The Hump Years

From teenagers to forty something,

it's like a need, an addiction.

Skin on skin.

It does get in.

Hot

It's hot. Sticky. Sweaty. Tropical. Hot.

Hot, so I sweated all day yesterday, even my office air-conditioning didn't seem to help. Hot, so that I'm covered in perspiration by the time I have walked to work. Hot, so that I breath in solidifying air. Uncomfortable, ill at ease hot. Suddenly hot. Oppressively hot. Hot so I hate. Hot so I over heat.

I envied all the girls in their summer frocks, as I walk home from work. One slip of material open at both ends, how nice that would have been, how nice it looked. No knickers, I reckon, for that nearly naked in the heat kind of feel.

Rob said he'd worn a dress in his time, in the heat. I imagined him knickerless, at his suggestion of wearing a dress. Apparently, it's impressive, so Ab tells me. Now, if she doesn't want me to visualise Rob in that way she shouldn't tell me? Right? Right. And, of course, I don't, won't imagine that at all, (big smile) he is Ab's boyfriend, after all. Gorgeous Rob.

It's 8am and I've got to go out into it to get to work. Bugger! At leased it gets me out of the hot house, I guess. I'd rather a kaftan and some sandles, perhaps a parasol? Can you imagine?

My house would make a great parasol, for the day.

Oh grrrr, it's 8.10. Got to go.

Wish me luck

so I don't die of boredom, more dangerous than heat stroke! I'll be staring a spreadsheets all day.

Bring on the Xmas break!

New Year

another one gone.

Whoosh!

Love Is The Only Law

Love is the only law.

Graffiti scrawled on the front of the old post office in Gertrude Street. I look at it each morning and it makes me think if there are, indeed, any other all-empowering laws, I can't think of them.

How apt, I thought, when I stopped this morning and thought about it for a moment.

To love. To be loved. To love someone over and above anything else. Good times come and go, opportunities ebb and flow, but the love of another person is precious and should be nurtured.

 

As the Years Tumble Away

The long lunch of middle-age, it should be a time of happiness, so I'm told. Centred, life begins at... not the extended angst of pushing back desert continuously, indefinitely delaying coffee, cheese and death. Worrying where it is all going to lead. Checking for grey hair. Bulging veins. Despair.

There are no advantages to ageing, no matter what the aged might tell you. Eventual, cholesterol, excess body fat, loss of bone density, falling hair, failing hearing, brain to dust.

I asked a sprightly eighty-something what her secret was. "I never stopped dancing," she said, with a sparkle in her eye. "And I never stopped eating." She smiled. There was that sparkle again. "Good food, of course."

"Of course," I said.

She took my arm. "I'd so love to dance," she said.

"I'd be delighted," I said.

She gazed up at me. "With a handsome young man."

All relative, I thought.

We glided onto the parquetry with a swirl.

This and That

I was texting Jill for lunch, her idea was St Kilda, I'm sure. I replied for her to come to Bolago. I was waiting for her reply when I got a voice message. The sounds of "Love really hurts without you," greeted me and then Manny's sexy voice.

He said it was a great song and he'd just got out of the shower and was standing there in a towel, dripping, drying himself.

Jill didn't answer. How rude, I thought. Not even a "no thank you." And from a Fintona Educated girl, I ask you.

I've been avoiding Manny, waiting for myself to heal from my speed induced wank marathon, on Tuesday. Well, I can't exactly have sex with him with a scabby cock. Apart from the niceties, there is his HIV status to think about.

He wanted me to go over and sleep with him on Friday night. I so wanted to, but I couldn't.

We've only slept together a few times. All night, wake up in the morning, sleep together. We both like our own beds. We both like our own space in the morning. We're both stubborn.

Only once, as Manny likes to say.

13.20 - I was lying in the back room snoozing, having lovely dreams, about dark alleys and black cats and young men in sharp suits with pale complexions and wondrous beauty, when Mark's voice woke me.

"I tell you one thing that I want to discuss and you come out with all this vitriol that you've stored, just for such occasions. You must think, Oh Mark's wanting to discuss something, oh here's a defence and then you bash, bash, bash me over the head with it until I shut up," yelled Mark. Then the door slammed and all was quiet.

Mark and Luke are having a slow grind relationship disintegration. Mark and I discussed it this morning before Luke was awake. Mark says he feels as though he just doesn't count in Luke's life any more. Luke does things and makes decisions as though Mark isn't even a part of his life.

More arguing ensued. Something about Luke's showing his arse to some guy. Questions of why that person was so important to Luke. Something about Mark trying to tell Luke how he felt. Something about Luke saving up bombshells for just such occasions. Both of them claiming they tell the other how they feel. Counter claims from Luke about Mark lending someone some money with out telling him. More slamming doors. Quiet.

You may ask why I was so interested in Mark and Luke's argument. I needed a shit and had to wait for them to stop and/or leave, as they were between me and the toilet.

Finally both of them cleared off. Stomped away. Quiet. Bathroom. Toilet. Pants down. Hardly wait. Sit. Let go. Oh the glorious relief. Yes!

Casually look down. Empty spool. "Ah!" No toilet paper.

I'm sure I heard them both drive away.

"Ah!"

I picked my moment. "Now or never." I rushed shuffled through the house to the linen press, pants around ankles, legs apart.

I'm back on my bed. The windows are shaded. I can hear the wind in the trees. Birds cheep. Frogs croak.

I wish Manny was lying next to me, in my arms, warm, cuddly, where he should be. Me hugging him from behind.

 

And Then There is Luke

And then there's Luke.

Yes, there's Luke.

Did you have a relationship with Luke?

Did I have a relationship with Luke?

Yes, that's what I'm asking?

That's what you are asking?

Yes, that's what I'm asking?

About Luke?

Yes, about Luke.

A relationship?

Yes, with Luke.

I guess, it depends what you mean by relationship?

Did you have one?

With Luke?

Holding You

Cupped in my hands

your underwear slides down

my finger tips rub your hair there

my digit slides in nice and round

you inhale sharply

and continue to kiss me

as we rub erections

yours drips like a confession

of how you like to be run through

 

Got a Cold

I woke up late, with blocked ears and no shirt ironed, so I stayed home, cancelled the day. My nose is stuffed-up, my head’s thick and my ears are humming merrily, as if someone programmed a tune, a dirge, where my ear drums once were, while I was sleeping. Bugger!

Yes, I have a damn cold! I wonder which bastard gave me that? Naturally, there is somebody else to blame, it is the 21st Century, after all and modern legal practises have taken care of that nicely. Let me contemplate who, as I wallow in my misery.

PJ's Keen

I got home late, hours after PJ left me his message. My stomach buzzed as I read it. I could feel myself twitch.

17.19. Christian. I’d like to undo yr fly, slip u out of yr jocks & suck u off until u blew in my mouth - PJ.

Aussie boy PJ. Cute. Sandy-haired. Masculine. Nice nipples. Handful and then some. Gorgeous smile. Beautiful eyes which sparkle. Lips just made for kissing.

We always seem to miss each other, don't know why. The universe always seems to be against us, in one way or another.

23.23. Hey PJ, I didn't sign back into g/dar until now. Sure I’m keen. How could a boy ignore a message like that! Christian.

Pity! What that boy does to a pair of jeans, not to mention what he does to a pair of jocks, from the front or from the back. He tucks under, thick and solid; curves into the middle from both sides, from behind, with a finely furred line. Solid thighs, narrow hips. Hairy legs, fine hairy line up his stomach to his lightly hairy chest.

He unbuttons his jeans and slides them down over his thighs. I lie back on the bed and he kneels over me. He loves fingers. You should see his handsome face... as my lubed fingers... slide... up... his... arse. "Oh yeah," he says. It is all warm and smooth up there.

He leans down and kisses me passionately, with his Aussie Boy good looks and his charm. He smiles that smiles, cheeky, warm, only eyes for me, then our mouths and our lips meet, tentatively, touch like for the very first time, every time, and we kiss. He is nice to kiss, good at it, like he really means it, really wants to connect. I lose myself in his kiss.

We kiss while he takes the lube in his hand and rubs it on me, up and down my cock. Then he kisses even more passionately as I slide inside him. His breathing gets harder, just like his dick, he has a thick cock, his intensity gets stronger, I can feel every cell in his body buzz as he takes my cock all the way inside him.

He groans. He has a sweet gurgle in the back of his throat. He screws up his face as he tries to sit down on my cock even more.

That carefree Aussie boy with a face like sunshine, wantonly pleasures himself on my hardon. He shakes all over as I repeatedly slide into him. He pushes down on it. 

He loves it. He says so. “Oh yeah, just like that. Oh yes, that.... feels… amazing.”

We kiss like we want to eat each other. Then we do eat each other.

Bums And Cocks

Bums and cocks and bums and cocks and bums and cocks and 

bums and cocks and bums and cocks and bums and cocks and 

bums and cocks and bums and cocks and bums and cocks

go together like sunshine and wine

drugs are divine for cutting the time,

booze gets you loose, and the flowing juice

and getting the goose, nice and sluice

so you and your guy can hit the line

and two can become one how they move.

And then it is just, 

bums and cocks and bums and cocks and bums and cocks

all the way to the surprise.

Killing the Young

You'll do as I tell you, young man," demanded Cindy.

"Why?" questioned Joel. "Why is that going to benefit me?"

"Don't question me," snapped Cindy. "Do as I tell you!" She headed up the hallway.

"Just tell me why?" pleaded Joel. He followed his mother.

"No," shouted Cindy. She spun around to face him, with a look of fire across her face. "I'm the adult and while you live under the roof that I provide, you do as I tell you!" She pointed at him with such force, that if pointing fingers could kill, Joel would have been dead on the carpet.

"Not without a reason."

"Okay, you want a reason. Because I pay for everything, that's the fucking reason..."

"Oh yeah, like that's..."

"Don't question me!"

 

Donna Eats at Home

Dean was due soon. His parents had gone down to their beach shack for the long weekend. He'd told them he had to study for his final exams. They left with the parting words of maybe coming back mid week.

"You're 18 and old enough to look after yourself now," his mother had said, kind of oddly, as she picked imaginary lint off his shirt and adjusted his fringe. He'd stayed at home, when they went to the beach house, many times. "Be a good boy," she said.

Donna turned off all of the overhead lights, just the lamps were on.

She'd smoked a joint, she'd thought, fuck it, why not. She went out into the back yard to have it.

She'd cooked dinner, chicken breasts and salad. She had 2 bottles of red wine. What if he liked white? She thought at the last minute. Oh well. She shrugged.

She changed her dress twice. She'd burnt incense and had her favourite soul music playing, Nina Simone.

She felt excited and couldn't help smiling. She wanted to mould a man. She shook her head and pushed the thought right out of her brain, as soon as she'd thought it.

Equals, she thought.

The doorbell rang. She felt the butterflies in her stomach take off.

Donna Eats at Home - Extended Version

Dean was due soon. His parents had gone down to their beach shack for the long weekend. He'd told them he had to study for his final exams. They left with the parting words of maybe coming back mid week.

"You're old enough to look after yourself now," his mother had said, kind of oddly, as she picked imaginary lint off his shirt and adjusted his fringe. He'd stayed at home, when they went to the beach house, many times. "Be a good boy," she said.

Donna turned off all of the over head lights, just the lamps were on.

She'd smoked a joint, she'd thought, fuck it, why not. She went out into the back yard to have it.

She'd cooked dinner. Changed her dress twice. She'd burnt incense and had her favourite soul music playing.

She felt excited and couldn't help smiling. She wanted to mould a man. She shook her head and pushed the thought out of her, as soon as she'd thought it.

The doorbell rang. She felt the butterflies in her stomach take off.

She swings the door open and there is Dean’s smiling face.

“Hi,” he says all breathy. He looks beautiful, if a little flushed.

“Hi,” Donna says. She stands and gazes at him.

“Aren’t you going to invite me, um, rin... in?”

“Sure,” She steps away from the door.

He staggers a little. He raises his hand to touch her, but it doesn’t connect. Donna closes the door. He turns and looks at her.

She leans forward and kisses him on the lips. She can smell alcohol. She can also feel the joint she smoked reaching her where she lives.

He followed her in the lounge room.

“I’ve had a couple of drinks,” he says.

“So have I,” she says. Big and strapping, she thinks. Donna is captured in his beauty. He touches his face gently, nervously. Donna likes his nervousness, it makes a change from Tony’s domineering ways.

“I bought some,” Dean says. He holds up a six pack of beer. “Do you want one?”

“Sure,” Donna says. She wants to kiss him again. He tasted good, felt just fine on his lips.

They each drank from their stubbies. She held his gaze, now relaxing. She’d only been nervous of him not showing.

“So, do we do what boy’s and girl’s do?”

“I don’t know what boy’s and girl’s do,” says Dean. He smiles sheepishly.

Donna’s head spins. I’ll show, be my pleasure.

“Come here,” says Donna. She grabs Dean by the shoulders and pushes him backwards into the couch. She kneels in front of him and fixes her gaze on his. “This is what girl’s do to boys, Dean.” She runs her hand across the couch, between his legs. Over the edge of his thigh and up over soft squashy mound.

“Oh my god,” Dean blurts.

He is soft as she runs her hand up to his belt buckle, staring into his eyes.

He’s breathing deeply, kind of staccato.

Donna is turned on even more by how hard and thick he is suddenly as she rubs her hand back.

He holds her gaze, his mouth falls open, through which he breathes.

Donna grabs his belt buckle and unclips it. She undoes the top button of his jeans. His eyes widen, he flexes his legs. She pulls at his fly and the rest of the buttons pop open, two, three, four, five. She slides her hand between the open denim.

Dean groans. Lets out breath. Flexes his legs again.

Red cotton briefs. Black curls of hair. She grabs the elastic of Dean briefs and pulls it down hard. Dean’s cock rises up like a snake about to strike. Donna lowers her eyes. Thick. Red. Uncut. So hard it looks like it is about to burst its skin. She looks back to Dean’s eyes. She smiles. He looks serious. She lowers her mouth, without breaking their eye lock and takes his cock in her mouth.

“Ssssssssssssss!” Dean breathes out through his mouth. He gulps.

She pushes his foreskin down with her lips and sucks his knob into her mouth.

Dean groans loudly. Shivers and throws his head back in the couch.

I’m going to show you baby. She slowly sucks more of his cock into her mouth. She relaxes her throat, like only experience can do and she slowly engulfs the rest of his cock with her mouth.

“Oh my God!” whispers Dean, as he leans forward and grabs each side of her face.

Donna slides her mouth up slowly, looks into Deans eyes and then quickly slides his entire cock down her throat

“AhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” moans Dean.

She pulls her head off and looks at Dean dick. Magnificent, she thinks. Slightly thicker in the middle, thick all the way along. Big knob. Beautiful. But this is 101, she thinks. First lesson. Happy finish.

She goes down on him hard. Gags further down on it. Slides up. Sucks his knob intensely. Sucks down the whole length, again, it’s beautiful to suck.

She sucks him up and down with purpose, long hard strokes. Straight down. Sideways. Straight down. Gag. Relax.

“Oh Donna!” Dean shivers.

Up and down his rigid pole.

“Oh no!”

His cock gets even harder, like that was possible. It’s like granite. She can taste his precum dribbling into her mouth. She wants that, to taste him, to swallow his juice. Then he’d be hers... she tries to obliterate that last thought.

“Oh FUCK!! He’s shaking. He throws himself back in the couch.

Donna gets up on her knees and goes straight down on him.

“AH!”

His first wad of cum shoots into her mouth.

“AH! FUCK!”

His second squirt and third. His come tastes sweet, as Donna knows it would. He is hitting the back of her mouth with high pressure.

Squirt. “Ah!” Squirt! AHHHH!” Squirt, squirt, squirt. “Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!”

Donna’s mouth is full of semen, it had been a while, that wonderful, sour taste. Fresh. White. There was so much, it started to dribble out of the corner of her lips.

She swallows. Sucks his knob again.

“Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!” says Dean.

She sits back on her feet, looks at him and smiles.

He looks exhausted. He opens one eye. Both eyes. He smiles too.

 

Gallantly Gay Go Go Boys

Gammagoblin is in charge

Green-eggs-and-ham are served from a van

Grit's sometimes come with spam

Gargoyles gaze down shocked

Giddy-up cry the boys in the stocks

As Go Go Boys

Go

Gallantly

Gay,

Apparently, they

Just like it that way.

Black Boys

If I'd grown up in the USA

as a boy whose inclined to be gay

I can not tell you a lie

I'm know those black boys

would have caught my eye 

You Are Both Gooses

It was Looney Wednesday this morning. As I walked down the Bourke Street Mall a blond guy crossing over from the north east corner to south west corner started to scream/moan. I could picture him assuming a military position, pulling a gun from his back-pack and start shooting. I was just heading up the Bourke Street hill to Queens Street, when I saw a girl of about twenty seemed to be hiding just down a lane way. She had a back-pack and was fiddling about in her over-sized denim jacket. As I walked up level with her, she moved around into Bourke Street and screamed,

"There's your knife so you can cut me again!"

She threw a black-handled silver-bladed knife onto the ground, almost at my feet, close enough that I could tell it was serrated and then bolted down the hill towards Elizabeth Street.

The blond guy, now walking down Bourke, said, "You are a fucking goose." He raced over to where the knife was, picked it up and started running after her, with the knife held out in front of him.

I sped up my step and high-tailed it up to Queens Street as quickly as I could, thinking I wanted to get as much distance between them and me as I could... even if they were heading in the opposite direction. It crossed my mind whether I should be scared, or not?

Other than that, the sun shone down beautifully and a gentle breeze blew. 

Last Class

Last night of uni. Last night ever. I’m done. I’m finished. All over. I get my piece of paper. I celebrated the auspicious occasion by completely forgetting and staying at work until 5.30pm.

Well, we were having much more fun discussing Stella’s immanent redundancy, as it’s all been approved, it’s all ready to be delivered to her, but she doesn't know yet. Apparently, Christina (CEO) just said fine, get rid of her. Nothing about her being a young mother with a mortgage, as Hamish had allowed himself to think. Stella has tomorrow off, apparently she is taking Benjamin to the Myer windows and something else, which didn’t, actually, sound believable to me. It would be funny if she was going for a job interview and if she resigned on Monday. That would just ice the cake nicely.

So uni was the usual final night party, food and drink for every one. Do I feel different? No, not really. I don’t think we ever really feel any different, no matter what we’ve done. The same core feelings inside remain the same. (Unless it is negative, like guilt, or fear of recrimination etc) 

 

The Forest

The forest seemed to become darker and more impenetrable the further Macleish travelled into it. The trees seemed to move together with side steps, when he wasn’t looking and when he looked back at the path, after looking at the movement of the trees, the path seemed to head off in a new direction from before his gaze was distracted.

The sounds of animal footsteps and growling behind him kept him moving.

He was lost when he came to a cottage in the only clearing. He approached the once white-painted cottage built between two giant rocks under the grand old pine trees. The back of the cottage disappeared underneath the huge flat rock, which lay on a slant up onto the round boulder directly behind. The back of the house seemed to be attached to the large boulder; wood turned to stone and stone turned to wood at the joining. There were gaps where some original boards from the house were missing leaving dark gaps in the house; some of the gaps seemed to run right into the rock in a dark and mysterious fashion making it hard to see where the house finished and the rock started. There were all sorts of patches and repairs all having been painted white and in all different fading states. The chimney was crumbling, black with soot and covered in moss. The windows were dark and covered on the inside with brown fraying blinds. The moss covered roof covered with a carpet of pine needles and a wild creeper that seemed to snake over from the farthest side. The door was at one end partially covered by a crooked portico that had long since let go from its original moorings. The door itself was covered in peeling red paint over green peeling paint and the cobble stones leading up to the old door were all uneven, every one.

The huge trees dwarfed the house and the enormous boulders shaded all the ground around it, but the sun still shone over the front part of the roof and the door. The house looked very old and still, sitting on its carpet of pine needles, there almost seemed to be a mist where the sun didn’t shine. The forest surrounded it on both sides and the boulders obscured anything behind. The view from the front looked down the narrow valley, a grassy slash in the forest with a gentle decent.

The air was thick, still and dank, imbued with a sweet smell of pine. The cottage looked to be tumbling down but some how strangely permanent, decrepit but strong; the strength of time exuding from a fragile shell. It had a strange attraction for Macleish, but there was a sense of privacy. It was such a contradiction that he wanted to see what was inside, what or who, of importance, lived inside this crumbling shell. Why did he feel something or someone special was just behind that facade?

He walked to the front door and as he did he looked down the other side of the house that was hidden to him as he approached. This side was covered in doors all weather beaten and crooked and not looking as though they had been opened in a long time. He passed under the crooked portico and pushed the door open, which it did easily and silently and dust fell from the doorframe, over the cobblestones and the maroon carpet just inside. It was dimly lit with a hallway down the middle with many doorways, which divided the house into many rooms, one after the other. He could see through all the doorways except for the end one, which was closed.

He entered slowly and looked around with each step. On the walls to his left were shelves covered completely with books. On his right another door, this was repeated in each room. Some rooms had chairs and some had tables and some had both. He walked through the house and the carpet felt soft under his feet. It was strangely silent even his movements made no noise. Every thing was covered in dust and nothing looked as though it had been disturb in a very long time. Each room was the same, books on shelves, dust, grey blinds and silence.

He walked through toward the closed door. As he finally reached for the door handle to the closed door, he noticed the other door in this last room was open and another hallway, filled like treasure chest, running off at right angles to the hallway he had just walked along. This was despite the house appearing from the outside to be a rectangle. The door handle began to move with a stiff action and a creak, when out from the shadows a voice suddenly came.

“You can’t go in there,” screeched the voice with a piercing wail. And from out of the darkness and piles of things emerged an old woman dressed in ground length rags.

“What?” he said, quite startled and shocked, as her voice seemed to cut right through him to the bone.

“You can’t go in there,” she screamed again, even more fiercely than the first time, if that was possible. She waved a crook at him, which seemed to appear in her hand from out of no where.

“You caaaaaan’t!” The red veins budging in her eyes, she was suddenly in front of him. She stood between him and the door eye-balling him. She looked as though she had taken on the hounds of hell in her time and won. He certainly wasn’t going to challenge her she was too fierce for that.

“What is this place and who are you?”

“Get out, get out,” she screamed and a gust of wind whirled around her and him. “Get out before it’s too late.”

He stepped backwards thinking he could leave through the nearest door. In this strange building one seemed never to be far from a door, there were doors all along the west wall, after all, leading to the forest. And then as if knowing what he was thinking she said,

“Go back the way you came, leave as you entered.” And then on all the walls were still the shelves, but now all at different heights, all on different angles, rickety and shaking, struggling to keep the old books in place. Books of all sizes and shapes, leather bound and hard backed, some upright, some in rows, some now falling to the floor.

“I mean you no harm, I’m lost.”

“You only think you are lost,” she wailed. “It is all known to you. Stop trying to see. Feel! Then you will know the way.” Then he found himself on the front step and he stumbled backwards and he was out in the forest again.

“You don’t belong here, you are not welcome.” She was on the step. ”You have life ahead of you.”

But where am I, he thought. And how do I get back?

“Take the path… on which you can hear the wind.” She was leaning against the frame of the door. She now spoke in a low voice taking deep breaths between each word and her long dress flapped despite there being no breeze.

“But who are you, how do you know what I’m thinking?”

“Go, go, you need to know nothing more. Gooo aaaway!” Her voice trailed off into a whisper that seemed to be inside his head. She spun around holding her hands over her eyes. “I see no harm coming to you.”

Honey for the Bees

It was lonely on the hill under the Weeping Willow; the afternoon sun honey-coloured, its warmth fading. Her white robe lay scattered around her on the ground, picking up grass and seeds in its threads, as she remembered him, his smile, his promise never to leave her. She laid her head down on a grassy pillow, watching the bees.

This was where they met, by the bee-hive, under the Willow, over-looking the valley.

“Do you come here often?” he said. His voice was like honey, soft and sweet, his smile incandescent like a brilliant sunny afternoon.

She didn’t know where he had come from, he was suddenly there and instantly she didn’t care.

“This is my special place,” she replied. “I come here to think and to drink in that view.” She pointed dreamily to the patchwork of fields to the east, as she drank him in, with a sideways gaze, as he looked to where her finger pointed. “It is calm and secluded here.”

“Very beautiful,” he said. “It’s very beautiful here.”

A Bluebird called out from the willow. Warble, warble. Warble, warble.

“I’ve never seen you around here.”

“Oh, I’ve seen you,” he said Then he seemed embarrassed by his forwardness, as though it just came out. He blushed, crimson.

“I want to fly to the moon,” she said. “Will you hold my hand?”

He reached out and took her hand with his, bringing her wrist to his mouth.

He was the bee-keeper and these were his hives. He called her honey, the sweetest thing he’d ever known. She called him her prince and her stomach buzzed at the thought of him. His hair was as black as night and his skin sun-kissed, golden-brown, his eyes blue like the sky.

She had always been allergic, as she found out as a child, when she got stung in the garden, her breathing became laboured and her tongue swelled. She dreamed of it turning blue for years afterwards. It was the only repetitive dream she had from childhood. A constant reminder of what happened to the little girl, still inside her.

She was thrilled when he got fresh honey from the hive, they sat and fed it to each other. The sweet nectar ran down their faces and covered their fingers, which they sucked until clean.

At last, I’ve found you, her heart ached. All my life I’ve been waiting for this moment.

He said he’d never leave her; he’d been waiting all of his life for her, as well.

And then like his charges, one sting and he was gone. One night she had, before he died in her arms and the physical presence of him faded away. It was like he had been just a dream himself. She didn’t know how she had got through these last months.

She could still feel his sweet lips on her skin, on her lips. She could still feel his chest against her face and his face in her hair. When she was in his arms the world, somehow, made sense, as it drifted into soft-focus and nothing else mattered.

The Raven called her name from the top of the Weeping Willow. Warble, warble. Warble, warble.

Bells rang in their tower, as Sunday begun. They floated on the air from the valley beyond and as they did, the setting sun reflected in her eyes; orange and red in the sky, white light in her corneas, a glowing ball balancing on the very top of the hills to the west.

The shadows crept along the ground, passing over her and engulfing her, as she was telling the bees, of her sorrow and pain,

“Tell him I’m ready,” she whispered. “I’ve been ready since he left me, I just had to face my fear.” That was until she had realised that there was nothing to be afraid of, she had nothing left to lose.

I’d die without him, she had thought, as he held her. She finally knew what love was; dizziness as she looked at him, an all-invading ache at the thought of losing him. She had allowed herself to feel the smugness of happiness when he promised her forever. She lost herself in her dreams which reflected in his eyes, never wanting to wake up. She couldn’t remember life, as it was, before she met him. She wanted to reclaim that promise of forever.

She lifted the white, wooden lid and slid her hand inside.

The Raven called from the willow weeping sadly, Fly, fly, fly and it flapped its wings and flew off into the night.

There was the sound of white fabric rustling on the breeze.

The willow stood sentry to the hive on the hill. A gentle breeze blew across the empty grass.

The bees were silent.

 

Telling the Bees

The peel of the church bells

floated on the air

from the valley beyond

and as they did

the setting sun reflected in her eyes

Orange and red in the sky,

white light in her corneas,

a glowing ball

balancing on the very top

of the hills in the west.

The shadow crept along the ground,

passing over her and engulfing her,

as she was telling the bees,

of her sorrow and pain.