by Cheyenne Blue
(02/09/05)

Sarah and Liam spend a stolen summer week together in County Clare. They walk the cliff tops and coastline, lacing their boots tight every morning and striding off into the mist, packs jiggling on their backs. It's Liam's idea, this secret week, and the perfect secret way of spending time together.

Sarah's husband, Timothy, departed on a business trip to Hong Kong last Friday. He pecked Sarah on the cheek and told her to run along and enjoy the walking holiday with her girlfriend. "I've never been to Ireland," he said, although she knows that very well. He repeats small, trivial facts about himself on a regular basis, something she used to find endearing, but now finds merely irritating.

Liam's wife, Aoife, thinks he's fishing on the Shannon with a German tourist he met last year. Aoife said she'd rather stay in Dublin, maybe visit her mother for a couple of days. Liam wonders if Aoife is having an affair as well -- she agreed so swiftly to his going -- but he doesn't really care enough to find out. They drift through the Dublin house on separate planes of existence, connecting briefly over the cornflakes each morning, before diverging again like blown leaves.

Liam and Sarah met two years ago, when her car broke down on an empty lane in County Tipperary. She was on a business trip from London, selling linen cloths and monogrammed napkins to the country hotels. In time-honored fashion, Liam, who'd stopped to assist, invited her for a pint when he dropped her off at her hotel. That night, after the drinking and the flirting, he escorted her back to her room, followed her in, and pressed her up against the door, fucking her so hard that her back banged the door with every thrust.

Afterwards, he touched her cheek with gentle fingers. "What have I done?" he murmured, his expression open and bewildered. "God help me, but I think I love you."

Tension shimmered between them, strung fine as a gossamer thread, as real as the semen running down her thighs.

Sarah covered his hand with her own. "I don't know what we've started," she said. "But I feel it too."

She drew her business trip out for six more days. He told his wife about the chance of some carpentry work in the country, and he and Sarah spent six glorious days in Galway. Love, sudden sprung, unfurled in the rain and mist of the west. Hand-in-hand, they walked the streets of Galway town, drinking black pints in small pubs, kissing with gentleness under the benevolent gaze of men in tweed caps. They would find a Bed and Breakfast and make love long into the night, ignoring the squeaking springs.

Since that first incandescent merging, there have been a few stolen weekends over the last two years, usually in Ireland, and occasional nights in Edinburgh. Not much to keep a love affair alive.

But this time, they have a week. A whole week, one that is theirs alone, planned in advance, schemed and set up with the precision of a military campaign.

This holiday is for walking and for lovemaking. Every morning, Liam prods Sarah awake with his erection, rolling her over so that it bumps against her thighs. He kisses her mouth with sleep-slack lips, before nuzzling the curve of neck and shoulder, moving down to where her ample white breasts spill softly on her chest. Her nipple blooms into his mouth, and he suckles lazily until, driven by his cock, he's compelled to advance.

Sarah tangles her hands in his hair, urging him to explore her breasts, meander down her belly, over the undulations, over the soft swell of it, to the thatch beneath. She spreads for him, and directs his tongue with soft murmurs of appreciation.

When she has come good and fierce, convulsing under his fingers and tongue, he rises up and plunges into her. One stroke all the way in, battering her soft inner tissues in his enthusiasm. It never takes long, not in the mornings, and he comes with a moan, spilling himself inside her as she clenches around him.

They are always late for breakfast, so must endure with grace the disapproving stares of the landladies. Sarah knows these frowning women sense they're not married to each other; she feels it in the way their gazes linger on her untamed hair and kiss-swollen lips.

By day, Sarah and Liam stride with rolling gaits over the undulating cliff paths of Clare. The scenery is wild, windswept and wet, and the rain often lashes them mercilessly, soaking through their waterproofs and plastering their jeans to their legs. But they don't mind; indeed, there are fewer people out in foul weather. The fair-weather tourists huddle in cafés with cups of tea, leaving the cliff tops for the brave.

He makes love to her on the edge of the world, where the land merges into the sea, the sheets of rain blurring the boundary. He peels off his clothes to feel the soft rain wash over his skin. The grass is springy here, yielding -- like Sarah's thighs.

She's the aggressor this time, pushing him over onto his back and straddling him, sinking down onto his cock. Impatiently, she rips off her rain jacket and T-shirt, so that she's naked in the warm summer rain. It streams in runnels down her breasts, dripping off her nipples onto his chest. It's like tears, he thinks, the agony and the ecstasy of grief and love.

Sarah is as wet without as within. Liam runs his hands over her slick skin. She's a selkie, a mer-child, head thrown back as she pants, grinding herself on his cock. Her hands rest on her thighs, and she raises and lowers herself in tidal rhythm. His cock surges, encased within her clasping heat. He comes in a heated rush, and the wetness is absorbed into her body.

Afterwards, they lie together, the sodden grass damp against their skins. The seeds and green blades cling to the two of them, so that they are patterned with nature. Below, the sea surges against the rocks and a gull circles overhead, lazily arcing through the sky.

"Look," says Sarah. "Enough blue to patch a sailor's shirt."

She's right; there's a rent in the heavy sky, and they watch the blue expand until they are bathed in weak and watery sunshine. Sarah lies back, arms above her head, eyes closed. Her dark hair tangles around her neck; clover and blades of grass entwine in her long hair.

He loves her like this, loves her more than his tidy wife in Dublin. Sitting up, he picks white clover, dandelions, and small blue flowers and threads them through her pubic hair, so that her thatch is a bed of wildflowers.

Rising up on her elbows, she studies his handiwork. She touches a blue flower with her fingertip. "Forget-me-not?" she asks.

"I won't," he swears, although that wasn't the question.

The sun sweeps away the clouds, and they sit naked on the cliff tops, watching the Atlantic heave beneath them.

"We should run away to America together," he says.

"We should," she agrees, leaning against his shoulder, sifting the blonde hairs on his chest with her fingers.

He turns to her. "Tonight?" he asks. "We could live in New York. You could sell Irish linens to the fancy hotels there, and I could paint the Brooklyn Bridge over and over."

"We could," she says, kissing him with damp lips.

Liam knows it's make-believe to her, and the urge to convince her rises up strongly in his chest. He wants to prove his words with his body, with his possession of her, but she's scrambling up.

"People coming." She fights her way back into her knickers, pulling them up, bunching them so that his seed won't stain through to her jeans.

He dresses more leisurely, and by the time the middle-aged couple approaches, Sarah and Liam are dressed, pulling on their daypacks.

Taking Sarah's hand, Liam curves her to his body. "Morning," he says to the couple, who nod and smile.

That day they walk eleven miles along the cliff tops, a long loop around the peninsula. When the rain threatens again, they stick their thumbs out on the road, and a farmer takes them into the nearest village. There's a pub, and a Bed and Breakfast that is full, but the landlady squeezes them into a small attic room under the roof, alive with the rustling sound of swallows nesting under the eaves.

After pints of porter and toasted sandwiches for supper, they retire to the narrow bed and fall into each other once more. Sarah buries her face in his belly, nuzzling the hairs, working lower to his twitching cock. She's in no hurry, taking her time, working careful fingers up his inner thighs, lightly brushing the hair on his balls before retreating.

He undulates his hips, angling them to entice her to taste. "Please," he begs. "Please."

The tip of her tongue laps him once, pushing into the slit of his cock, drawing up the fluid. The salt of his skin tastes like the salt of the sea, absorbed from the moisture-laden breeze. She doesn't like him to beg, so she takes him into her mouth without waiting, drawing him in, sweet suction and warmth. Sarah likes to do this for Liam; he tastes fresher, cleaner than her husband, and his skin is softer, as if the moist Irish air has filtered into him. She doesn't stop until he comes in her mouth, and his hoarse mumbles of gratitude bring a rush of tenderness.

Did he mean it about America, she wonders, as she wipes her mouth, and presses him back against the pillow. Could they do this together? Is the love strong enough?

The rain is too heavy the next day, even for them, so they spend the day in bed and in the pub. The landlady smiles, and offers them books and Scrabble. They play for a while -- double points if the word is about love or sex -- then brave the lashing rain to visit the pub. A turf fire burns merrily in the corner, and they drink the porter once more, leaving slow deliberate rings around their glasses like the locals do.

They talk to the middle-aged couple who nearly caught them in flagrante on the cliff the day before.

"How long have you been married?" the woman asks. "It's nice to see a couple still so much in love."

Sarah glances sidelong at Liam, then replies, "Fourteen years. We married when I was only nineteen."

He wonders if she really is thirty-three; they've never talked much about the mundane.

"No, no children," Sarah is saying, "but it's not for want of trying."

She runs a hand along his inner thigh, and with a jolt he realizes they won't stay in the pub for much longer. They'll brave the rain, retire to the room with the swallows, and make love once more. But the fantasy Sarah is weaving is a compelling one. She's telling her new friend about their home in County Offaly, where she works in the tourist information center, and how much she misses her dog, a terrier called Skipper. Lies, all lies.

He nearly drags her back to their room. He wants to be inside her again; it's where he belongs. She laughs at his desperation, smiling into his kisses and letting him pull her clothing aside, dragging her wet jeans down her legs. He pushes into her without foreplay, but it doesn't matter; she's soaked with arousal already, and he plunges once, one fierce thrust, biting her exposed breasts, leaving his mark on her skin.

"Careful," she warns. "I'll be home in three days. Timothy will be back."

"I don't care."

To her ears, his brogue has never been so pronounced.

"You're my woman. Mine." He bites again, and leaves a purple bloom on her white skin.

Anger rises in her suddenly, and she pushes at him. "Fuck off, Liam! This wasn't part of it."

He thrusts harder into her, pummeling her with fierce possession. "Nothing was said, no rules, no parameters. If I want to change them now, what's to stop me?" Gripping her hips, he pounds her with jackhammer strokes.

Sarah squirms. "Stop it! You're hurting me."

He slows, gentles, he doesn't want this to be about ownership. It is about love, and what it's doing to him. He kisses her mouth, which is pursed in anger. "I love you, Sarah. And I don't want you going back to him."

She is silent for so long that he thinks he's already lost the chance to claim her and spirit her away. They've said the words of love before, but never has the idea that there could be more than this entered into it.

"What about Aoife?" She won't meet his eyes; she's staring out of the window, watching the swallows dart under the eaves.

"She's a good wife," he says, and winces. Such a condescending tone to his words, as if that is all Aoife will ever be in her life.

When she doesn't speak, Liam asks, "What about Timothy?"

Sarah's eyes are far away. Soft, misty looking. "Timothy is..." She pauses. "Timothy is a good husband."

And in the echo of his words he knows that this week is all there will be.

His erection withers, dies. Sarah shifts her legs, as if her hip is paining her, and he rolls off. It wasn't meant to be like this, he thinks. It was supposed to be something secret, something wonderful, something that he could hold to his heart when Aoife would barely raise her head from The Irish Times to acknowledge him.

But there's still three days left, and he still loves her. Deliberately, carefully, he smiles at her, bends his head to kiss her nipple, no purple marks this time. "Now," he says, "where were we?" His fingers skate over her belly to tangle in the soft, damp curls.

Sarah's eyes are distant, but as he parts her sex, fingers her with care, pushing one up inside her to curl around in the moisture and intimately stroke her, she returns to him.

Her sigh hovers in the room, and they draw back from the precipice they'd found themselves on, carefully, one step at a time.

His tongue replaces his fingers and he laps her, exploring the mossy cleft. He can smell sex in the hairs, musty from earlier, but he persists until fresh moisture rushes, coating his tongue.

She comes with a long sigh, then turns to him, feeling for his dick, stroking him back to full hardness. This time, he's gentle with her, sliding inside, angling his strokes so that she moans with pleasure and pulls him further in by the buttocks.

Cupping the side of his face with her hand, she whispers, "I do love you, Liam, it's just that..." She cannot continue, as her orgasm washes over her, a dark crimson wave, and she drowns in its pleasure.

His own climax follows swiftly. They sleep close that night, caught up together, the sheets thrown back so that the moist eddies from the window caress their skin.

The next day they hold hands over breakfast, before shouldering their packs and striding off into the sunny morning.

This is all there is, thinks Sarah. It could never have been more than this. She watches the sea heave, and thinks of the currents that will touch foreign shores.

Liam thinks of a fishing friend, a wise man, who once said to him, "Live your life to the cast, Liam. Bend your life to the whim of the wind." He tugs Sarah's hand more firmly into place, and wraps his fingers tightly around hers, binding her to him for as long as the wind allows.

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