him throughout the herd.
I gathered driftwood and made a fire, and took off my clothes in the warmth of it, and stripped the crossed bands from myself, and down I went and called the king out from among the mothers.
His waking roar echoed around the Crescent rocks. He rose from the ruck and pitched himself through the bewildered mams towards me, right over some of them. His eyes rolled white in the moon, and his mouth was a paler splash within his dark head.
There with pups moiling and mewing around my ankles, and mams a-fret and a-waggle either side, I set my sights on the man-makings inside him. Like a swarm of bright insects they were, which I must waft and persuade towards his centre, even as he lurched and shivered and made his monstrous sound and blasted me with his fish-rot breath. This I did; this I learned to do in the doing of it, searching every corner of him, gathering every seed and spark. The full moon conjured and encouraged the light, and I threw and threw myself as one throws a net, and I drew each speck towards and into the man-shape at his centre. A head-blur parted from the body-blur; some limbs came good, splitting from the main shine. Then suddenly the man’s outline sharpened within the seal. Arms lifted from his sides, reached up, and hands pushed out through the mouth-hole and split the seal’s head-end apart.
The coat collapsed to the rock, and the shining man stepped out. The moon lit his lifted face, and I laughed as I fell in love with it, in simple accordance with the terms of the old charm. Then he lowered his gaze to me, and likewise I dazzled him — it was none of my doing, only a matter of proximity and timing and our two natures — and we were locked together.
He glanced about at the sea, at the cliffs, at the fire. ‘That is your home, up there?’ he said.
‘That is my fire.’ I admired his long lean legs, his man-parts and his narrow hips, the smooth-dented front of him, his broad chest and fine shoulders, and above all his face, so full of strength and loveliness and, most marvellous of all, so fixed on me, with not an ounce of ill-will or amusement in his eyes, not the merest smudge of guile in his expression, not a hint of curl in his lip.
Then he bent, and I heard my own little shriek, the most girlish sound I had ever made, as he lifted me. He started out among the mothers and pups, commanding them aside in their own tongue. I clung to his smooth neck, breathing in the heady, salty warmth of his skin. A soundless wind poured up through the air around us. It should muffle everything, as crashing surf muffles voices on a beach, as surf-fume veils a headland. But instead every wave-plash and seal-snuffle was clearer, every rock bulked out brighter-edged, and every touch was sharper or more tender than it ought to be.
He lowered me to stand by the fire. He put his arms — long, strong and lean — about me. I stood to my toes and he bent from his heights and we met in the middle very sweetly, I thought, very neatly. And then I thought the kiss had finished, but still he pressed me there, and when my mouth softened wondering at the surprise of that, oh! In he slipped his tongue a little way! I exclaimed against it. I tested and tasted him; I put up my own arms and held him down to me, and up his hot neck and into his slithering hair my fingers found their way, and in among his teeth my own tongue darted, and up and down our bodies we were fast together.
He let me go as gently as he’d taken me up, soft smaller kisses finishing off the larger. He pushed back the curls on my forehead that would never submit to being tied back. I fizzed and rushed with that kiss, quietly thundered to myself. How would I bring myself, at the end, to send all this back to the sea?
But why think of that? I sat to the rock, drawing him down with me. I pushed him back, and lay alongside him, quite unafraid. I roamed over him, exploring the hills and vales of him, the roads and towers, with my
I gathered driftwood and made a fire, and took off my clothes in the warmth of it, and stripped the crossed bands from myself, and down I went and called the king out from among the mothers.
His waking roar echoed around the Crescent rocks. He rose from the ruck and pitched himself through the bewildered mams towards me, right over some of them. His eyes rolled white in the moon, and his mouth was a paler splash within his dark head.
There with pups moiling and mewing around my ankles, and mams a-fret and a-waggle either side, I set my sights on the man-makings inside him. Like a swarm of bright insects they were, which I must waft and persuade towards his centre, even as he lurched and shivered and made his monstrous sound and blasted me with his fish-rot breath. This I did; this I learned to do in the doing of it, searching every corner of him, gathering every seed and spark. The full moon conjured and encouraged the light, and I threw and threw myself as one throws a net, and I drew each speck towards and into the man-shape at his centre. A head-blur parted from the body-blur; some limbs came good, splitting from the main shine. Then suddenly the man’s outline sharpened within the seal. Arms lifted from his sides, reached up, and hands pushed out through the mouth-hole and split the seal’s head-end apart.
The coat collapsed to the rock, and the shining man stepped out. The moon lit his lifted face, and I laughed as I fell in love with it, in simple accordance with the terms of the old charm. Then he lowered his gaze to me, and likewise I dazzled him — it was none of my doing, only a matter of proximity and timing and our two natures — and we were locked together.
He glanced about at the sea, at the cliffs, at the fire. ‘That is your home, up there?’ he said.
‘That is my fire.’ I admired his long lean legs, his man-parts and his narrow hips, the smooth-dented front of him, his broad chest and fine shoulders, and above all his face, so full of strength and loveliness and, most marvellous of all, so fixed on me, with not an ounce of ill-will or amusement in his eyes, not the merest smudge of guile in his expression, not a hint of curl in his lip.
Then he bent, and I heard my own little shriek, the most girlish sound I had ever made, as he lifted me. He started out among the mothers and pups, commanding them aside in their own tongue. I clung to his smooth neck, breathing in the heady, salty warmth of his skin. A soundless wind poured up through the air around us. It should muffle everything, as crashing surf muffles voices on a beach, as surf-fume veils a headland. But instead every wave-plash and seal-snuffle was clearer, every rock bulked out brighter-edged, and every touch was sharper or more tender than it ought to be.
He lowered me to stand by the fire. He put his arms — long, strong and lean — about me. I stood to my toes and he bent from his heights and we met in the middle very sweetly, I thought, very neatly. And then I thought the kiss had finished, but still he pressed me there, and when my mouth softened wondering at the surprise of that, oh! In he slipped his tongue a little way! I exclaimed against it. I tested and tasted him; I put up my own arms and held him down to me, and up his hot neck and into his slithering hair my fingers found their way, and in among his teeth my own tongue darted, and up and down our bodies we were fast together.
He let me go as gently as he’d taken me up, soft smaller kisses finishing off the larger. He pushed back the curls on my forehead that would never submit to being tied back. I fizzed and rushed with that kiss, quietly thundered to myself. How would I bring myself, at the end, to send all this back to the sea?
But why think of that? I sat to the rock, drawing him down with me. I pushed him back, and lay alongside him, quite unafraid. I roamed over him, exploring the hills and vales of him, the roads and towers, with my
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