I laughed at the suggestion. 'I think it's all in my imagination, personally,' I returned, 'though, I must admit, I wasn't so sure then.'

'Perhaps someone's trying to tell you something from across the centuries,' she suggested lightly.

'Yeah, I'd consider it, but what? That they're in pain? To be frightened of something?'

'You'd think it'd be clearer, wouldn't you? If they were going to make all that effort,' she agreed. 'You'll have to see if anything else strange happens.'

'I'll keep you posted.' I laughed and, watching her reaction, went on. 'But I tell you what, I was on edge enough from that, really jumpy, I really didn't need a visit from Mr. Creepy.' She looked more interested in what I said now. I wondered what she was thinking, what signs she was searching for. It struck me suddenly that she had insecurities of her own, and my uncertainty thus far had done little to soothe them. I wanted her to understand that, when I was with her, my doubts disappeared, but I had no idea how to voice it.

'Did you bump into him in the library again?' she asked.

'No. Believe it or not, I caught him sneaking around right down in my part of the museum.' I related the whole story to her, from how I'd sensed he was there, through the details of our conversation, to his disturbing parting gaze. I only left out the fact that I had told him I was interested in someone else, since that was far too frank an admission of my feelings towards her than I was ready to make in the middle of a conversation about something else entirely.

'He's more than creepy,' she concluded as I finished. 'Do you think he'll be back?'

‘I really hope not,' I said emphatically. 'I mean, I'm sure I'm being too sensitive, but there was something not quite right about him, you know? And when he said he liked me in my costume, it made my skin crawl.'

'You think he got the message?' she asked.

'Seemed to. He looked pretty upset about it.' I shrugged. She was taking the whole thing rather seriously, when I just wanted to forget about him. 'Maybe he's a reasonable guy after all,' I added, hoping to ease the tone of the conversation slightly, 'just.. .misguided.'

She laughed gently, a mellow sound deep in her throat that my whole being responded to. Then she raised her coffee cup. 'Here's to escaping from misguided creeps!' I lifted my own mug and clanked it gently against hers. Our eyes met and stayed fixed for a moment longer than was comfortable.

'Jen?' she asked, placing her mug back onto the table, a level of emotion in her tone that was new to me.

'Yes?' I said in return, lowering my own mug, my eyes following it, wanting to look anywhere but at her. Slowly, she reached out a hand and touched it to mine, where it rested on the table. Again, her touch burned my skin but this time I did not move away. Her fingers moved against mine. I let them, heat pulsing from the place she touched and through my entire body. I felt sick and ecstatic in one moment. My breath quickening, I looked across at her, felt the draw of her dark eyes, saw the pink of her lips. There was a question she did not quite dare speak in her face, in her touch. The surge inside me was too powerful and something changed in an instant. I felt the release, an almost painful relief that made me dizzy for a moment.

'Oh God,' I said, pulling my hand away from hers and holding both of my palms to my burning cheeks. She was quiet, watching me. T don't know what to think anymore,' I said, voicing in one sentence the tension of six years, or longer. 'You make me feel like this,' I said, accusingly. Tears welled in my eyes. 'And I don't know what to do with it. I've always just ignored it, and now you're sitting there and I can't. I want it to go away, but I don't really.' My voice cracked and a tear fell, but I couldn't stop the flow of words, of emotions, I wanted to pour them into her, let her deal with them for me.

‘I know I was wrong, but I'd got used to being wrong. Until I met you. It's only been a few days, not even a week, which is stupid, how can I know? I hardly know you! But I feel like something's changed in me. And I want you'—I paused, shocked by the frankness of my admission, before going on—'and I don't know how to deal with it. I've never felt quite like this before and I want it to be a secret again. But I can't make it go away. I've never felt so fucking uncertain about anything and so sure about it at the same time.'

She listened to me patiently through this. Now she reached for my hands and took them both in hers. This time, they did not burn me; their warmth was soothing. 'Jen,' she breathed, 'it's not easy. Believe me or not, I know what you're feeling.' She stroked my fingers with hers and my skin tingled, the sensation spreading along my arms. 'And, if you ask me, you're more certain than you think you are. But it can take time. You have to come to terms with it.' Her voice was soft, almost a whisper. I felt less like she was advising, more like she was confiding. She gripped my hands more tightly. 'But it doesn't have to be so complicated,' she said, 'if you don't want it to be.'

Her words were alluring in the gentlest sense. Her long lashes were black against her cheek as she closed her eyes for a moment, as if a thought had crossed her mind that she was uncertain whether to share with me or not. She raised her gaze to me and smiled. I tried to return the smile, though my lips trembled. Now she took one of my hands and enclosed it, warm in both of hers, and brought it up to her mouth. I was paralyzed, my eyes fixed to her face, barely daring to breathe as she kissed the tips of my fingers with the slightest contact of her lips. I felt her breath against my skin and I shuddered. She must have felt it through my arm. Then she released my hand and I missed the warmth of her touch instantly. I ached for her in all of my body. But the ruins of the walls that had held me back so long were still there, cold and hard inside me, just enough to stumble over. I looked past her and out of the window.

'It's raining,' I said unevenly. The drops were large against the pane. She turned to look.

'So it is,' she replied. A moment's pause, then—to my surprise— she stood up and shrugged her way out of her shirt. My gaze followed the angles of her shoulders, the movements of the muscles in her arms. Her arms were more tanned than the skin that stretched smoothly over the hollows of her collarbones and the base of her throat. She wasn't wearing a bra and I saw the shadows of dark nipples beneath the white fabric of her top. It had risen a little way above the waistband of her jeans and that studded belt, revealing the slightest hint of the pale skin of her hips and toned stomach. I forced my eyes back to her face and saw her eyes shining. I watched, hypnotized and curious, as she opened the back door and looked out at the rain. She took two or three steps outside, face turned upwards to the sky. The heavy drops made darker blotches on her clothes, ruffled her hair, streaked silver over her bare skin. She stretched out her arms and I was transfixed by the movement of every muscle and tendon beneath her skin as she did so, by the contrast between the pale skin on the inside of her forearms and the more tanned skin outside. I watched her, sitting motionless in my chair, not questioning the eccentricity of her actions, simply captivated by her.

She turned her face to me. The streaks of make-up over her cheeks gave her a vulnerability I had not seen in her before. 'I love summer rain,' she said, by way of explanation, laughter in her voice. 'Come on, Jen.' She held her hand out to me, taking a step back towards the door. I laughed. It was impossible not to be drawn towards her. I stood up and I went to her. I took her damp hand and stepped outside. I felt the first few drops of rain, chill despite the heat of the day, as a shock on my hot skin. Her hand still gripped in mine, I turned my face upwards and closed my eyes. And the rain began to work a trick on me. Had she expected it? The heavy drops dissolved something in me, the traces of the walls that had constrained me simply melted away. Water trickled over my face, down my neck, soaked my clothes, and I wanted it to drench me, saturate me, transform me.

I opened my eyes and looked at Aly. She was watching me, the rain dripping from the short ends of her hair. She could have been crying, the water streaming down her face. Her skin was glistening all over now, her T-shirt clinging to her form. Her hand was still hot in mine. As we gazed, dripping, at each other, the radio in the kitchen switched to a rock ballad. A woman's voice, haunting and full, sang of a love to ease away all of the pain. Aly reached out her other hand to me and grinned with serious eyes. As I put my hand in hers, she drew me towards her, until our bodies were pressed close, and she moved with me to the rhythm of the song. Her arms surrounded me; I felt her hands, pressing the wet cloth to my back. Tentatively, I put my hands on her, one on the saturated tee, the other on her slippery skin. Her eyes were close now; too close almost, it made me dizzy to look at them. I could feel her breath on my wet skin, the movement of her ribcage beneath my hands. We moved slowly with the song, the rain drenching us steadily, but the warmth between us growing. Her hands stroked gently over my back, as she pulled me even closer.

'Are you afraid?' she whispered after what felt like an eternity of rain, and music, and her body against mine.

'No,' I murmured back. The word maybe no longer existed for me.

When her lips pressed against mine first, it was a shadow of a kiss. She pulled away, raised a hand to my cheek and caressed it. I leaned towards her, as she moved her mouth to me again, and I returned her kiss. Rainwater trickled around our joined lips, into our mouths, was cold mingling with the heat of her breath, her tongue. I ran my hand over the curve of her spine, into her wet hair, and pressed myself to her, thirsty for her, with a thirst that all the rain that fell around us would not quench.

The song had ended and the announcer's voice was droning in the background when she drew gently away from me. 'Let's go inside,' she said.

♦

Aly's bedroom had the same magnolia walls as her living room, but with the red curtains drawn against the daylight, the room was bathed in a crimson glow. The door clicked closed behind us, and a sickening tension rose in my throat. It eased as she brought her lips to mine again, and now moved her kisses over my cheek and onto my throat and my whole body responded to her. A longing for her hands and her lips began in every cell, with no conscious trigger from my brain at all. I couldn't think; I was dazed with my need for her.

As we kissed, hands caressing skin which was now drying, sticky and growing hot again, my sodden clothes felt heavy and cold against me, hers a wet barrier stopping me from touching her. Driven to confidence by the urge to put my hands on that concealed, pale skin, it was me who first hooked my fingers under the hem of her T-shirt, attempting to remove it for her. She did it herself in the end, pulling it over her head in one easy action. Her small, achingly perfect breasts were pink from the contact with her wet clothes, her nipples dark and hard. Desperate to touch her, I raised my hands, then hesitated. She took my wrists, so gently, and pressed my hands to her chest and I caressed her, her flesh soft beneath my fingers. If my caresses were faltering, it was from the newness of it, for I felt not the slightest reluctance.

Following her lead, I removed my top next, feeling her eyes on my skin as I revealed it to the cool air of the room. Then I stood very still, eyes closed, as she wrapped her arms around me and unfastened my bra. I wriggled out of the straps and heard it drop to the floor. Oddly, it was not my breasts that felt exposed, even as she pressed herself to me and I felt them crushed against her own, but my back, where her hands now caressed the length of my spine. I opened my eyes again, and reached for her mouth with mine.

It was while she kissed me, with a growing passion, that her hands worked on the fastening of my jeans and loosened them, and she slid her hands over my hips as far as the band of my underwear. I put my hands onto hers, urging her to pull my jeans lower. She grasped the waistband and pulled them urgently down my legs, until I stepped out of them. She did not stand back and look at me; she pulled me close and explored my newly exposed skin with her fingertips, until finally her hands were easing my underwear lower.

Naked though I was, I had never been less self-conscious. My whole body was burning for her; even her slightest touch sent shivers over the entire surface of my skin. Now her gaze did drop, for a lingering moment, looking at me, at my body. I gazed into her eyes as they came back to mine, and I recognized her desire as my own reflected.

My hands were at her waist now, but she pushed me back and unfastened her belt herself. I watched, fascinated how such a simple action captivated me. The ends of the belt hung loose and she undid her jeans. Her glance up at my face had something mischievous in its lasciviousness, as she pulled her jeans, and her underwear with them, down her legs and stepped out of them.

I drew a deep breath and looked at her unashamedly. She seemed to invite it. Her legs were strong and slender, her hip bones prominent to the sides of her flat stomach. She had a small black tattoo near her left hip, a word in ornate lettering that I couldn't read quickly enough, and a star, surrounded by tendril swirls. I blushed as my gaze travelled from her breasts to the secret triangle of dark hair at the meeting of her thighs.

She was close to me again, all of her soft skin pressed to mine, and I felt I was melting into her. She urged me towards the bed with her hands on my shoulders and we dropped onto it together, her above me. Her mouth was on my throat again, and then her breath hot on my breasts, her tongue teasing. I gasped. She raised her head and smiled. 'There's more yet,' she whispered. I could only return the smile through a haze of arousal. Her hand touched the inside of my thigh, very high, as her mouth caressed my breast once more. I squirmed beneath her, but her hand was deliciously insistent as it rose higher, and finally I was helpless under her touch as her fingers slid into the place I most wanted to be touched by her.

I put my hands on her back, felt her becoming damp with sweat. Her hand worked against me as she kissed me on the mouth again, her tongue pushing between my lips as her fingers mirrored that action lower on my body. My moan of desire seemed to come from the deepest part of my being. I ran my fingers over the soft shaved hair at the nape of her neck and around to her face, stroking her smooth cheek, feeling the movement of her jaw as she kissed me.

She altered her position, her mouth leaving mine, as she took my wrist in a rather firm grip and pulled my hand lower, pressing it between her taut thighs. I felt the curls of hair, the moist heat very close to my fingers, as she released my wrist, encouraging but not forcing. I eased my fingers forward and felt her wetness. The pressure of her own hand on me became more rhythmical, as I, trembling with desire by now, finally allowed my fingers to explore her. I heard her catch her breath and, moving my hand again, saw her eyes grow a little wider. That slight widening of her pupils, caused by the movement of my hand against her satin wetness, was the most erotic thing I'd ever seen. Dizzily, I reached my head up to kiss her again.

I was lost in her deep kisses, my inexperienced hand doing the best it could, as she circled her hips to help my fingers and in so doing crushed her body to mine with every movement, her own hand moving in time with her hips and making me giddy with pleasure. With my free hand I caressed her back, her perfect buttocks, even her upper arms, wanting to touch every part of her. There was nothing but her warmth crushing me, her hand sending waves of pleasure throughout my body, her ever hardening kisses and her hot skin, her slippery flesh, beneath my fingers.

I was intoxicated by her, as I felt the pressure building between my thighs. I groaned deeply against her mouth, and she understood my need, pressing harder with her fingers just where I desired that touch most. My climax burst suddenly, surprising me with its intensity. I grasped at her back as my body gripped her hand, and I cried loudly with the release, not closing my eyes as I usually did, but keeping them locked to hers. I wanted her to see how powerfully she had affected me, as she broke off the kiss and looked back at me.

'Oh, Jen... you're beautiful...' she panted, her words ragged, eyes on my face. She bucked her hips towards me and I watched her expression, in sheer awe, as I felt her whole body shuddering against mine.

Afterwards, we lay under the covers of her bed, warm and relaxed. Her arm was around me, my head rested on the soft skin of her chest. I didn't experience a sudden sting of regret, as I had always thought I might do. I wasn't left unsatisfied. Far from it. My heart was ready to burst out of the confines of my chest with the excitement of being free at last. My whole body still glowed with the lingering pleasure. I smiled to myself.

'What?' she enquired softly. I hadn't been conscious she was watching me.

'Nothing,' I replied, since there was simply no way to voice what I was feeling.

'Are you happy?' she asked then.