They say that on first arrival at a coastal town you should ask the way to the old port, for it is there that you will find the soul of the place. That is what the boy planned to do the first moment he and the girl emerged from the shadows of the railway station and into the impossible brightness.

A weather-beaten hand had shown the way. The girl loved that the boy knew things like that. She loved how he always ignored every taverna's printed menu and walked straight into the kitchen to find the soul of the place, simmering quietly in the oven. 

When they were shown a room, 'the last available', at a shabby pensione, the boy always politely rejected the first offer, and magically a much better place became available.

This had been the pattern of their life since their first chaotic ferry ride from Piraeus. However, it was only simple chaos, the kind that has been the lot of travellers for generations. It was the chaos of the lost luggage, the wrong ticket, the passport and the chaos of the unmade roads. If your foot slips, blood inevitably flows. 

But the blood and the rocks and the unexpected storms that played havoc with the little fishing boats were nothing compared to the chaos within the souls of these two young friends as they traipsed together through love's wilderness. 

They were still new to each other. The locals thought they made a pretty pair. The girl was lithe, tall, androgynous, and the boy long-limbed and muscular, but for some, his face betrayed a hidden weakness.

They were both at that brief stage of life where being beautiful was effortless.  Youthful hormones set their daily agenda. The room they shared was at the top of the house. Vast beams and stone slabs formed the roof. Here they slept, made love and when he was gone from the room, Cressida shed her private tears. 

Every morning, she leaned over the windowsill and watched the boy swim out, far beyond the lighthouse and into the bay. It was his physical presence that had begun all this. His casual almost brutal physicality, his spareness, and his sex. No one had ever fucked her the way he did. So directly, so honestly. 

She fucked him honestly too, in her own way. Enclosing was her way, with her hands and mouth and those other parts of her body which seemed perfect for the purpose. It seems strange, therefore that in such a short time, the girl could be watching the boy's wake as he passed the harbour mouth and at the same time long that he would never return.

The island of Crete, as their holiday destination, was the choice of the boy's mother. But let's not call Gideon a boy any more because he was nearly twenty and yes, his name really was Gideon, and yes, his mother had been making his choices for him all his life and would continue to do so. 

It was her choice for example that the girl should pay nothing for the whole holiday, and once the mother had allowed Cressida (for that was the girl's name), to protest sufficiently, the mother raised her hands in a gesture of closure and whispered.

"Please don't hurt Gideon too badly."

A routine was established within a couple of days. Gideon went straight from their bed to the water and swam out with his slow, steady and unrelenting strokes. At first, she watched and was proud of him. The men on their fishing boats cheered as he dived off the jetty, missing the rocks by less than half a metre. 

Now that her bed was empty, Cressida waited for her dreams to evaporate like some malignant morning mist. "Night terrors" the doctor had called them as he handed her a prescription for a tranquiliser. Once outside, she tore it up.

Their shower was excellent, it worked 'both hydraulically and emotionally' they both agreed, and the water was hot and plentiful. Coffee came from a  little machine in their tiny kitchen. The coffee was good too. Then it was yoga time. This time was Cressida's alone. It was not a display of virtue but a daily necessity. Gideon would never see this part of her private world. Once the yoga was done, it was time for breakfast.

Their chosen breakfast place was down a narrow alleyway, and the welcome Cressida received each morning from Phaedra and her mother was fresh and honest. It would not have worked otherwise. It simply could not have been tolerated when Cressida thought herself to be as fragile as one of those eggs where the shell had never completely hardened but was left soft and entire and enclosed and utterly vulnerable to the lightest touch.

Phaedra had immediately recognised this, as had her mother. Phaedra's father understood boats and engines and the sea, and indeed that was enough for any man. Phaedra had the most astonishing blue eyes. She managed the little bar that was their chosen breakfast place. If you would like to know more about Phaedra's looks, every museum in Crete contains her likeness. 

Each morning, Cressida sat with Phaedra and her family until Gideon arrived wearing a fresh, clean fisherman's shirt and shorts and was greeted as a returning hero. His eyes were shining, and Cressida thought he was the most beautiful person she had ever seen, and her body was responding in a way that could not be denied.

"I'm going back up, Gid."

She rattled her keys as if to confirm the fact. 

Then she said. "Take your time." 

Phaedra understood, and she smiled. Cressida was privately delighted that, for this beautiful Cretan girl, just about everything seemed to be understood.  Now, with the shutters closed and a fresh sheet on the bed, Cressida undressed. Once in front of the full-length mirror, she allowed that separate awareness of herself to spring to life. She indulged the love she felt for this tall, thin girl-boy creature with her narrow hips and the tight nipples that indicated where her breasts should have been.

She loved her dark, tangled triangle. He had wanted her shaven, but it was not for her. He was completely shaven. It was all to do with swimming, he said. At first, it was shockingly erotic but now just seemed creepy. She brushed her teeth and put some lubricant gel inside herself for he seldom made any attempt to allow her time to be ready... he never knew.

She lay on the bed, her arms by her sides, pale and naked with her lust tightly coiled within her. She heard the door click shut. She listened for the clatter of keys and coins as he emptied his pockets, the smell of his trainers as he kicked them across the room. Then she felt the full weight of his body as he began to fuck her with ruthless efficiency. 

She raised her arms over her head. He clamped her wrists with one hand as he took her as remorselessly as she hoped he would.  Cressida didn't mind that she rarely came this way. It was the brute strength of him that mattered. She felt his separate wetness as he pulled away from her. He turned to look at her, and she reached up and ran a finger across his lips, his smile.

"Fuck me in the arse please," she said.

She rolled on to her front and waited. She felt semen leaking from her. It would stain the bed, she thought. Gideon never slapped or spanked her which she thought was strange. She waited for the first touch, the first penetration, and she screwed up her eyes as he forced his way into her. Cressida had learned how to relax at this point, and then the pain would stop, and he could do whatever he wanted to her. He cursed as he ejaculated inside her. The sheer weight of his body and the smell of him was, for Cressida, fulfilment. 

"I'm going to have my shower now," she said, her voice flat and emotionless. Gideon rolled off her and lay on his side, facing the wall. Soon he would be asleep, she thought.

Now she was sitting cross-legged on the smooth bricks that were the floor of the shower. The water fell like monsoon rain, and Cressida began, little by little, to make love to herself. Her lovemaking was gentle and considerate. Her caresses were born out of the affection and respect she felt for both her soul and her body. Her body responded readily, and her soul gradually began to reconstitute itself after the fucking. Soon every trace of him had gone, and the liquid gathering inside her now was purely her own.

Cressida, the skilful self-lover began like this. The middle two fingers of her left hand performed the opening ceremony, then other fingers sought out the vulva's component parts. This was the best time. Cressida loved to visit each in turn. For her, her cunt was a tropical flower, coral pink within and full of delicate and exquisite surprises. 

Soapy fingers soon cleansed the other place, and she made love to that part of herself too. It made her smile at the wickedness she felt as she felt her fingers slide quickly in and very slowly out.  Then it was time, and her body would have no more of this nonsense, and her orgasm came all in a rush. It was honest and real, and the girl who lay curled and whimpering under the deluge was indeed herself for no-one can pretend anymore during that magnificent rush of joy. When she emerged once more, hair wet, a towel around her waist, she saw that he was gone. His hiking boots were gone too so she knew he would be away for hours.

***

Gideon walked alone through that part of the town where the Venetian boatyards stood.  After four hundred years they were still the workshops they had always been, and now the air was filled with the sound of machine tools and hammers and music from tinny-sounding radios. 

Next, the marina with its line of luxury yachts and the water so clear beneath them that they seemed to be suspended in mid-air. An octopus was working it's cautious but purposeful way beneath the keels of the boats. Gideon's heart filled with self-pity for his own purposeless life and the sharp jagged edges of his conflicted love for Cressida.

Both had been flattered by the other's attention when it all began. Cressida and Gideon knew they looked good together, and when the time for lovemaking came,  mirrors had featured prominently. For a while, she had liked to record herself undressing and touching her body, and she left him video clips to watch when he arrived home. If she was home too, she liked to take off her panties and hold them against his nose and mouth while he masturbated.

It was only later when Cressida had hoped to discover depth and substance in him, she found only a shallow emptiness. He, in turn, found she had locked the door upon herself, and he was left without even a crumb of her real self to nourish him.

Now, armed with a bottle of retsina and his second cloudy glass of ouzo, Gideon allowed himself to contemplate the way it had happened, the way their love had been channelled into such a specific ritual, the ritual of power and possession. He thought that she needed to be fucked hard and fast, to be repeatedly and heartlessly speared by him.

In return, his climax came quickly this way, and it was fierce, intense, and when the sadness came, he often felt afraid of himself. Later came her humiliation and the ritual of sodomy. It fed into his pathological sense of omnipotence, and he began to relish it. He had never struck her though, he said to himself, and immediately he became afraid that this might be the next chapter. 

An almost imperceptible movement of Gideon's head was all that was necessary for the watchful waiter to respond and bring fresh drinks and a generous meze. The young man reminded himself that in all other respects, his relationship with Cressida seemed unremarkable. For example, in the little supermarket where they bought their supplies, they were well-liked, he thought. 

Gideon's Greek was good, and he used courteous terms in a way that most tourists did not. They visited museums, bought each other beautiful hand-made bracelets and tipped generously.  When yet another bottle of wine was brought to their table during dinner, the affection between the two was palpable. The sun was lightening her hair with its gamine, pixie style. His blond hair needed no encouragement, and as their skin darkened, they looked, to passers-by, the perfect couple.

The ouzo was taking him deeper. He knew there was a fatal flaw at the very heart of their love. He never questioned why he had felt a faint disgust at the sight of her loins. Cressida was his first. It was she who had guided his hands and later his penis. In truth, he was scared. For him, a serpent dwelt inside her. Later he would learn that this was the cause of his premature ejaculation. Just then, a black cat snaked between his legs. For all its innocence, the cat had an evil expression which Gideon, of course, took to heart.

It was then that he called his mother.

***

Cressida, still glowing from a trio of orgasms, stepped unsteadily down the stairs and into the narrow alley in search of Phaedra. The girl had been occupying her mind a great deal during her self-pleasuring. She found her at the open window of her little bar, chopping onions. Cressida stopped to watch. Phaedra, unaware, wiped the back of her hand across her forehead and then looked up from her work. Her smile pierced a part of Cressida that the young English girl never knew existed.

It was mid-afternoon, the heat became intolerable. But here in the shadows, it was simply perfect, Cressida thought. 

Mama had spread a cloth over the little wooden table and placed, in the centre a jug of water, three glasses and a bowl of plump green olives. At that moment, Phaedra came down the steps from her kitchen, drying her hands on her apron, and then she held her hand out, and the unexpected formality touched Cressida in a way she could not easily explain.

"Come. Sit," Phaedra said. Mama sat too and whispered to her daughter. In response, Phedra raised her eyebrows and lifted her chin. She turned to Cressida.

"Mama wants to tell you that the boy is no good for you." Then she added, "but I tell her it's none of her business."

Mama leaned over and covered Cressida's hand with her own, her other hand she placed on her own heart and Cressida immediately burst into tears.

At that moment there was a sound like gunfire which echoed down the brick canyon of the alleyway.

Cressida jumped, and Phedra laughed.

"It's Papa," she said, "he's parking his car!"

Indeed it was Phedra's father, handsome, strong, a mass of curly black hair, a gigantic moustache and the same piercing blue eyes as his daughter. As he stepped forward to greet his tearful guest, his eyes took in the whole scene in an instant.

He muttered something to his wife and disappeared inside the darkness of the bar. Phaedra meanwhile moved her chair beside Cressida and put her arm around her and kissed her tear-stained cheek. No word was said.

Papa reappeared, holding a bottle and some tiny glasses. Each glass was filled with a clear liquid. He raised his glass,  He downed the raki in one, banged his glass back down on the table and cast his blue eyes around to make sure everyone had done the same.

"Yai Mas!" he shouted.

Cressida coughed and felt embarrassed, and everyone laughed, and she didn't feel embarrassed any more and then she felt Phaedra's hand take her own hand and squeeze it. Then they did it all over again.

Papa obviously understood much more than just boats and engines and the sea. He spoke rapidly to his daughter. 

"Papa says you are now our guest and you must stay with us, at least for tonight," said Phaedra, "he says Gideon is drunk and you must not be there when he gets home." 

She took Cressida's hand once again and led her back to the apartment, and together they filled a bag with a change of clothes and other necessities sufficient for the night ahead. They locked the door and quickly left, returning to the safety of the alleyway and the bar.

It took Cressida a few moments to adjust to the dark interior of Phaedra's home. There were passageways, storerooms and a narrow staircase presumably leading to the upper part of the house. The air smelt delicious. It was fragrant with oregano, thyme and garlic. Somewhere a canary was singing in its cage. Wooden barrels of retsina stood alongside crates of beer. A shaft of late afternoon sunlight, sparkling with specks of dust, lit up the doorway to the cellar. 

Now Cressida was laying on her bed in her own room, and little by little, she began to feel her soul restore itself. The room was tiny,  just a chair with a straw seat and a narrow table with a basin and a jug of water. Below her window, she could hear people gathering at the bar, preparing for the evening ahead with pitchers of retsina and little dishes of watermelon, olives, zucchini and tiny pieces of anchovy. The effect of the chattering from below was hypnotic, and soon Cressida was sound asleep.

She awoke once in the night, the moon was bright and Cressida discovered she was naked under a single sheet and all her clothes were neatly folded on the chair beside her. On the little table was a tall beer glass filled with wildflowers.

Later Cressida learned that Gideon had returned and was indeed drunk and had come to the bar demanding to see her. Papa had put his arm around the young man's shoulders and walked with him back up the alleyway. It seems Papa had said something to the young man that caused the young man to pack his things and leave the apartment without further delay. 

Cressida's few remaining possessions had been delivered to the bar in the dead of night, in a seemingly brand new suitcase.

End of part one.