose name she never knew. She never saw her again. If she did, she certainly didn't recognise her.

Eighteen

"Are you sure, Sash?" Audery asked, a pleading sincerity in her eyes. "You have been very useful to us." The low afternoon sun flooded the curtains over the french patio doors casting a dull yet thoroughly illuminating light into the lounge.

"Yeah, I'm sure." Sash replied. "And I have really enjoyed being here too. I will miss you both. But the next four months I am probably going to have to work harder than I ever have before."

"You will end out saying that every year of your life." Audery cautioned with a smile.

"Well I think these exams are worth the effort."

"Everything is worth the effort."

They stood and hugged, the reverent light enshrouding them and igniting their hair together.

At the door Audery and Sash had said very simple good-byes, despite the inevitability that they would probably never see each other again. Sash walked down the path and skipped down the steps to where a young man waited leaning against a lamppost. 'Dim' Audery thought to herself. 'Obviously dim. Very little forehead, tiny eyes. He is thick muscled and well shaped, he also is well sculpted around the face with a charming smile.'

Sash skipped up to the man, took his hand and dragged him off the lamppost. The man gave one short wave to Audery as he walked away beside Sash.

Audery couldn't say whether she approved or disapproved, so she didn't even think it.

The thick shake slid up the inside of the straw reluctantly and heavily. It eventually reached her mouth and slipped inside, filling the expanding cavity until it could hold no more, and then she swallowed. She pursed her lips and the straw popped out of her mouth leaving a drop of strawberry flavoured froth on her lips which was gently yet eagerly lapped up.

"So this is the end of another era in Sash's life is it??" Melanie asked.

"No it is a progression." Sash quickly defended herself. "Well yes it is defiantly a change in my life. But it doesn't symbolise profound alteration in my perceptions of the world or a doubting of my current life goals or anything like that. I just needed more time to study, that's all."

"Okay. You started this job for more money. A sincere motivation that I never believed for a moment. You have suffered a few unnecessary rejections and challenged a few risky situations. But what have you really got out of this venture."

Sash couldn't reply. She didn't even shrug to indicated that she didn't know. She stared out the big window on the side of the shop, the evening light fading from the western sky, the night cold setting itself into the air and the street.

"Sash, was it worth it??"

"Of course it was worth it. Everything we ever do is worth it, worth the effort, worth the pain. Because we are constantly growing up and always learning, and everything that we come in contact with is improving us. We must never regret anything we do but savour it for the memory."