The Sex Life of Ghosts

 

M LESLIE

The only thing I know

is the sex life of ghosts

haunting all the time

           those you love the most.............

ONE

Gently gently turns the tide.

Damn that fickle swell.

Carrying me to the other side, the other side of where?

Where was I going?

Did I want to go there?

Did I have a choice born along that tide?

I felt the mask go over my mouth, I heard a voice from somewhere saying relax, relax, relax, just take deep breaths. Imagine yourself flying or maybe floating.

I knew those feelings well so I did just that and went somewhere else for a while. When I came back I held my first born in my arms. Six days later I buried her in the churchyard under Robert Herrick’s beautiful words.

"Here a pretty baby lies

Sung asleep with lullabies;

Pray be silent, and not stir

Th' easy earth that covers her."

Our child, Martin’s and mine, but would he ever know? He'd been missing now almost a year, the trail had gone cold, but never the caring. All I love has been taken from me; all I cherish has been ripped from life. Grief and guilt lie together well, the sweetest of bedfellows, each for each other. The perfect match. The cloth of your coat you wove. The cloth of your coat you wove.

That was a mantra I taught myself to say. But it wasn't a cast and it wasn't a crutch, it was invisible. The cloth of the coat I wove?

No one could see it but me.

We lived in a slight world where nothing happened. We didn't want it to. We happened. There was no room for anything else. We found a space for ourselves and we filled it.

We had each other.

Then something found us. It was cruel and heartless. It brought suffering and despair and then finally death?

Once there was magic but it went, cast into darkness, its spells lost and its incantations hollow.

I ached for things to be as they were when he was by my side, when I had a life, when I had a reason to live. Now I have nothing except more nothingness to come.

Once it was all so different.

TWO

It was over a year after I met Martin for the first time that I started dating again, foolishly and furtively and almost frigidly. I was always frightened of lovers tracing the lines on my face and knowing the scars were there in my heart. Relationships would bring no more than a caprice and a caress, a kiss for memories perhaps? Those that would sour over time and not remain fresh forever?

The memory of Martin was too close, too recent, his presence too powerful, even absence did not diminish him, he was a bright shining light that was no more, but I knew. What shines a shadow also casts. I was still wrapped in guilt, for the past and for a future where I would be deceiving his memory. Could I love again without pain, without denial?

I was still looking for something, but was something still looking for me?

I steered clear of the old crowd as much as I could, slowly they dropped me from their party lists, charity lists, lunch lists, let's get laid lists, I was off them all. I was a stranger to know, waiting to discover myself again and wondering how long it would take before I became comfortable with what I found.

My bare diary, hello blank page, where are we going today? Somewhere where the rasp and die of the past is broken and the leash of victim hood slipped? Sometimes I whispered into my pillow, I was lonely, but I never dared say it out loud. Dance with me I whispered, hold me tight, make me feel I'm alive, take me in your arms tonight.

But no one ever did, nothing ever chased the loneliness away. I ached so hard and deep in my solitude, my isolation and my nothingness. I knew pain and it knew me, its ever willing black robed bride, the one who would not fight it but embrace it, ride on its waves of remorse, hold its anger as my own and let it carry me on its fickle tide, gently gently.

Fuck wasn't too strong a word; it fell silent against the roar.

I was alone.

Especially when the shadows got me.

THREE

I'd been out in a group, ad hoc acquaintances. We went to the theatre, more Shakespeare, this time it was Venus and Adonis.

"She looks upon his lips, and they are pale; She takes him by the hand, and that is cold; She whispers in his ears a heavy tale, As if they heard the woeful words she told......."

I couldn't stop the tears any more than I could stop my desires.

After the show they went their separate ways, living their lives without doubt whilst I embraced the unbearable bleakness of being.

They all piled into a car and took off in the opposite direction to the one I needed to take, I only had a short way to walk to my little apartment, I wished them good night and set off.

I was wearing a blouse and skirt, my underwear supporting rather than sporting, my concession to my sex or to sex generally were my shoes, witty and pretty heels, strappy and sassy, click click they seemed to say as I walked along, click click, take us someplace we can dance and skip, somewhere with deep carpets and other sweet shoes we can match. Take us to a party, lift us off the ground, wave us in the air, wrapped around a man's - fuck.

I suddenly caught my breath.

The Shadows!

As black as your deepest grief, as black as the unknown and as black as your greatest sadness.

I was a girl a long way from home and a long way from safety, from people, from lights, from sounds, from normality, lost in a strange place, a dangerous place, a place I'd been to before.

A place of despair and remorse, of anger and loneliness, penance to penitence. A place of grief, unlit and brooding, threatening, a maze of emotions, and a maze I could not find my way out of.

The shadows moved, shadow stepping. Avoiding the light that cast them into existence. As sure of themselves as I wasn't of me, as strong as I was weak. As adept as I was artless.

The night was cold, the ground was hard and I moon-dreamed as I walked, my heels advertising my presence for miles around, an echo the night amplified as only it knows how. The shadows had heard them and were following me, I was sure of it.

The shadows only touched me because they wanted me, they desired me, and they haunted me. And it was the shadows, I was sure now! It could only be them! Who else could it be after me at this time of night?

I quickened my pace but my heels just became noisier, scraping and sparking on the hard pavements they hated so much, bouncing off it in distaste with every quickening step.

The traffic thinned, few houses had any lights on in their windows and of people I saw none. I caught sight of myself in the blackened windows. A girl, her long dark hair plastered around her face, her lips full and trembling, her eyes bright. She seemed to stare back at me. I saw her mouth something at me.

'You're fucked,' she said. 'You're fucked.'

With nowhere to run I stood and weighed up my options. My options were what they always were. I would not beg, I would not cry. I had no other options to consider, sometimes I fought and sometimes I didn't.

It didn't matter

Grief and guilt won.

FOUR

I glimpsed an opening ahead, an underpass maybe, I could go in there and hope they missed me, that would work if I could still my beating heels, and my beating heart, the fear and excitement welled inside me - fuck.

As I turned into the opening I saw it was a trap and the shadows had suddenly blocked off the way in and the way out, so why the hell did I come this way in the first place?

With nowhere to run I stood and weighed up my options.

My options were what they always were. I would not beg, I would not cry. I had no other options to consider, sometimes I fought and sometimes I didn't.

There were half a dozen of them approaching me, I stood and leaned against the wall, my bag in my hands and watched them get closer. I could smell men the way they smelt game and I was their sport tonight.

'What do you want?’ I whispered as they came closer.

They chorused. 'We want you Natasha.'

They were surrounding me now, there was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, and I stood in my witty and pretty shoes waiting for them to make a move.

'Why do you want me?' I asked the nearest shadow, the alpha male.

'I love you, you drive me crazy, I can't control myself when you're around.' The alpha shadow replied, his accent clipped and his voice strong in the night, a voice that was owned by the type of man who always got what he wanted, one way or another.

'Leave me alone,' I said and started to walk until they blocked my way.

'How are you tonight Natasha?'

'Dry.' I said and not just my mouth.

'We can change that.' the shadows replied.

They had no faces, no real form or shape, they just were and they just did, me usually.

'Show us your tits Tasha!' First one then all took up the chorus.

It was fight night not flight time.

'Get your hands off me you're hurting me!' I screamed suddenly.

'But we're not touching you. Yet.' They chorused.

Contrarily.

They weren't and I said nothing and prepared to feel nothing, unless I was going to be the first woman in history to fight of a group of sex crazed men with her virtue intact, I didn't think that likely. I didn't think I could.

Or wanted to?

'Why do you think we're going to hurt you?' said the alpha male again, his voice kindness in the hard crowd.

I had no answer.

The other shadows began to bay.

'You know you love it Tasha, it's like being on stage, you love the attention.'

'DRAMA QUEEN NATASHA!' They howled.

'What would your mother say Natasha is she could see you playing with us?'

'You're such a good little actress Natasha.'

'DRAMA QUEEN NATASHA!' They howled again.

They snatched my bag off me and whooped as they past it round, it was empty. It meant nothing to me.

'Give us a kiss Tasha!' A shadow said as he grabbed me, putting his arms around my waist in a huge hug and lifting me off my feet, his lips over mine, I could smell alcohol, as he rubbed his face against me his stubble burnt, he kissed me harder bruising my lips and suddenly let me go. At last I could get my breath!

'Looking sexy Tasha, nice sweet lips, sweet everything. It’s turning cold tonight, want me to warm you up a bit?'

Before I could speak one of the shadows grabbed me, they wheeled me on my heels from one to the other, howling and roaring with laughter, I felt rough crude hands all over my body, squeezing my breasts, on my thighs, smacking my bottom.

I was a long way from home.

'GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF ME!'

I struggled free from them and stood there, my clothes dishevelled, my breath misting in the darkness. The echo fading.........

The shadows giggled, oh dear have we upset her muttered one, she seems angry muttered another, too damn right I am!

Why is she always angry whispered another.

Perhaps we should punish her his shadow friend answered.

She likes being punished, Natasha likes that so much whispered more shadows.

'You know we can't resist you Tasha, you know you're the one we want.'

One pulled me to him, pinning my hands behind my back as he kissed me, then I felt another behind me pulling my skirt up as I tried to push it down, I summoned up all my strength and spun out of their grip but it was all to no avail as another shadow grabbed me from behind, squeezing my breasts so hard I thought I'd faint, my elbows bouncing harmlessly off his forearms as he squeezed even tighter, making me even more light headed.

He let me go and I stumbled then regained my composure and balance a bit in my stupid silly shoes.

'Why are you doing this to me?' I hissed at them.

'Because you want us to Natasha.' Another shadow spoke in the darkness.

'How did you find me? Are you following me?'

Another shadow answered, 'we knew you'd come this way Natasha, we were waiting for you. You always come this way!'

The shadows seemed to find that funny, baying and howling and hooting and roaring in the cold night.

'You'd better leave me alone.' I said firmly with as much confidence as I could muster.

'Why?' was the simple question.

'Because.'

'Because of what Natasha?'

'Because someone might come and find you.'

'No one ever comes here Natasha, except us. And you!'

'Martin will come.'

'He's dead Natasha.'

'You're all on your own now.'

'You killed him.'

'No I didn't! I loved him.'

'You deserted him!' Shadow one.

'You left him alone to die!' Shadow two.

'To die!' Shadow one again.

'It's all your fault!' Shadow three. 'Was he the light of your light Natasha?'

'Yes he damn well was!'

'And we're the shadows that light cast,' the alpha shadow hissed.

We faced each other, me defenceless, he or they anything but, even now I didn't know how many there were.

Strip they ordered me to do, I did so quickly and efficiently with as little ceremony and tease as possible but still they whistled and whooped. Keep your shoes on and strut they said, I did, in the circle they formed.

I stood there naked, my skin cold and tight in the chill of night, my eyes trying to seek something in the gloom beyond the shadows but there was nothing that gave me hope.

I tried to think myself tomorrow or next week or next year when this would all be over but now was all I had, the moment frozen in my mind.

The shadows moved closer to me.

They were so close I could smell their hunger and their breath, their want and their heat. Taste them before, well, just before.

'I'm first Tasha.' said the alpha shadow as he advanced towards me.

He was always first. And last.

I backed off but still he came, the other shadows pushing me onto him. In their order he was the alpha male, he got to do me before the others. Except the others never got chance.

Strange.

The world of the shadows made no sense.

He unbuttoned the studs on his fly and got his cock out. It pointed at me semi erect as he stood, hands on the small of his back flexing himself, showing off, showing me what he had.

His cock was as thick as my wrist and long, so fucking long.

He reached out a hand and with his finger and thumb grabbed my nipple, squeezing and tweaking until I pushed him off.

In reply he grabbed both my breasts, pulling and twisting and there was no shaking off his grip this time as I stood in front of him rocking on my heels as he began to paw me more roughly, his strong fingers fluting the skin of my breasts as he squeezed harder, my nipples now arrogant and proud however much I wished them not to be.

Was it my breath I heard panting in the night?

Suddenly two of the shadows grabbed my arms and pulled me, I felt myself falling back till I hit the cold hard stone. I lay there spread-eagled with my vulnerability complete, my arms still held by the shadows as the alpha male pulled my legs apart.

He gripped my ankles twisting and turning my body, rocking me on my hips, and whether I liked it or not stimulating me.

'Nice pussy Tasha,' he said as his cock got stiffer and fatter. 'Very nice.'

The other shadows made sub human noises too.

'You love it don't you fucking whore?' The alpha hissed.

'Never.' I breathed harshly, 'never!'

He gripped his cock and rubbed it against my vagina, over and over again he rubbed, I could feel the pressure, hard then soft then gone, hard then soft then gone, after a few moments my lips welcomed it whatever my mouth might say.

My mind I tried to dull.

Suddenly he entered me and my breath caught in my throat, he pulled out and entered me again. I closed my eyes to him and the other shadows.

Again he pulled out and stayed out.

Abruptly he slipped his hands under my bottom and lifted me to his face and put his lips to my vagina, drooling and licking, dribbling and kissing, holding me up still, my back arched and my shoulders and neck hard against the stone.

'How she tasting? She tasting sweet?'

'Always does our Natasha.'

'Always got plenty for everyone too!'

'It's show time baby, and you love it!'

The shadows traded insults for me to hear.

'You wanna ride Tasha?' The alpha male asked as he lowered me to the floor again and resting his hand just above my pubic bone and pressing, hard!

'FUCK OFF!' I said to a choruses of hisses from them and still the alpha pressed on me just above my slit, just above my clitoris, just enough.

'Show us what's you've got Tasha!'

'Show us some of your tricks sweetie!'

'We know just what you like Tasha, we know just how to get you in the mood.'

'We can do what the hell we want to you Tasha.'

'Yeah, you want us to.'

'You're making us do it!'

'No I'm not!' I replied to them all. 'NO I'M NOT MAKING YOU!'

'Why won't you admit it, you want it and you want it hot and hard, say it Natasha, hot and hard!'

I heard all their voices all at once chanting, 'HOT AND HARD! HOT AND HARD!'

I looked round me, the sweat gleaming on their chests, their muscles ripped and tense. 'Never.' I hissed.

'Hot and Hard! Say it you fucking slut!'

'How would you feel if I stalked you and gave you one?' I said.

'You might be doing Natasha.' said one shadow.

'We wouldn't mind if you did!'

'You always come this way don't you?'

'You know where to find us.'

'And we know where to find you!'

They all chorused their answers.

I tingled all over, the fear and the excitement, fed by the night and the wine aroused part of me but deadened the rest.

They all chorused again as if by numbers, hell, can't these guys say or do anything for themselves?

'You’re just shadows, You're not real.' I said to the night. 'You don't exist!'

'Oh we're real Natasha.'

'We're flesh and blood babe.'

'Just like you!'

The alpha male suddenly rammed his cock into me and stayed in this time as I tried to squirm away, but the other shadows were now holding my legs as well as my arms. If they hadn't been holding me I'm sure I could have got away but they held me down, no matter how much I struggled they held me tight.

Animals.

'Think you're man enough?' I said in his ear, his breath harsh and heavy on me, 'think you can tame me? Careful I don't tame you instead!'

He rode me hard but skilfully, making me take almost his full length repeatedly, almost all the way out then in again, I found myself gripping his cock with my vagina, my cunt closing on it tighter and tighter with each thrust.

My teeth sunk into his neck so hard he shook his head away and pounded me harder.

'Fucking bitch.' I heard him mutter under his breath.

'Fucking bitch? Too fucking right.' I said as I matched his thrusts.

He hammered my pussy, banging banging banging.

'Come on fuck me fuck me fuck me.' I mouthed wordlessly at him to cover any gasps of pleasure that escaped despite my fear, 'FUCK ME FUCK ME FUCK ME.' I didn't want the shadows to think this was an easy ride, something to enjoy.

My legs were twisted around him now as he powered into me, his huge shoulders blocking out the night and the other shadows, his breath ferocious in my face was all I heard, the roar of the night.

And sex.

I knew I could tame him, as we headed to a climax, not tonight maybe but one night perhaps, tame him and change him, teach him to give and not take.

'Get off me!' I heard a voice, was it mine? 'Get off me now, GET OFF ME!'

Someone else was shouting, another voice, 'COME ON RIDE ME YOU FUCKER, GIVE IT TO ME GIVE IT TO ME.'

My hands pushed against him, hammered his head and his shoulders but the only effect it had was to wind him up even more as he thrust more wildly and expertly into me, I knew my orgasm was coming driven as much by my anger as my exhilaration.

'Get off me you fucking animal.'

'You love it you whore.'

'Fuck off.' I said gripping him closer to me.

'You’re a slut Natasha and you're mine.'

'I'm no ones.'

'You're mine. I own you!'

'Never, now get the fuck off me.'

'You love it babe.'

'Fuck me.' I baited him, 'FUCK ME!'

I hated him, god it feels good I moaned, I hated him and I hated myself. I hated what life had done to me.

'You love it Tasha say you love it, say how much you love my cock.'

'I love your cock.' Was it really my voice, the whore's rasp, the harlot's hiss? A voice that suited the raw night air?

'Say it Tasha say it Tasha.'

'Get the hell off me.'

'Say you love my cock Tasha.'

'I love it.' I whispered as the shock waves hit me.

'Say how much you need it how much you want it tell me how good I make you feel. Tell me bitch.'

God almighty the feelings surged through me!

I wasn't there; I could see someone - was it me?

I looked down in pity and anger as the alpha rode her to overload, his veined rigid rod banging down any pathetic resistance she could muster, she was being pounded the only way she would understand, she gripped him tightly, her arms and legs wrapped tight around him lest he should leave her, I looked down on her and -

- Saw me.

I felt so fucking horny, the hard unforgiving stone, and his dick throbbing inside my pulsing pussy.

I felt him lift off me for a second then come crashing back down into me, thrusting and shafting me as I abandoned myself to the inevitable.

The inevitable came with a rush of adrenalin and guilt as with one final thrust he brought me to my climax, I bit into his shoulders and raked his back to silence my screams as he suddenly reared up and ejaculated over me.

It hit my face, my breasts, hot and unguent, I massaged it into my tits salving my joy and guilt.

I felt my eyes getting heavy, my limbs untangled, my mind clearing till I drifted gently gently away.

I walked home wrapped in clouds, arriving at my door without thinking, I showered and looked at myself in the mirror as I dried off. I stood up and looked over my body, there were no bruises on my thighs, no bites on my neck or breasts, any tenderness between my legs, the shadows never leave any marks on me.

Was I really so attractive the shadows couldn't resist me? Did I really drive them crazy? I poured myself a glass or two of wine, after this little celebratory drink I sneaked between my sheets, and slept such a deep contented sleep with no dreams and no ghosts.

And no shadows.

Bliss.

FIVE

The men were weak and anaemic, eager to please or I too eager to please them.

None had the passion of Martin; none had the ability to take me to the edge, to make me catch my breath, to make me come alive.

I was alone.

The dragging days and nights of nothing, round and round it went like a monochrome carousel, light dark light dark light dark, I was too frightened to jump off that carousel and jump into life. I was dancing in my fetters, chained to my grief for what once was and never would be again. I could not escape it.

I came to sex late, achingly and waitingly late and I don't think I've ever recovered my momentum that the skippy-heeled girls seemed to have. They all dashed past me but.

I wanted love to be a cocoon, not hanging by a thread or caught in its weave, my chrysalis stage as I emerged into womanhood.

What man in his right mind would wish to be ensnared in the web of a half woman?

None would promise to catch me if I fell.

None made me feel part of something bigger and maybe better, none had the power to be, to see, to feel to hunger to satisfy and no one even came close.

All I had was my loneliness.

And my memories.

SIX

More memories.

The water lapped at the dugout as we headed up river. The canoe was no wider than a couple of feet, long and shallow and it sat precariously on the water, rocking and rolling with the swell. At first when Martin said we'd be going by canoe I had reservations, even more so when I saw it but at the landing stage there were plenty of the little boats, carrying supplies and landing catches of fish at the tiny Indian village on the bank. If it were good enough for them, then this Daughter of the Empire would ride it too.

We set off, our few belongings bundled between us, me in the back and Martin sat facing me and paddling easily, switching the oar from left to right, the river gently gently rocking us. I had a bikini on, two piece and black with one of Martin's shirts over it, he advised me against showing too much flesh away from the tourist areas, common and sensible advice in any country. He was bare chested and in shorts, breathing evenly as he rowed, calling out the sights as we saw them. He had changed since I'd last seen him. Gone was the nerd, he hadn't been replaced by a muscled up jock but he seemed fitter and leaner than ever before. He seemed calmer too, as if mentally he'd found what he wanted and even in the throws of his creative angst he could at times touch tranquility as easily as tormented genius.

The sweat gleamed on him under the hot sun, running down his chest and plastering his hair to his head, like a pelt, I suddenly thought, and was then struck by what a strange sentiment it was.

As we moved further up the river birds of every hue, from eagles to parrots, kingfishers and toucans with their crazy oversized bills flew around us. In the shallows flamingos, pretty pink, white, and even black, fished eagerly and quickly on their spindly legs. Tamarind and spider monkeys skipped from branch to branch trying keeping up with us, chattering and pointing. We were their matinée.

Below us in the clear water, fish, almost luminous in their brightness, swam in choreographed shoals, first one way and the then the next is if by magic. Eels coiled and twisted in courtship and dragonflies the size of children's kites skimmed the surface, seeking prey and becoming prey.

'Pull your hand in Tasha!' Martin suddenly shouted as a caiman hit the boat, rocking it violently and almost capsizing it. It splashed its tail in frustration at being denied a bite of my hand, which I had been trailing idly in the water.

'What is it?' I asked as I gripped the boat to steady myself.

'A caiman, like an alligator, only bigger. And meaner,' he said with a tight smile.

Along the banks the other caiman slowly moved into the river to circle us, Martin stopped rowing and steadied the boat.

'Are we safe?' I asked him looking at the shapes moving stealthily towards us, their wakes like arrowhead pointing at us.

'Yeah,' he said with a shrug, 'they're just want to eat us that's all. If we stay still they'll get bored and leave us alone.'

'Would they eat us?' I said eying them warily.

Martin just nodded.

We were right to be wary of them, they moved quicker than you could imagine, their huge armored reptilian bodies gliding through the water, their teeth, wide and white, their eyes just above the waterline and ever watchful. True to his word after a few minutes circling us they retired to the bank and lay on it basking with their huge jaws agape and we set off again, hogging the center lane as it were, well away from the caimans.

The sun was scorching now but being on the river cooled us as did the slight breeze and we made good time, but there was still no word from Martin as to where we were going, a slight smile, a blown kiss and a wait and see were all I got from him. Along with lots of shouts of I love you Tasha!

He was looking good, shorn of excess and well defined. He rowed easily and expertly - the minimum effort for the maximum energy. The geek was gone, in its place was a more rounded person, as if Martin had found himself and also found a greater peace.

The river took us deeper into the jungle, the banks gave way to gnarled mangrove swamps at the waters edge, it was here we saw jaguars again, fleeting and flash as they stalked the water birds. Snakes, like branches from the trees they hung from, poked their forked tongues at us, tasting the air. Lizards danced in mock fights, the tree sloth's were immobile, hanging by their huge claws, turning their heads three hundred and sixty degrees, the better to view their strange upside down world.

Still we carried on up river, the day getting even hotter. The water was now deep and dark, brown and silty, for part of the distance we were escorted by river dolphins, leaping and diving at the side of the dugout, keeping pace with us, playful and knowing but deadly. I'd never noticed their teeth before then, sharp white needles lining their mouths. They were every bit the killing machine as a jaguar or a caiman.

'Tasha, look left!' said Martin suddenly as we slowed to look at what seemed to be a bubbling cauldron at the side of the river.

'It's a feeding frenzy,' he said as we watched the water churn and seemingly boil, 'they're piranhas, maybe hundreds of them feeding on something big, eating it alive......'

I watched in fascination at the fury then suddenly the frenzy subsided and all was calm. No one would ever have guessed anything had happened there as savage as death.

We rowed some more, me taking the oars to give Martin a rest as he prepared us some food he'd bought from one of the villages along the bank we'd stopped at. Unleavened bread and papaya washed down by juice from the abundant coco palms were welcome then we started off again, the sun now well past its zenith.

'We're here!' he said excitedly as he pulled up to a small wooden jetty at the side of the bank.

'Where's here?' I said looking round me, we seemed to have arrived in the middle of nowhere.

He helped me out and we gathered up our few possessions and followed a path through the trees. Our home was in front of us, a weather beaten shack, stark and white and set on a slight rise. Scrub and bushes surrounded it.

'This is it? This is the surprise?' I said doubtfully.

'No,' he said teasingly, 'the surprise is later!'

SEVEN

With a contented sigh I lay back in the tub, my eyes closed and enjoying the sensation of Martin gently feeling my breasts, massaging them, spooning water and soap onto them and lathering it in, my breasts tingled with the rhythmic strokes, his fingers playing with my nipples, lightly tugging and teasing them erect as I put down my beer.

I half inclined my head for the expectant kiss and it came, open mouthed and full bodied, our tongues seeking each other, our breath and our very being mingling, long and deep we kissed as Martin gently reached down between my legs, the soft warmth, his gentle touch as his hand slowly caressed my vagina, I pulled away from the kiss as Martin nibbled my ear and my neck, I turned in the tub to face him and we kissed again, as deep and as long.

He let go of me and picked up the white fluffy towel, as I stood in the tub dripping water he gently wiped my breasts and belly, then pulled the towel around me. I thanked him with another kiss as he gently lifted me out of the tub and carried me into the bedroom and laid me softly on the stout wooden bed.

He undressed quickly among the shadows in the rays of the setting sun and joined me on the bed and lay looking down at me and I looking up at him, our eyes meeting and holding each other's fire. I slipped my hand around his neck and gently pulled his head towards me. Our lips met again and our kisses were deep and controlled as each sought in the other comfort and pleasure. Martin nestled in at the side of me, our kisses now more becoming and urgent as he slowly pulled the towel apart and peeled it gently from my body.

I arched my back slightly in anticipation of his touch. And when it came it was cool and sweet against my still moist skin. I twisted my head into the pillow in pleasure as Martin kissed my cheeks, earlobes, neck and shoulders, I began to perspire gently, the room filling with the exotic fragrance of the earlier bath and the raw scent of humanity. He moved his mouth ever confidently and surely down to my breasts.

I cupped my breast and pushed the nipple towards Martin's mouth as I pulled him towards it. He sucked hungrily and passionately at my swollen aroused breast and its hard jutting nipple. First one then the other as I moaned slightly and twisted my head into the down filled softness.

Again his mouth sort mine as his hand rested gently and almost reassuringly on my flat stomach. Then in a moment he swung me round till I was lying on top of him. We kissed deeper now, our tongues teasing and enticing, Martin gently tressing my hair over my shoulders then his strong fingers kneading the nape of my neck.

His touch was kind and sure and I caught my breath as we rolled again and Martin was now fully on top of me. We kissed more wildly as the final act began.

Our breath roaring in each other's ears I tingled tantalizingly under his touch, my body taut, my muscles tensed with desire. My stomach flipped and shivered, my heartbeat raced with nothing to check its mad gallop, my blood coursed through my veins fast and free, heightening my senses and setting my skin aglow.

We voiced non-words in a ragged and labored voice as we sucked in air and got ourselves even higher in our lust for each other and for the moment.

We trembled and quivered loin to loin, joined together in the fast approaching ecstasy. Slowly I opened my legs a little further. I reached down to feel Martin's cock hard in my loving touch.

I guided it gently and expertly into me. Martin's hands reach under me to grasp my bottom; lifting and twisting, turning and screwing him deeper into me as I flinched in pleasure with each thrust. Our sexed up passion drove us on and now our heightened sexual state matched our heightened emotional state as each met the other sigh for sigh, push for push and kiss for kiss in our desire for that all consuming fulfilling climax.

My hands played on Martin's broad shoulders and biceps, then moved down his back to his bottom, they gripped him tightly, my legs now entwined around him to pull me closer to him and get him deeper inside me less any of this moment should be wasted.

Martin reared up as he thrust furiously into me faster and faster, deeper and deeper as I ran my fingers over his ripped and corded muscles.

In the lengthening evening shadows the room was lit momentarily by the red hues of the dying sun filtering through the window and we became more frenetic in our lovemaking, more base and animal as we surrendered to our pent up passions. The chase of each other's sexuality drove us on. Martin thrust deeper still, I held my body stiff, my backbone rigid but my hips fluid and did all I could to accommodate his desires as he fulfilled mine.

Through half closed eyes I saw Martin's face twisted in concentration and pleasure and the expectancy of relief as we continued to ride each other madly, passionately and fiercely, until we sensed the moment was at hand for both of us. I shivered in the heat and urgency of the orgasm and, as the pleasure peaked, Martin forced him deeper into me, then it was over.

We held each other, sated and spent.

EIGHT

The shadows.

There were at least two, OK.

Fuck.

The alpha shadow.

Slowly I backed up to the wall.

'Like your face Tasha.'

'What do you mean, you like my face?'

'People have different faces for different places, yours is just perfect.'

'Thank you.' I said sarcastically.

'Get it wrong and you're undressed in danger.'

'I'm not undressed.'

'You soon will be.'

'And in danger.'

'What from?'

'From yourself Natasha.'

'Look - who the hell are you?'

'We're you're conscience Natasha.'

'And your guilt.'

'Why don't you just leave me alone?'

'We will one day, when you've had enough of us.'

'Hurray,' I cheered.

'Tis true, some people doth cheer too loudly.' said the alpha poetically.

The shadows put up such an awful cacophony, I covered my ears but still I heard them.

'Why have you summoned us tonight?'

'Me?' I looked at them aghast, ' I summoned you?'

'Do you want us to ravish you?'

'Dance with you?'

'Make you feel you're alive?'

'I want you to leave me alone!'

'Say please.'

'Please leave me alone.' my voice was small, weak.

'We can't do that Natasha.'

Why?'

'It's too late for that Natasha.'

'Why is it too late?'

'You didn't deny us Natasha, you didn't deny anything,' said the shadows, 'at the beginning, we were your way of coping with your loneliness.'

'I don't need you now!'

'Aren’t you angry still? Angry that Martin's gone?'

I nodded numbly.

'That's why we're here Natasha, to help you.'

'If I could have saved him...'

'ENOUGH! You can't bargain this time Natasha, it's too late for that.'

'Why don't you leave me?'

'We will when you accept he's gone.'

'He'll be back, one day, he's just missing.'

'Why torment yourself Natasha? That's what we're here for. We can give you all the torment you want.' said the alpha male.

'And all the temptation.' bayed the others.

'STRIP HER!' the alpha suddenly shouted.

Roughly they tore my boots of, then my jeans and jacket. I stood there in my tight white t-shirt and panties, conscious I was bra less.

'How do you feel Tasha?'

'Do you feel high?'

'Do you feel alive?'

The t-shirt was bound so tightly it made me feel faint and light headed, otherworldly.

'What are you going to do now?' I hissed at them.

'We’re going to set the marionette free.' said the alpha.

The t-shirt was tight around my breasts, binding them down and slowing my breathing, every breath was a battle every beat of my heart a triumph. My nipples pushed through it eagerly.

He slipped his knife, sharp and silver under the thin fabric.

I gasped out loud as he sliced through my t-shirt expertly with just a flick of his wrist. As my breathing eased and I took deeper breaths, the oxygen high hit me immediately; I stumbled and stepped back. Unfettered my breasts swelled and engorged on the sudden blood flow, tingling and teasing their nipples hard and erect.

I felt the knife touch my skin, cold and lethal as it traced the outline of my breasts, lingering over my nipples.

Then it moved slowly down my flat belly.

Suddenly I felt warmth and vitality seeping back into my flesh, so much that I felt some of me was burning and some still ice, frigid and cold, bound and restricted waiting for its moment to be free. To feel the rush of blood, the sense of touch returning, the sense of being present again.

Most of all though a sense of wonderment of being reborn, cleansed and without sin, a life of penance to come and temptation to face. But pure as of this moment.

Waiting for the moment.

Waiting for now to come.

I heard my heart pounding, felt its rhythm, jumpy and anxious as the blood pulsed through the parts of my previously constricted body.

I felt myself grow moist as the shadow moved down between my legs.

I moaned softly as his knife teased my pubic hair.

I came slightly. A slight susurration of juice, silent but real.

The release would not be long coming now, I wished it soon but wished it away, to be on the edge and not fall, to fall and not land, to land and feel no pain was where I wanted to be, poised and ready.

To be caught?

To be saved?

From what?

There was more to come as he played his blade around my underwear, teasing it so gently into me as my lips parted around the gusset.

Finally he cut through my panties binding my sex and there they stayed, sodden, sticking to my body as I heard my breath echoing all around me.

My heart was racing now trying to keep up with my body; my mind became more than alive as the oxygen rich blood coursed through it getting me higher and higher.

I fell to my knees, panting and racked with shivers that began at the seat of my carnal soul and shot through me, each spasm more delightful than the next, more dangerous and more ragged until at last they subsided, spent, my eyes tight shut. I curled up in a ball.

I began to cry softly.

Then I slept, sated.

For now.

NINE

Martin overwhelmed me at times, such was the intensity of his love. I was proud but angry, I was cheated of my destiny, of his destiny. We were meant to be together, the gods had punished us again. We two lovers that created a love from nothing and the gods had destroyed it in their wrath. I could not forgive their anger, it matched mine.

My life was in limbo as I sought new way to punish myself and show my grief. I made myself hurt, it was all I could do. The shadows were my pain and grief, ever present.

In loss there is longing and the memories surrounded me, the innocuous, the stupid, the banal, the wish to tell Martin something then to realize he would never hear those words.

I could not believe he was gone from life and my love. He was somewhere. I wished, I prayed, I paid people to search, I pestered governments and ministers on both sides of the Atlantic, all to no avail.

He was gone.

But I couldn't accept that.

The Internet was a rumor machine. News of Martin Nash was prominent on it. The theories were bizarre, the American government killed him, a rival company had murdered him, he'd killed himself, he'd gone native.

Then there was oil exploration; Belize had huge reserve of the stuff its coast on one of the world's biggest coral reefs. Martin didn't object to them getting the oil if it could be done as cleanly as possible and the money used to benefit everyone but drilling for oil in pristine areas of natural beauty attracted extremists.

There were sightings and rumors, that he'd had enough of the publicity and faked his death to escape, he'd had plastic surgery and started a new life, none of these were credible.

Like our love his life blazed for a while, then died.

Our life together was strange. It was art hiding art, sex for the sake of sex, to create with passion. Martin was ever drawn to what was always just out of reach, me to the edge of that pyramid.

Our minds were so hungry to know all its secrets within and without and in our minds that passion grew and scythed through our lonely isolated emptiness. It will seek all that is hidden, the obsessed voice that speaks but doesn't listen.

Was that Martin? The obsessed voice? Had he gone too far? So far he couldn't return? Was he someplace he didn't want to be? Trapped and unable to escape?

All we once wished for we became for a brief moment, our life unbound and our fantasies raw, once we were one, but not anymore. It was all such a damn waste.

What creates great art, great music, is from the same mind as the weapons of war. Creativity is a many lustered beast, sometimes better left at rest.

The thought tantalized me, I couldn't get it out of my head. Martin wasn't dead. For some reason he'd disappeared off the face of the earth and I needed to know that reason.

Now Martin was missing.

Not dead – just missing.

And he was waiting for me to join him.......................

He could be sat across from me, in bed with me but he was here with me, I felt him, his spirit moved on the still evening air as quiet as vespers but he was here, I knew. I closed my eyes again and let myself relax even more, I imagined I was adrift on an ocean heading to an imaginary island far far away where the blue sky meets the blue sea, blurring into one.

Gently gently turns the tide, carrying me to the other side............

TEN

I held him as gently as he held me as we swayed around the floor to the music coming from all around us. We were not alone. Other couples and other voices, some calm and some confused, muttered as we passed by, lost in our dreamworld. Lost within each other.

Shapes and sounds, gliding, moving, all around.

We danced across the room, me in my shimmering strapless silver sheath with decadent heels, he in his dinner jacket. He held me closer, my arms around his neck, then now casual on my waist, now my head on his shoulder, now his mouth against my hair.

'Dance with me, hold me tight, make me feel, I'm alive..........'

'You are alive,' he whispered.

'Then set me free,' I whispered back.

We moved round the dance floor fluently, I caught sight of us in the mirrors around the room, he tall and dark, shy but strong, me slim and fine with lips the color of fire and my hair black as night. We shone in the reflection, and then we were gone. So too the other dancers and suddenly we were alone at last.

Gently gently we stepped heel to toe into the night, the music all around us till all became as one. The lights slowly dimmed as we became phantoms in the darkness, he offered me a rose from the dark eyed child wearing a pretty blue bonnet waiting at the door. Her dark eyes gleamed as I took it and we walked into the sultry grounds, arm in arm, would we kiss?

We walked along the path enjoying the humid early summer evening, in the distance we heard sirens and other dangerous sounds, they belonged to another world. Together we were safe. We were heading away from the dance hall to a secret place only we knew. We walked slowly - the moments passed at their own pace unhurried and unnoticed in our companionable silence. A few other couples passed us by, but no singles. The nights are for lovers and they alone, now I too can share the darkness, tingle at the treats to come, I am whole.

I am not alone.

We came to the bridge, filigree white and gold spanning the river below, gently lapping at the bank. It was there we kissed for the first time, his touch fleeting and evanescent upon my lips then no more, I tossed the rose upon the waters.

'Make a wish,' whispered my dance partner suddenly stopping and turning to face me.

'A wish?' I met his gaze, suddenly shy as I saw the fire in his eyes.

He looked into me, 'for the rose on the river,' he murmured.

I screwed up my eyes and made a wish. The wish was everyone’s and mine - that the past be gone save for the best and the future will arrive and bring the rest. Slowly I opened my eyes.

He kissed me gently on the side of my mouth. 'Don't tell me what the wish was, if you do it will never come true!'

Did he wish too? We giggled as we rushed to the other side of the bridge to watch the rose pass under it borne by the fickle swell it could no more control than I could control my beating heart.

We walked on, still arm in arm.

I laid my head on his shoulder and allowed myself to dream fleetingly. I had dreamed before in the past but never got to the end of a dream, never had the happy ending. I always woke alone and confused. And frightened. Lovers that left me before the time came, vampires sucking my love then going before dawn. Spirits, wraiths, ghosts.

And shadows.

The night was deep and dark, its stars dimmed by bright love, the moon my patient mistress on her cycle through the sky. His arm now slipped round my waist and mine did likewise, we walked the still warm garden paths, among the heady scent of flowers, my head on his shoulder resting, our steps light and slow, our whispers low but our breaths faster now.

We laughed and sighed together, those lovers to be moments filling our minds with the delights to come. We looked at each other; words shouldn't come now, stumbling and shallow, clumsy and unneeded. I touched my forefinger to his lips. Let the night speak, let our hearts too for this moment is ours as we kissed again. My hands linked round his neck to pull him into, into what?

The web of a half woman?

I hoped not - I hoped he would find me whole and pleasing, after all it was how I found him. His arms enfolded me lifting me slightly as our tongues teased; now we were going further with each other.

Now I feel truly alive!

We kissed again then drew each other closer lest the moment be lost, my arms around his neck, his upon my waist, our eager tongues enticing, our breath mingling, our senses reeling, truly, I am alive!

'I love you Natasha.'

I am inspired in his arms, my body aches, my carnal soul is aroused to wanting more and more as our kisses hold each other in their sway and we savor, we twist and turn our heads, quick and sharp, my hands ruffle his hair, his now on my bottom, the smooth silky gown hugging me closely and his fingers gently follow my female contours, my back, then down to my hips then slowly circling. We fought over our kisses, each demanding more each giving more till his hands were on my breasts, gently cupping them, and his kisses now bold and breathless as were mine.

Gently he laid me down on the cool grass and lay beside me, his hand following my shape under my dress. Slowly he peeled my gown up down to my waist as I found him between his legs, hard and eager, engorged and ready, almost.

I love you my darling he breathed again. And I love you too!

So strongly so deeply, as an ocean would love if it could!

His kisses were shocking, a spark to a fire as they rained upon my shoulders and neck as I arched my back and stared to heaven, then my eyes closed in surrender as his mouth found my breasts then my nipples, jutting their disdain for convention and proudly swollen and demanding. He sucked hungrily and sweetly, expertly his tongue and lips caressed and cajoled a greater high, a thrill inside.

I moaned softly as again he whispered his undying love for me.

I struggled with the buttons on his fly then he was free and hot to my touch as I encircled his girth and slid my hand slowly to its base then its head then to start again as he moved down between my legs, unsheathing my body from my dress and casting it aside as a chrysalis as I sighed to be reborn.

I felt the sensations on my bare legs as he slowly stroked my thighs, each stroke a little higher, each a little harder, deft and artful, I wished only to be naked now. He pulled down my panties, and I felt the night air upon me mingling with his sweet breath.

His touch was gentle and sure, the tips of his fingers were there and then gone, each touch sending a shiver through me as I felt myself come alive and welcome him, my lips moist and succulent, my pubic hair lush, that dark star upon my white skin, that silent prayer, that longing, that emissary of pleasure, that chalice that becomes me. I felt myself swell and subside, rhythmic and pure, a pulse I felt in my head and in my heart.

I put my hand to my mouth to stifle my cries lest they disturb the nymphs and dryads who were watching us deep from with the woods, and I'm sure, wished themselves to be of mere flesh and blood. How they must curse their gods for depriving them of mortality and its pleasures.

He slid on top of me and I reached down, his agent of lust and of enchantment filling my hand as I guided him slowly into my sodden harbor and gasped as he pushed deep into me, an act that shivered through my body.

My mouth sought his again, my hands his body as he grew inside me with every thrust and stroke, our breaths now raging, our senses reeling and bodies entwined, as the moment became us. He became stronger in his taking of me, his thrusts wilder and angrier, my response madder and more delirious and still we rode.

I love you my darling he said again and I replied in like, for this much would always be true. In life and in death.

I wrapped my legs around him, tore off his shirt, my nails raked his back seeking to hang on to his fury lest I stumble and fall. He reached deeper into me with each ragged roar and with each thrust driving into me mercilessly and sublimely until that moment was upon us, almost.

I gripped him hard as he bore down on me, into me, impelling and powerful, till even that might was spent, and the force was no more.

With a scream I orgasmed, again and again and again until in time he softened inside me...............

The ghost was gone.

ELEVEN

My beloved Maya.

Maya I christened her, the perfect name I thought as I made my way into that cool place of rest with the wild flowers for her. I followed the winding path to her tiny grave and stopped. I stared. There was a bunch of flowers already there with a small card.

"And ask'd me, when

False Man would be content

To pay again

What God and Nature lent."

I picked the card up gently, I knew before I saw the card who it was from and there at the bottom was the name. Martin. I knew I had to get away, I had to escape.

24 hours later I was in Belize.

TWELVE

I landed at Belize City airport in the early evening. I needed to find Martin, but if I did which Martin would it be? Would it be the sweet solicitous Martin or a Martin lost in his own world, a Martin who perhaps doesn't want to be found? I needed to know the truth. That was why I was here.

This was where I was meant to be, I sensed that but I didn't feel it was the start of a journey, more the end of one, this was not the beginning but the final scene, the place I needed to come to for closure, for the conclusion to my dramas, and of my dreams.

Back in England I had been wracked with nightmares, violent and erotic. They called me and I answered. My grief was complete and my agony all consuming, this is where it would all end. One way or another. How the end came I didn't care. All I knew was that I couldn't go on living like I was doing.

I swept through customs and took a cab to the hotel, the only one and the best. A wonderful old-fashioned colonial building complete with a veranda and liveried bellhops. It was like stepping back to the glories of the British Empire, an empire that at its peak surpassed even Rome.

The hotel, like all hotels in developing countries had a mixed selection of guests, drugs dealers, arms dealers, aging hippies; young back packers and me. Seekers all, looking for what though? I knew what I was looking for. I took a room on the second floor, a single bed, and a fan on the ceiling and some chairs. Simple and functional. That was all I needed. I had a feeling my stay here would not be long. I would find or I would be found.

I stripped and lay on the cool satin sheets. Above me the fan turned slowly and hypnotically. This was where I was meant to be. This was where I would find my true love. I stretched languidly, my eyes half closed and my ruby red lips apart as I pulled the sheet between my thighs and hugged it.

I was alone and I didn't want to be, I wanted my man and he wasn't there. I wanted my loneliness to be gone. I knew it would be soon, later on in the evening, or even maybe tomorrow. I just knew it.

Even if I was alone in my mind I wasn't. Lovers, and one especially, came to me as if in a waking dream, a loving touch, a silent embrace. He was here with me and I knew it. Just as I had always known it.

I hugged myself in the satin sheets.

I could hear music playing again.

Dance with me, hold me tight, make me feel I'm alive.

I tangled myself up in the sheets more, enjoying the satin between my legs, the tease and the temptation and more to come.

I furrowed my brow slightly and pouted a little more as the fantasy raced ahead. I closed my eyes and found myself again in two places at once, two people at the same time but always the same lover and the same outcome.

I rolled seductively from side to side on the bed, letting the satin sheets slip a little each time then suddenly recovering my modesty. Soon he would be upon me, then my imagination would know no bounds, it would be something for the future, something to savor when we were together I mused, a way of casting a spell, of wrapping a gift, of hiding a love token - all to be revealed at that precise precious moment.

"Dance with me, hold me tight, make me feel I'm alive......"

I began to tease my nipples, slow and unhurried for this was a place where time stood still and my lover was not yet with me. I stroked myself languidly, taking almost childlike joy in my sexuality, now so blatantly on show.

I continued to tease myself, enticing my dark nipples erect, then my hands slid down the smooth roundness of my belly, then they traveled the full length of my hips as I concertinaed myself tense then relaxed with a quiet joyous sigh. I rolled my hips seductively.

Still the music plays and still my lover gives chase. My memories of the past will become his for the future. He waits as my fingers, slim and elegant, reached down to my elegant slit of a cunt. Deft and gentle they caressed and cajoled memories from deep within me.

"Dance with me, hold me tight, make me feel I'm alive......."

My fingertips gently parted the waiting curtains and I inserted my middle finger into my vagina. It came out slick with glistening anticipation. My legs widened, throwing the satin sheet completely away from my nakedness. I put my finger back then two fingers and the inner nectar flowed, smearing my pink nakedness and shining brilliant pearlescent in the muted light. Between my fingers my clitoris rose, so small and slight but so powerful and potent. A signal for all, a discretion shared, even a memory was all it needed to awaken it from its gentle slumber.

It is awake now, risen and alert, aware of the slightest nuance and the gentlest breath upon it. It too had its own memories..........Martin.

THIRTEEN

I showered in the refreshing scented water, and later on in the hotel restaurant I dined on fresh lobster washed down with the local beer. I had a pair of jeans on, a simple gray top and my riding boots, knee high leather ones in brown with low heels with a zip at the back, everyday jodhpurs. All the rage in London and they suited here too. I kept my jewelry to a minimum, no big baubles, not even a watch, and just discreet ear studs under my hair. Beautiful as Belize was and no matter how much I loved being there it could be as dangerous as any place in the world for the unwary. I wouldn't risk ostentation five minutes from my place in London, and I certainly wouldn't here.

It was time to make plans.

I left my bag, passport and money in the safe at the hotel. Before I did I checked in my purse. The card from Maya's graveside was there. I stared hard at it. No............it couldn't be..........surely?

It was now blank.

FOURTEEN

I sat on the evening veranda drinking my rum cocktail watching the world come and go as I tried to work out what to do. I needed to be here, and I needed to know the truth, one way or another.

And the card. Now it was blank, less than a day ago it hadn't been. I was sure Martin had signed the card but now there was nothing, no name, no smudge, no indication there had ever been anything there. Ever. Had I imagined it all?

Was that too just another shadow?

I had a rough plan for the evening as I stepped out to the cab. Cab was an overstatement; it was a bright red pick up held together with rust. The driver opened the door for me and even tipped me a little salute as I got in to the jump seat behind the driver.

'Nash? HQ? Si?' I said waving some American dollars at him.

'Of course ma'am,' he said in perfect English as he took my money.

He roared with laughter as he fired up the old pick up and we raced down the almost deserted streets. Every so often he looked round at me and laughed manically as if he were party to a private joke.

We swung over the old style swinging bridge, past the park and the government buildings. Dusk was falling but it was still warm. I looked around me as we jolted over the potholes. I didn't like what I saw.

This country was dying I thought as I saw the boarded up shops, the decaying infrastructure and air of defeat that hung over the city. Once upon a time this was once the capital of a great empire. We drove past writing on the walls, murals proclaiming which gang owned the territory, and at the street corners there were armed youths on look out duty. This place had one of the highest murder rates in the world. It was all such a damn waste!

'OK,' he said, stopping the truck suddenly, 'this is the Nash building, we're here.'

'Stay please. Yes?' I said handing him some more US dollars that I thought would cover all eventualities.

He nodded his head, lit a cigar and settled down in his cab to wait, the meter still running as I got out and walked around the deserted lot. The small squat building, just two floors high, looked the worse for wear.

Its windows were cracked; weeds grew in the car park, cardboard boxes and plastic bags drifted aimlessly. As I circled the building rats scurried into dark places. I shivered. There was nothing to keep me here. I wanted out fast. I came round the side of the building to the where the cab was.

It was gone!

I had nothing, just my purse in my jeans and what I stood up in. I looked up and down the road in anger and frustration. Where the hell had he gone? Maybe he had another fare? Maybe he'll be back in a moment?

I was a long way from home in what could be a very dangerous place. I paced one way down the street then spun round and paced the other, if I saw a car would I attract its attention or hide? I wasn't sure. After a few minutes walking impatiently up and down the road I squatted down in the gloom at the side of the building, trying to work out my next move. My mobile was no use either; there was no signal here.

Damn developing countries I hissed!

I had a plan. I was going to come to Belize, hire a guide, search the waterways and back roads, talk to the villagers and try to find out exactly what had happened to Martin, whether he was alive or dead. I needed to find the site of the helicopter crash, if indeed there was one, I needed to talk to people.

It looks like all my good intentions had come to nothing I thought as I sunk lower down the wall. From London it all seemed so easy, come here, find out the truth, and then go home. It looked as if I'd failed at the first hurdle, most of all I needed a guide I thought despondently, someone who would take me by the hand and lead to where I needed to go. I was a long way from home, and for the first time I cried. I knew the truth. Martin was dead and coming here wouldn't change it. I was a fool to think otherwise. The grief took me over; I had bottled it up for so long, fed it false hopes and morsels of expectancy and made it promises, promises I could never keep. I had fooled it. The shadows were right. The shadows had won.

I closed my eyes.

'Na-ta-sha.'

I heard the hiss, those clipped syllables, that Latin inflection, once so pleasing to my ears. It was a soft whispery voice, playful and young.

'Na-ta-sha.'

I heard it again. I looked around through my teary eyes, into the dark and dangerous places, trying to focus in on the voice. Then suddenly I saw her, a young girl, slightly built, no more than early teens. She was barefoot and dressed in a simple plain blue smock. Her long dark hair was loose, framing her light olive face and lying over her shoulders. Her legs were long and coltish, her breasts yet to bud.

I knew she was a virgin.

'You must follow me, Natasha,' she said, her dark eyes gleaming in the falling night.

I struggled to my feet and leaned against the wall to steady myself. She seemed familiar, I was sure I knew her from somewhere.

'You must follow me Natasha,' she spoke again, more urgently.

'How do you know who I am?' I said looking at her in amazement.

'We've been expecting you,' she said solemnly.

'Who are you?'

'I am a messenger.'

'From Martin?'

She didn't answer, and I realized with a shock where I'd seen her before.

'I know you, you were the flower seller at the dance,' I said, looking at her carefully. 'You sold me some flowers, we threw them in the river, from the bridge, I made a wish.'

'What did you wish for?' she asked me when I paused for breath.

That night she wore a blue bonnet the color of her dress, I looked at her again. Was it the night that was tricking me rather than the girl?

I stared at her, willing her to reveal her true self.

'Come,' she said dodging across the road and down a side street between two old houses. I chased after her.

'Where are we going?' I called.

'You'll see,' she said over her shoulder, 'but you must come.'

Now I'm not stupid, kids are used for all types of scams so I hesitated. She stopped and slowly turned round. Those big dark eyes looking at me. They pleaded with me not to doubt.

'You cannot stay here,' she said with a shake of her head, her eyes looking into mine, hers wise beyond her years, mine confused and still tearful.

'Why?' I asked her.

'Because,' she said simply.

'Because of what?'

'Because of what you cannot see.'

I looked around and suddenly I realized what I couldn't see.

Shadows!

FIFTEEN

I followed the young girl, her bare feet slapping on the still warm stones, the heels on my boots annoying and loud. I could hear the shadows behind me, sometimes in front of me, and sometimes all around me as I followed her in to that black and endless night that hid its secrets so well.

We reached the end of an alley and came out on to another street, the houses were now rough brick, any doubts I had about following her were gone as we came to some open land, then scrub. I was pleased I'd put my boots on, there could be anything here, snakes, scorpions, spiders.

And shadows.

I could still hear them as I followed the girl, she fleet of foot and me less so. Then suddenly I lost her as we came to some ruins, a stone house with half its walls and roof missing. I slowed down momentarily, all the time aware of the shadows behind me; suddenly a hand reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me into the ruined house.

'Shush,' she raised a finger to her lips and we hugged the wall and its blackness, the stones rough

I followed her in desperation and fear for herself and for me. How could her parents let her wander round on her own at this time of night? We moved through the low brush and suddenly came to an open square with low buildings on each side of us, fifty shades of gray from almost white to almost black. Once they were covered in blue. We slowed to a walk and fell into step with each other.

'We are safe from them for now,' she said matter of factly.

'How do you know about them?' I asked her.

'The shadows? They are everywhere, whenever you summon them they come to you,' she replied.

I left the words by the girl hanging in the air, I wasn't aware I did summon them.

'What is your name?' I said at length.

'I don't have a name.'

'Where are you from?'

'Here.'

We continued on the rough track through the ruins, the shadows were gone, at least for now. The night was still warm; a slight mist was beginning to rise as the cool air hit the overheated earth, the stones and stellae shedding the day's warmth slowly.

'Who sent you?' I asked her.

'The people who heard you call.'

'What about the shadows?'

'We have lost the shadows,' she said and suddenly stopped and looked at me, 'why have you brought them here?'

I shook my head. 'I didn't bring them,' I said.

'Yes you did,' she spoke surely, as if there could be no argument.

'They’re evil people, bad. I didn't bring them, I don't want them.'

'But you must have.'

'Why?' I asked.

'We all have shadows,' she answered, her old eyes in her young face looking deeply into me.

'Aren't you frightened of them? They could hurt you.'

'They can't touch me,' she said dismissively.

'Why?' I said catching up with her.

'Because I don't wish them to.'

I stopped suddenly. 'You think I want to be raped by them, by the shadows? You think I enjoy it? You think I encourage them, I make them do it?' I reached out and grabbed her hands; it was then that I saw her wrists. They were scarred and marked with deep grooves as if....as if.....

As if she'd been tied up once, a long time ago. Once upon a time. In the night I looked into her dark eyes.

'Have you been this way before?' I asked her quietly but even as I did I knew the answer.

'Yes,' she replied, 'but I never came back.......'

We faced each other in the swirling mists trying to make sense of our mission, our roles in life.

'They come again,' she said looking round, 'you must get away quickly!'

She turned to run and I followed her, I knew where we were going. I'd always known. Even when I boarded my flight in London I knew it would bring me to here. We dashed through the square and onto the processional way, lined with stone pillars, in front of us hidden in the gloom and the mists was the temple. Suddenly she stopped and pointed high above her to the giant stepped pyramid.

'We go there.'

Now the world was a blur, time hung on a swinging thread. I have no recollection of the climb, but abruptly it ended as we stood on the highest point of the pyramid, the sacrificial slab, in that place the virgins had their living hearts torn from their young ripe bodies in celebration of all that was around them.

'I must go now,' she said turning away from me.

'You can't leave me,' I almost shrieked at her and grabbed her skeletal arms.

'You must wait here,' she said and pulled away from me. She took a few steps from the edge and then turned to face me, she spoke again, 'I have passed this way before. Once.'

'What do you mean?'

She shook her head sadly. 'I can never pass this way again.'

Suddenly she turned to run, this time I left her and looked around. In the darkness I could see mist rising from the jungle floor to the pyramid, cloudy and billowing. I knew without turning round what was expected of me.

The shadows had found me.

'I NEVER WANTED YOU! EVER!' I screamed to the night.

'Then set us free Natasha, set us free.'

I looked down into the rising milky white mist.

'Set us free,' they were begging now. 'Set us free!'

I once begged them not to rape me, to hurt me and abuse me. They didn't care. But still they begged, 'set us free Natasha, set us free.'

I did.

I fell into the billowing clouds; they enveloped me soft white and gossamer on my skin, their tendrils hugging me. I could hear music building to a climax and waiting for the moment.

Almost there.

SIXTEEN

The wind rushes by me, the clouds and the stars also and I am falling falling falling.

I heard my name, Natasha, that's me and how sweet it is to hear it upon such an air this night. I am whole with the maelstrom, my head and my heart, my thoughts and my will, I am safe.

How I wished Martin's lips upon mine, upon my neck and my breasts and then upon my soul, reaching in through silken mantles to unfold the treasure therein. How I wished the well a fountainhead to become and take me with it as it gushed!

I leaned into Martin for that first kiss and that first embrace and again that loss of innocence. No ghost he but mere flesh and blood.

He is water to my well drawing deep.

He is breath to my body he now enfolds.

His manhood a plow deep in my furrow.

I am whole now.

The moment comes.

My juice such balm upon his lips.

I am safe now, within his embrace our secrets shared but never voiced. All we know of each other is all there is to know. At this moment we know everything, all questions silenced by the answers we want.

We hold each other as time slows then stops. We swing weightless, entwined and breathless. As the seconds pass time catches up with us again in a mad frenetic rush. The orgasm comes and with it a final revelation. My life is my art and my art is my life.

The music ends, the storm abates and there is silence.

Gently gently the mist enswirls and holds wrapped within its clouds we lovers two.

SEVENTEEN

He was silent now, the voice, that voice was stilled by my kisses, that voice that first enraptured me, that voice which would had made me do its bidding were I not already of a mind to. That voice.

That voice came from the one I loved.

She looks upon his lips...and I do - they are pale and full, slightly pinched as he dreamed deep and wide, his chest rising and falling evenly as he made it to the other side. Gently gently turns the tide, and this now I've come to realize. It takes us where it will, nor stroke nor breath changes any of it, our journey will be what it will be. The beginning is our first step and from the second our trajectory is known.

And now my steps have taken me to here.

The dawn threatened us as it always does, taking away our night, nights I was once ashamed of but now cherish, nights I hid from but now embrace as I speed the setting sun to its nadir and wish the dark to come and the stars to shine, but now my love stirs......

He looks good against the soft white sheets, his face in repose. His hair dark his eyes sharp blue under long well defined lashes, his skin tanned and the hair on his chest less than enough to still be pleasing.

She whispers in his ears...and I do as I stretched languidly beside him. Another day begins, a different interregnum but still a pause, a counting and savoring of things to be.

I take him by the hand; his enfolds mine and draws me closer and closer and closer.

My senses surge unbidden, a trickle to a torrent. Again.

I nestle to him, my tongue tormenting, I glance up at his face and at his languid smile, it teases this tongue of mine - a mind of its own, it tastes hot skin, salty and fresh like a new beginning, bracing and powerful.

I am with my love and in love, when he satisfies me I show him he does. Some doth cheer too loudly, not me.

He moans and sighs as he looks down on me, his hands gently in my hair as I move lower, closer to his stirring shaft, I can feel it nudging my breasts, silly boobs saggy boobs but he cares not as into my mouth he thrusts and my tongue still speaks in the silence broken only by his gasps.

Shall I take him to the end or tease?

Shall I let him come into my mouth and show him his juice on my tongue or?

Suddenly his arms lift me to his face and we kiss, pecking then full as he rolls me on my back. I am his body - I feel what he feels such is our togetherness.

We are one.

He enters me, a shaft to a quiver, pushing and thrusting till my soul is alive and my breasts tingle.

Time stands still, hangs on the edge then falls in a headlong joyous rush.

Over me he rears his head in triumph as others have.

I am taken.

EIGHTEEN

'Was it a son? Or a daughter?'

'A daughter,' I said quietly, 'we lost her.'

Martin sat back, his eyes tight shut.

'She lived less than a week,' I added.

'Maya,' he breathed.

'Maya,' I nodded, 'how did you know?'

'I just knew.'

I hugged him.

'It all seems so long ago,' he said wearily, as if angry time had cheated him.

'It wasn't though,' I said. I knew time couldn't cheat us, it couldn't do anything to us. Not any more.

'You waited for me? After all that time?'

'I waited.'

'Why?' Martin's question was stark, simple and unavoidable.

'I knew, I felt.... I guessed,' I floundered, 'I just knew.'

'You came back.'

'It's called love,' I said simply.

'You’re a good woman.'

'You’re a good man and....and I've got a lot of love.'

We both cuddled deeper into each other.

'I remember our first date,' said Martin with a smile.

'The houseboat on the Thames?' I said smiling back.

'It all seems so long ago.'

I sighed contently as I thought back to those heady days. 'Why didn't we have sex that night? I was sure we would.'

'Did you want to?'

'Martin - I was gagging for it!'

'Sex on the first date?' he said in mock shock. 'My little Tasha.'

'You made me wait.'

'Was it worth it?' Martin asked, his voice suddenly small and nervous.

'It was worth it,' I said with a kiss, 'it was everything to me.'

'Your first time.'

'It was, you took my virginity, and my love. More than that you took my life.'

'Are you content?' Martin suddenly said.

'Content?'

'To pay again?'

'What God and Nature lent?' I asked.

He answered with a kiss and a caress lit only by the dying embers of our fire, a fire that will soon burn down to bare cold ashes.....

NINETEEN

It was like a huge cathedral, the crystals hanging down like curtains from the roof far above us. Some were jagged and angular, some huge flat terraces, others still hard shards, broken and gleaming. It was like walking into a rainbow, the cave shining every color under the sun, but muted and diffused as if through lace. Every step we took found us bathed in a different hue, our faces lit by the glowing reflections as walked deeper into the underground heaven.

'We're in the red room now,' said Martin, sweat dripping of him as he took my hand. 'The crystals here reflect mainly red light, as we go deeper into the cave it changes, there's the gold room ahead.' He pointed further along the cave where a million lights shimmered like a summer’s day in another cathedral like cave.

'Where is the light coming from?' I asked as I looked around in awe.

Martin smiled. 'All around,' he replied simply.

I gasped. 'How hot is it in here?'

'Well into the hundreds I guess.'

I realized now as sweat dripped off me and saturated my t shirt and shorts why Martin had us drink at least four bottles of water before we set off as a precaution against the caves super heated atmosphere. We also carried two packs of water bottles.

'Dehydrate here and you die,' Martin had said and he was right, the air was almost too hot to breathe comfortably.

'See how pure everything is Tasha? No scents, no animals, no vegetation, nothing except the crystals.'

And us. It was another world, a place not of this earth, this realm even.

Some of crystals were huge, hundreds of feet high from floor to ceiling, a spectrum, an array of fluorescent tubes, of magnificent torches, of colors and lights, of angles and lines, twisting and entwining. Walls of many hues and patterns all shimmering in the half-light. Here in the caves sound didn't travel and time stood still. We could be in another place and another time. It was another life.

We left the gold room and its enchanting glow and came to the jade room, another huge cavern, and this time the cool green crystals marked out our path giving us a break from the intense heat.

'This is nephrite, it's a type of jade,’ Martin said as we sat on the floor of the cave marveling at the scene around us, 'to the Mayans it was valuable, they dressed their dead in it for their journey to the other side. And that journey began here.'

He swept his arms around, 'this was their Styx, their Valhalla, their pearly gates, and their paradise. It could also be their Hades, their underworld.'

'The place of no return,' I said. I knew.

'Once here there was no going back to the surface, to real life, once here you stayed here for all eternity.'

I looked around in wonderment at the towering roof and walls of the cave. I took advantage of the slight dip in the intense heat and took my t-shirt off and wrung it out, it was sodden!

We sat in silence for a few moments, amazed at the sights around us, the ever changing shades, if this was their place of no return I thought perhaps it wasn't so bad, it was almost paradise.

'Wait till you see the blue room!' Martin said with his usual boyish follow-me enthusiasm.

I bounded after him, still topless, to the cave shining blue further down the passage. I stopped in my tracks when we came to it.

'What is it?' I said, suddenly startled at the sound of my own voice, its tones and its whispery harmonies around the edge.

'A natural sound chamber,' said Martin quietly in my ear, 'let’s go stand in the middle.'

Martin counted five paces in and we stood hand in hand bathed in the blue light that seemed to shimmer all around us.

'Listen,' he said quietly, with a knowing smile.

We stood hand in hand in the silence. All we heard was the sound of our breathing, his coarse, mine lighter, both even, but after a few seconds of listening we matched each other's rhythm and our breathing became as one. It began to increase almost imperceptibly, then slowly it became louder and rougher.

From being hand in hand I turned and slipped my arms around his neck and he around my waist, the noise was deafening, of skin against skin, lips against lips, all lit by that strange blue light. Our breathing had increased, as had the saliva and moisture in our mouths and bodies and as we kissed we could hear every nuance of it, our lips meeting and pressing lightly against each other, the sound of our tongues moving into each others mouth, the quickly stolen breaths and our heartbeats.

Our heartbeats!

They resonated around the room; a double beat for each, their tempo gaining as the kisses got deeper as the blue room magnified and focused all sound. Deprived of stimulation except touch and sound, taste and feeling I tried to control my passions in the blue tinted darkness.

I pulled away from Martin, my mind reeling and my senses flooding. He caught me and pulled me to him, the room making it appear our bodies were snapping and tearing in our haste to be together.

'Make it last,' I said as I laid my head gently on his chest. 'Make it last forever!'

I listened to Martin's heart but heard it around the room as it reverberated, my heart also, our breath calmed slightly, and I sensed a lull before the storm to come.

'Listen closer,' Martin said gently as my senses tuned in to the stimulus all around us, heightened in their expectancy.

I heard other noises, strange noises, gushing burbling noises, like a river on a dreamy summer's day, a mountain stream, a waterfall was there too, perhaps even the sound of light rain.

'Know what it is?' whispered Martin. 'It’s our blood flowing in our veins.’

I concentrated on the sound, the sensations and other worldliness of this as we remained in our embrace.

'Let them take you over.’

I did.

I leaned my head back and looked into the deep blue endless depth of the darkness, I licked my lips and swallowed, we kissed deeper and more passionately. Gently Martin sank to the floor, guiding me to rest on my back.

As Martin caressed my breasts the room roared around us, our breath was more ragged now. My senses were now in overdrive and I felt every shade of subtlety in them. I heard our blood rushing into our erogenous zones, our heartbeats rapid and mingled and our breathing now uneven.

Martin began to suck my breasts, drawing the nipples deeper into his mouth, I heard groans, slight and still controlled from both of us, but in this heightened state this game was only going one way. The sounds echoed around us, as if a chorus of pleasure had been aroused.

My nails raked Martin’s back. It hurt him and the room missed nothing, magnifying the pain and sending it trembling around the room. I rolled Martin onto his back and rubbed his penis through his jeans, in the room it sounded coarse and angry, I undid his zip and pushed his jeans and underwear down. I gripped his penis.

I masturbated him slowly and gently; the gentle flesh gave and he stiffened. I squeezed and heard the blood engorge in his penis, then felt that swelling with my tongue as I teased the very tip of his glans, enticing it bigger and harder, then harder still.

Then the room came alive again!

I was now on my back with Martin almost tearing at my skin and senses. The room heard everything and replayed it back to us, our skin sliding against each other, hands on bodies, tongues seeking tongues. It sounded as if our very souls were on fire!

I heard his fingers on my pubic mound, I even heard the swish of my lips as he gently parted then, and I heard the moistness as he stimulated my clitoris and I heard more, so much more!

I heard voices, mine and his but others also, voices I had never heard before, my moans and someone else's, my sighs seemed to become a cacophony of pleasure and my breath a refrain as Martin’s breath joined me.

I heard his tongue, a slurping sound, I heard my pussy lubricate, a fevered rush from Martin to drink me deep. The sounds filled the room, sounds of unsated hunger and wild passion.

I banged my head gently on the floor in my urgency but the room told otherwise, it seemed to come alive, gaining its own rhythm. I pulled Martin up to me and reached down, grabbed his cock and guided him into me as the room began to hum.

I could feel Martin’s hands on my legs as he gripped tightly and pushed them up till my knees were on my chest. I heard my body flex in pained gratitude. He leaned back the better to get deeper in me as the storm finally broke.

Pinioned by Martin I took everything he had and more as my senses were overloaded and my sexuality was charged to level it had never been before. I heard moans and sighs, screaming and guttural curses mixed with lighter airs as we made love in a maelstrom of sound and light.

Blood and oaths combined, rushing rivers and thunderous rapids enveloped we lovers two. Flesh on flesh, the squish and slop as his cock rammed into me. Almost there!

I ached and burned, the room roared around me. Bring me down Martin, bring me down!

He did.

Together we came as he forced himself into me one last time. I felt the climax and heard the climax. For a second before there was dead silence, then a torrent as we both became one.

The room came alive!

The noise rushed around us, the light too, shimmering blue, it embraced us and held us in its rapt embrace as if it was pleased with us.

We subsided slowly, our breaths settled, our bodies relaxed, sated now. A slow drip drip drip of sweat accompanied us as we gathered our senses back from where they’d been.

TWENTY

Later we lay naked together at the side of the pool, on the soft sand as the blue crystals shimmered all around us.

'Remember the colors Natasha, how they shone?'

I nodded. 'All the colors blue.'

'Remember how they dazzled? They seemed to take over your mind? Take you somewhere else?'

I opened my eyes and looked around at the cave that hides its secrets so well, as well as the clear sky and the temples with their strange luminescence, so many shades of blue. Here there was no beginning and no end, like a sea of blue, the sky and the earth meeting and blurring into infinity in this strange subterranean world.

'You have to be here to see it best Natasha, it only works from here, this is where the light is focused, right inside your mind,' Martin said quietly.

'The pyramid is above us isn't it?' I whispered, how I knew I don't know but I just knew it was.

He didn't reply but I felt him nod. I also knew that it was here the virgins were brought to after their sacrifice as they passed from one world to another. A better place?

I closed my eyes again, bathed in the blue light, satisfied and exhausted by our lovemaking.

'Why have you brought me here Martin?'

I felt Martin beside me and heard him whisper in my ear.

'I love you Natasha. I will always love you.'

'I love you,' I said simply in reply as I stretched out in contentment, I had everything I ever wanted, not least the love of a good man.

The cave lulled me.

'I love you Natasha,' Martin said again.

'Martin, why am I here?' I said with a smile.

There was no reply.

'Martin?'

Silence.

I sat up suddenly.

Martin was gone!

I looked around the cathedral cave, blue and mysterious, deep and knowing, the only sound the sound of my heart and a waterfall gently gently cascading into the pool, then the torrent lessening, slowly slowly. The light shimmered around me and I stood there still bathed in all the colors blue.

'Na-ta-sha.'

I heard the voice, I spun around and there she was. She appeared from behind the cascade, now dry, now spent, now played out. Gradually the lights in the cave changed, the blue was hardening, it became cooler, less welcoming, as if it sensed a stranger in it's midst, an impostor even. One who should not be there. One who had not paid the price, one who was undeserving even.

The girl came towards me and held out her hands, the wrists scarred with the cords that once bound her, her eyes bright and her hair glossy, her simple dress in blue, as bright as dawn in the fast darkening cave.

'You must go now Natasha, follow me,' she said.

She took my hand, the child leading the woman back to life.

'Can I wait for Martin?' I said, looking around at the darkness ever growing in the cave.

She shook her head. 'No, he is gone now,' she said quietly.

'Will he come back?'

'One day,' she whispered.

'I'll stay.'

'No, you mustn't, you must go quickly,' she said, shaking her head.

I hesitated, caught between two worlds.

She looked at me intently. 'Our Gods have smiled on you, you came back.'

Slowly I followed her, my hand in hers.

'What about you?' I asked her.

She smiled, a lost and lonely smile. 'This is the place of no return.'

'Come with me, please,' I begged her.

'I can never go back. Because of you I am at peace now,' she said simply. 'You have lived as I never lived, I can rest, ever content.'

And it was true, no ghost would haunt her - and no shadows hurt her.

Ever.

'You must go now,' she said pointing to an opening where the waterfall once cascaded.

'What about Martin?'

'You have seen him, he is happy now.'

'Will I see him again?'

'One day, when your time comes, but now you must go.'

TWENTY ONE

The headlines said it all, "GRIEF STRICKEN GIRLFRIEND OF MISSING BILLIONAIRE THROWS HERSELF OFF MAYAN PYRAMID!"

My parents came to collect me from Belize and fly me home in a private air ambulance. I'd been missing for twenty-four hours. A young Mayan girl had found me at the base of a small pyramid. The doctors said it was a miracle I'd survived.

Apparently I was lying there, delirious, and rambling about giant crystals and caves. I couldn't understand the time, it seemed to stand still while I was in Belize, in truth I'd only been there a matter of hours but it seemed like weeks. My last memory was booking into my hotel, getting a cab to the old Nash office, then I remember some ruins, I was walking, then running...then falling. I remembered some more of it over the next few weeks once I got home. It came back to me in jumbled pieces. Most of all I remember a girl, and like her, I knew the truth.

I can never pass this way again.

TWENTY TWO

The shadows are silent now, sent back to where they belonged by this light of love, they had no need of me or I of them. They had their sport and I mine but now we'd both found others to torment or beguile, take your pick.

I learned to let go of the past, I learned to heal, I learned to love that most precious of things.

Myself.

I also learned to value the past for its lessons and its memories, those once in a lifetime moments that stay forever, those fleeting glances and stolen kisses, those songs that remained long after they'd gone.

I learned to share again, to cherish, to hold, and even to love.

To love for its own sake.

Thank you Martin.

THE END