The tissues had not been sufficient tothe task. I cleaned up, feeling spent and empty. It was easy not to thinkabout what had happened, at least for a... minute or two after I'd come, butslowly I began to realise what I'd done, what Steph had seen, what I hadadmitted to her."Are you deaf, you moron? What is the hold up?" Shouted Steph from herroom.I dumped the tissues and hurried into her room.She was pulling on a pair of jeans when I walked into her room. I caught abrief flash of her white cotton. She straddled my chest and leaned forward, her long blonde hair just touching my face. "I don't care what they did. And I'll help you forget about that, too." The look in her eyes made a few of my doubts disappear, but I really hoped it would work. I was pretty mixed up emotionally at that point.She was smart enough not to go on at being tied up right at the start. That was the part I was all too conscious of at the moment. She sat up straight and threw her head back. She reached up to her. “If that's all right with you. I'm staying the night with the handsome barman from years ago.”“And I'm shagging the sexy customer who used to sit at the bar with her body all wrapped up and private,” I teased back.Sheila undressed slowly and provocatively for me. Her body was soft and pale, the freckles on her arms and face stopping abruptly at the border of her torso.“Why are you looking at me?” she asked shyly.“Cos you're beautiful,” I replied.“Oh don't be silly,” she said dismissively. “Stop. Her gaze scanned the space before her. Information and scrying told her this was the place, but she could see only bare, grey rock. At least, that was all she could see with normal sight. So instead she opened her mind to magic, heightening her senses to threads she could divine rather than merely see. On the surface, this mountain’s foot was merely rock, yes. But just beyond she found a hollowed-out space, a tunnel reaching deeper. Protective magics kept her from discerning anything more than.