Without A Song

Chapter TwentySix: From now on

We were standing in my shower unit, the cool water playing over our naked bodies, running down our chests, thighs and feet to the floor. The only sound was from the water spraying our bodies and splattering the marble tiles below our feet. Our heads knelt together, our hands played each other's hips, our loins joined as close as possible, each caressing the other's body. We stood close together taking silent pleasure from the rapid sprinkle of water, a sensuous joy of all things indeterminate, a campaign to seduce, to feloniously entice and compound our futures together.

There had been other times when I had been stood under a shower of water taking pleasure from my company and enjoying the moment. The first time was such a long time ago, a time I thought would never be repeated, and which until recently, never was. That was the most recent time was shortly before I proposed to this other woman in my arms right now. I would take Nicole for my future, my life and all that I was worth. Right this moment? All I wanted to do was to take her.

Nicole moved her head against my chest and began to kiss the water from my skin. With her fingertips she pushed her nails against my skin, parting each curl. Each gentle movement redirected the water over the back of her hand and down her arm. I arched my back to look down but all I saw, all my felt, were her gossamer kisses on my chest. Somewhere at the end of her left hand I felt her fingers arrive at that round depression in my right arm as if she knew it was there all the time. Her head now moved in that direction, her tongue gliding across the depression. The sensations were incredible and they got a lot better long before her hands moved south and she knelt in front of me.

From somewhere out of the blue I heard Terri say said she would wait. Then the voice was gone.

"Hmmm. Have you done this before?" Nicole came back into focus, standing close before me her arms around my neck, "I mean here. In a shower. Like this."

"Once or twice."

That was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but. But. Big word that 'But'. One day soon I would explain it all to Nicole but not now. That word again. But.

"But from now on, only to be repeated with you."

Despite our almost equal heights I arched my neck and brought her close, and held her. She dipped her head until she could kiss my neck below my chin.

The apartment was one quiet, empty space amidst many others. Out on the corridor the doors to where most of my colleagues called home, were already closed to the world. Every one of them would be on shift in the morning, their alarms set for the early morning, calling them from their peaceful slumbers at three o'clock in the darkness of an Arabian blue morning.

Short of a major earthquake on the hill that night Nicole and I would not be disturbed. Earlier that evening we'd spent time at Ben and Casey's bungalow on Asir compound. They, with Mark Dennis, Sally Fearns and Naomi Parsons, were all responsible for bringing us together, holding us together and keeping us this way. We'd both felt the unspoken obligation to spend time with them. They knew our stories and our histories. Somewhere on my journey between heartache and despair, joy and salvation, I'd seen my life through the eyes of other people. Now safely back on the hill I was also back in the company of the people I knew and trusted the most. The hill is unique, as is everyone who shares its existence. Special things happen here, life changing things. Things that in another might be passed by, less evocative, hold much less impact. Up here on the hill something that happened to one person was shared by all. A guy returning from holiday and proposing to a girl on the hill was shared by everyone on the hill.

Events can change people, people change people. Wherever Sue was or what she had planned for my future I didn't care. I was going to be a free man and I was staking my future on Nicole, staking my future on the person I would share the rest of my life with.

Terri? Terri would find me on the London-bound platform at

Dernewell in six years' time fulfilling my promise to her. Then Nicole, Brad, Tristan, Terri and I would start out on new adventures, new journeys that would take us further than these furtive first footsteps could ever foretell.

This is not the end of my story. Join Nicole and Stephen again in Without a Dream.

THE END