I’m a cynic nowadays and I would only quietly admit to myself that I’m crazy about you, you would still know of course, but it would only be my ey...es that betrayed me and maybe I would cling to you a little bit too long after an orgasm, nothing too obvious. I can’t call it love making because the term makes me want to bite off my own tongue, I don’t however want to call it “Fucking” either because a fuck is cheap, any day of the week you can get one and it leaves a nasty taste like the hangover. Why don’t you undress first? I’d love to help if you let me.”Helen made it easy. She got up to move the uncleared coffee table to the centre of the room. Returning to the couch, Helen knelt down. I tried to kiss her, but she pulled back. “Are you shy too, Ben? Or don’t you like women undressing you?”I slipped out of my coat. Helen undid my tie and, with steady and determined fingers, unbuttoned my shirt, pulled it off, and threw it on my jacket. I wondered whether her nerve would fail her. She. Born of years alone and more years following his singleminded purposeful revenging heart . Each time she came to him, he’d taken her as if the tryst would be their last or until the fire consumed the last of their yearning.. He would take them both to Australia…marry aboard ship…return to Melbourne where they would have their child…and another and another. And never return to this Welsh North County…..amid the storm of their kisses came the plans and promises…dreams…of a land she’d never seen. She brought him around a corner down an even narrower street. Sitting in front of the second building on the left was one of those old, black-shawled widows, scrubbing her face with dry, gnarled fingers. He saw the old woman notice them and look bored. Maybe she’d seen this on Carnival dawns for the last hundred or so. She looked neither at nor away from his lazily swaggering cock. He wanted to laugh out loud, and almost did, but then he thought of the old lady maybe once leading a man naked.