She made her way up the lane her case trundling behind, bouncing over the bedrock where it broke through the hardened tracks, a bag of shopping bouncing against her knee. She thought of her Da sitting in front of the hearth forever re-lighting his pipe; the sulphurous smell of matches overpowering the wafts of tobacco. He had looked so ‘temporary’ after her Ma had died.

He had always been the sort of man quick to smile, slow to frown. When he knew he was being watched he had seemed no different; it was the times when he didn’t know; those were the times when she felt her heart would tear. Some of the locals had gossiped about her decision to leave directly after he had been laid to rest; that she had been waiting for him to die just so she could get away. In one respect they were right but she had never begrudged him a single second and she had never wanted him gone.

As she reached the top of the lane the old cottage was revealed sitting just below the top of the hill. She smiled even though the white-wash was faded along the north gable, the tiles of the roof were heavy with moss and the plant pots on the front window were cracked and only bore the dead skeletons of plants.

She looked to the chimney and saw no smoke rising and realised it was the first time she had seen it this way.

She remembered as a young girl sitting on the back step watching her mother gathering wood and being told that the fire in the house was hundreds of years old. She had laughed and her mother told her that the fire within had been lit from embers carried across from her Grandmother’s house and the fire was always fully stocked at the end of the night so the next morning it could be lit from the glowing embers. “Even during the summer?” she had asked.

“Even during the summer, Maeve, even during the summer,” her mother had replied. Now a quarter of a century later she laughed herself as she remembered the look of puzzlement followed by her mothers’ high pitched laugh while shaking her head after she had asked “Why?” with all the innocence of a five year old.

The morning air was heavy with the threat of a storm building with the heat from the summer sun. She looked at the sky to the north and could see large white fluffy clouds slowly rolling over the mountains, “When the mountains the clouds do blight... thunder all through the night... when the mountains so hard and so clear... the sky has nothing to fear... ”she whispered.

She unfastened the wire twist that held the gate and walked up the short path to the front door; she smiled as she saw the pile of logs beneath plastic sheeting that her cousin Finbarr must have left within the last few days. She turned and looked at the front garden and the fields beyond and realised that Finbarr had obviously been maintaining the smallholding while she was away. She had told him to rent out the fields but looking at the condition of them she figured Finbarr had been running them himself. No-one renting them would have been so conscientious with them.

Reaching for the small brass weather-beaten bell that hung to the side of the door she unhooked the clapper within, turning it over in her palm revealing the hidden key.

Finbarr had obviously oiled the lock as it opened easily; she paused for a moment before stepping into the house of her birth. The stale air within made her sneeze, which stirred up dust motes which hung lazily in the air lit by the sun streaming in behind her. She finally stepped fully into the kitchen/main room of the cottage, the open fire looked like a gravestone with no fire within; “well... I’d better get busy...” she said to the room.

Half way through the afternoon Maeve felt she had cleaned enough to take a short break. Reaching up to clear the cobwebs and remove the dust from atop the “kings’ trusses” had proved tiring as she could only just reach when standing on the table. A county of small men, she thought; small women as well!

All the windows had been opened and the freshening breeze had managed to banish the mustiness, though once or twice she felt that she had sniffed the old familiar smell of sulphur in the kitchen. She unpacked the bedclothes from their shrink-wrap and hung them out on the line to freshen and finally got the kitchen.

After a small snack and a bottle of water she tackled her bedroom feeling that she wouldn’t be able to face her parents’ room until at least the next day. After two hours the bedroom was habitable enough for her to spend the night. She looked out of the window and noticed it had grown considerably darker.

Stepping out through the front door she saw that the clouds had built up considerably and a complete blanket stretched almost to the horizon. The wind had picked up as well so she walked into the garden and gathered up the blankets and sheets she had hung out.

Returning to the kitchen she looked at the cold dark fireplace; she hadn’t realised she had been putting off the lighting the fire realising when it was lit she would be home for good.

She knelt in front of the hearth stone realising she had never seen her Ma or her Da light a fire from cold. She tore the pages from a newspaper and crumpled them up into small tight balls arranging them in a rough circle before loosely rolling another page and placing it so the pattern formed a capital ‘Q’. She looked at it for a moment and began to hum a quiet refrain while she unwrapped the kindling and spread it on top of the papers. Two more trips outside and she had a pile of wood that should last well into the night and a few dozen twigs she had gathered from the path to place on top her small unlit pyre.

Still humming to herself she reached up to the mantel shelf and lifted down the box of matches from under the clock. Her eyes moistened as she looked at the swan on the box that must have been lying in the same place for the last five years. A touch of mildew stained one corner as she slowly slid the box open and lifted out one of the matches. “Enough tears...” she said to the match as she struck it along the box.

She carefully added a couple of the smallest logs once the fire had taken hold and then moved to the sink beneath the back window and filled the kettle. Lifting the shopping bag from the floor she began to empty the contents onto the table; she reached up to the shelf and lifted down two mugs and was washing the second one when she realised she was on her own.

She stopped and looked out of the window; the layer of cloud was almost black with a bright strip of blue at the far horizon; a flood of deep red light flowed towards her across the hilly landscape as the bottom edge of the sun seemed to cut through the turbulent ceiling. A tear ran down her cheek and she brushed it away roughly as the blazing red disc turned the world beneath the clouds into a crimson vista.

“This is what I should have shown you Alan...” she slipped her purse from the shopping bag and opened it carefully; extracting a small passport of a dark haired man in his mid-twenties laughing wildly. “... will I ever stop crying Alan? Will I ever stop hurting?”

A moment later the sun appeared fully beneath the cloud layer as it dropped towards the horizon; shadows stretching rapidly across the hills, the clouds seeming to boil and froth as they turned a bright red. She watched the landscape darken and the clouds pale from their fiery red through to pink till the sun disappeared beneath the horizon and the colours fled away across the canopy. She carefully replaced the photograph as she remembered the storm barely two months previously and almost half a world away.

----------------

They had dived beneath the canvas already soaked to the skin, laughing and smiling; they had pulled off their wet clothing in the close confines of the tent; the laughter had turned to kisses that had turned to caresses that had turned to slow sweet love-making. She had screamed loudly as she came; her rapture fighting against the noise of the hammering of the rain on the flimsy material above his head.

As they both lay entwined in post-orgasmic bliss he had remembered the satellite phone left outside where they had watched elephants wander across the savannah towards the local drinking hole. She had told him to leave it till the morning or at least till the rain had stopped; it was safe enough in its water-proof holder. He said it might get washed away. She said they could cope without it; they were both reasonably experienced.

He said it was only a hundred yards away.

She wrapped her hand around his flaccid cock, feeling the slickness of their combined juices upon his flesh slowly drying. He grinned, telling her he would only be a moment. She lifted her fingers to her mouth and sucked them clean. He hesitated before kneeling and reassuring her it would be okay. She frowned at him before sliding her hand back to her still-wet pussy; slipping two fingers deep inside; his eyes fixed upon her slit.

“You’d better hurry!” she declared.

She watched him pull open the tent, a waterproof coat pulled over his head; his pale bare ass atop his tanned legs as he disappeared into the darkness.

She began to twist her fingers inside her pussy as her left hand reached down to roll her clit beneath her first and fore-fingers.

She never came.

He never came back.

----------------

Huge black spots began to appear on the concrete path leading up to the front door, first one, then two, then four; she looked down at her silhouette etched on the grey surface by the single bulb hanging in the room behind her. Her shadow moved slightly as the breeze stiffened flowing past her; she heard the fire in the hearth crackle as the burning logs were fed with fresh air. She watched her shape slowly disappear as rain came down harder turning the path black; it felt like she was disappearing along with her shadow. Stepping forwards she turned her face upwards to the flow of water from invisible heavens.

Her hair quickly matted to her skull before she shook herself from her reverie and returned to smoky warmth of the house. Opening her case she lifted out the towel (Alan had always put his towel in last, covering his clothes and tucking it down the sides of the case; she had never asked him why but had always smiled when she saw him packing) and hung it over a chair in front of the fire. Reaching up to the mantel shelf she lifted down the candle that always sat there. Lighting it from the fire she walked across the room, her hand wrapped around the flame; and placed the beacon in front of the window.

Returning to the fire and lifting the towel she vigorously rubbed her hair dry. As she dropped the towel back onto the chair she saw the single electric bulb flicker; she bent over and placed another log onto the fire and settled herself into the chair. She had no idea how long she had sat there watching the myriad of shapes created in the ever changing flow of the flame.

From her statue-like torpor she suddenly looked across to the window, the flame of the candle seemed to waver as her eyes fixed upon it. The lamp above her flickered twice and held steady for a moment before winking out; within a moment the room came alive to dance of the fire.

She imagined her Da sitting where she was, her young self leaning against his legs, arms wrapped around her slim legs gazing into the flames as he told her stories told to him by the Shanachie.

Her Ma sitting at the table, slowly turning cards as she played endless games of Patience; often smiling to herself and sometimes correcting him only to be told to tell the story herself if she knew better. She always replied, with a small smile, she could tell the stories better but then she couldn’t listen to his voice. He would lean down and whisper conspiratorially into the young Maeve’s ear “she’s a one!” always followed by a light kiss upon her cheek.

On a night like this, when the electricity failed, the tales would turn to ghost stories or the tales of the mythical times. Time and again she would ask for his rendition of the Táin Bó Cuailnge about heroes and battles that had raged all around the province. Each time she heard the tales she would notice embellishments and missing parts. As she sat alone in the old cottage in the middle of a raging storm she thought she could hear her Da once again tell her of the “Hound of Culain” and his glorious deeds.

The windows rattled as a particularly ferocious gust of wind and rain assaulted the small cottage, she glanced up at the candle flame wavering on the sill unable to remember when she learnt of the tradition to “light the way home”. If only I’d been able to “light the way home” for Alan she thought.

She studied the flickering flame when she heard the faint sound. She focused on the rain lashed glass beyond the candle.

Her brow furrowed; maybe it was a fox trying to get to shelter or a broken branch being blown along the garden wall. She got up and made her way to the window. Nothing was discernible through the streaks of water running down the glass. Glancing at the door latch beside her she took a deep breath and cautiously reached for it.

The latch clicked and the door slammed open against the jamb with the force of the gale behind it. Her shadow streamed into the night seeming to dance in the flowing curtain of rain; the white-washed garden wall ghosted in out of vision even though it was barely eight yards away as water washed down the path towards the gate.

There was a flash from behind the house; the garden wall blazed brightly etching the image into her eyes as the heavy rumble of thunder shook the house. She tried to hold onto the fading image; a strange shape had appeared beyond the wall near to the gate.

Once again night turned into day as lightning grounded itself close by. The frozen image of the garden wall with the gate in the centre was burned into her vision; a dark shape hanging onto one of the gate pillars.

Her scream was nothing as the electrical fork split her sight and an explosion of sparks erupted less than fifty yards from where she stood in the field beyond the lane. Her hands gripped the door frame, nails digging into the century old wood as that dark shadow now lay between the pillars, the gate swinging wildly bouncing of the humped form as water washed around it.

She stood frozen for a second before dashing into the tempest; she ran, half slipped along the concrete path. The rain her drenching her completely; her clothes no barrier to the relentless downpour, her long hair swept across her face as she bent to the prone figure.

Without thought she reached under the stranger’s arms and half-lifted, half dragged finding strength beyond her slight frame. The man, she now saw, groaned and struggled to help as the two of them retreated up the slight incline to the warmth and safety of her cottage.

They finally collapsed through the front door, the man gasping as he rolled onto his back. Maeve pulled herself up and managed to push the door closed, dropping the latch.

The outside world seemed to fade, the storm waning all at once.

She looked down at the man lying at her feet, his blonde hair plastered across his head above a broad weather-worn face. An old scar, about an inch long, segmented his left eye brow and his chin had a couple of day’s worth of stubble framing his lips which were light blue from the cold. She watched as his pupils shifted back and forth beneath his eyelids. He looked lean beneath his sodden clothes; a dark blue suit with a collar-less white shirt beneath.

It seemed dated to her; something her Da might have worn to Sunday Mass, the material was almost transparent from the rain and she could see his hard nipples showing through. His slowly rising and falling chest was muscular and lean; her eyes wandered down over his flat stomach to his belted trousers; she licked her lips as her gaze went to his crotch.

Maeve shook herself out of her reverie and moved into the bedroom pulling the freshly made blankets of the bed, returning to the main room she draped them over a couple of chairs in front of the hearth and adding three fresh pieces of wood to the fire. Returning to the bedroom she pulled a duvet from the cupboard drawer and ripped off the protective cellophane wrapping. It smelled musty and she flapped it a couple of times before walking back and placing it on the floor in front of the fire.

Going back to the stranger she reached beneath his armpits and tried vainly to pull him across to the heat. She knelt forwards behind his head and looked down on his handsome features. She wondered how she had managed to pull him up the path as he began to stir. His eyelids twitched a couple of times before fully opening to reveal dark brown irises. She bit her lip as they stared into each other’s upside-down eyes; his lips curled slightly into a smile before puzzlement spread across his face. “Hello?” his voice was quiet and deep.

“Hello,” replied Maeve; both of them said nothing for some moments as they continued to look at each other’s faces, “I think you’d better come over by the fire...”

He tilted his head slightly; “Rain... wind... lightning... thunder?” Maeve asked.

He suddenly shivered and becoming aware of his situation, with a little aid he managed to sit up leaning against the wall; “... I ... err... You’ve done enough... already. I’ll just catch my breath... I’ll be on my way...” At that moment the windows flashed followed by the loud rumble of thunder.

“Certainly!” replied Maeve; “You’ve half drowned yourself... may as well drown the other half too!”

“I’ve been too much trouble already...” Eejit, stupid fucking eejit Maeve thought, damn cute though!

“Away with ya” Maeve stood helping the man to his feet and leading him to the now roaring fire stepping around the eider down duvet on the floor.

He stood shakily before the fire. “You’re going to have to get out of those wet clothes as well,” she instructed him as she pulled out two hinged sets of arms from either side of the mantelpiece. “Hang them on these and they’ll be dry in no time” she almost laughed as he blushed deeply and his eyes flicked down to her own wet blouse. Even without looking down she knew her nipples were hard and erect though she was sure that it wasn’t from the rain. “Aye... I’ll have to be doing the same...” she lifted one of the warm blankets to his hand and picked one up for herself.

He looked around and saw the door that led to the bedroom and made to head for it. “We’ll both have to strip in here, it’s the only heated room in the house at the moment...” His cheeks seemed to redden even more; “I promise I won’t look!” her serious mouth slipping into a grin as she turned away.

She turned away and dropped the blanket onto the table before beginning to unbutton her blouse; her eyes were focused on the glass fronted dresser in front of her that showed the stranger hesitating before turning to the fire and pulling off his suit jacket and hanging it from arm beside the fire. Maeve licked her lips as she pulled her own blouse off and unclasp her bra dropping them onto the floor at her feet. She slowly rolled a nipple beneath her thumb as she watched him peel his shirt from his torso revealing a broad tanned back. She unfastened her slacks and pushed them down, her eyes never leaving the reflected image before her,

Fuck but I’m horny, she thought to herself. She pushed her soaking moccasins off, realising that her toes were almost blue from cold and watching the stranger drop his trousers to reveal a tight muscular ass beneath his wet boxers; she quickly bent pulling off her wet panties.

As she picked up her clothes she rubbed the crotch of her panties between her thumb and forefinger detecting a slipperiness that had nothing to do with water. She lifted the blanket around her shoulders and held it together with one hand as she said, “Are ye decent yet?”

She smiled to herself as he wondered whether or not to remove his soaking boxers before leaving them on and pulling the blanket around his shoulders and sitting in one of the chairs. “Err... yes...” he stammered.

Maeve walked over to the right side of the fire and began to hang her clothes leaving her purple lacy bra and panties till last; almost giggling as she sensed him quickly dropping his eyes to the flames in front. She paused for a moment wondering what had come over her; Brazen Hussy, that’s what me Ma would have called me, she thought. If her Ma had known what she had been like when she had left home she was sure her Ma would have kicked her all the way to the church for confession. She had never behaved like this at home, had never wanted too, had never, well rarely, ever thought about it.

She reached beside the hearth and pulled a stool over between them and the bent to open the cupboard to the right of the chimney breast; she pulled out a couple of glasses and then a plain bottle half-full of clear liquid. “Sorry but as the electrics are out I can’t offer you a cup of tea”; she pulled the blanket around her shoulders and over her lap freeing her arms to unscrew the bottle and pouring two liberal measures of the clear liquid. She raised her glass, “Slainté!” she toasted.

He looked nervously at the glass and then lifted it, “Cheers!” he replied. He took a sip and she saw his nostrils flare slightly before he downed two fingers worth. She lifted her own glass to her lips and felt the slightly sweet liquid burn its way down her throat. The firelight flickered through the facets of the tumbler as she marvelled at the desires welling up within her. She could barely remember ever feeling this turned on and never with a perfect stranger… whose name she didn’t even know!

There seemed to be something about him, not quite right, out of kilter; almost as if he was from another time or another place. She began to wonder what his cock would feel like in her hands, what it would taste like, would it fill her wet pussy. She felt her pussy twitch involuntarily and her juices slowly trickle down between her labia; she squeezed her thighs together desperate to have the sensations sated.

She noticed him squirm in his seat as he put the glass down on the stool; she reached for the bottle, aware that the blanket was hanging forward exposing the inside curve of her right breast, the rough material scratching the sensitive tip of her erect nipple; she poured two further generous measures into the glasses. “Are you feeling any better?” she asked.

He looked away from the fire, his eyes glancing down to her chest; again he shifted in his seat as he replied, “Warming up; thank you very much”

Maeve looked up at his clothes hanging neatly on the wall bracket, steam rising from them in slow twisting columns. She smiled, licking her lips, “I did say you had to get out of your wet clothes...” her gaze flicked between his eyes and the drying clothes. His cheeks flushed once again as her eyes dropped to his lap and she arched her eyebrow, “... you don’t want to be getting chills, now!”

He coughed and his eyes tried to appeal beyond her reason till he succumbed and stood up turning away. He bent forward and shuffled the wet underwear down his legs; Maeve reached to her breast and squeezed it tightly through the rough fabric of the blanket as her foot moved to stand on the blanket pooled on the floor. As he stood up the blanket pulled off his shoulders and landed in a pile at his feet. He spun around clutching the wet boxers across his crotch. Maeve smiled and stood letting her blanket drop and stepped towards him; his eyes fixed rigidly on hers as she reached down between them and pulled the wet underwear from his grasp.

She stretched past him, her aching nipples pressed to his chest as she hung the boxers on the drying bracket. Moving back, a small moan escaped her lips as her nipples slid over his broad chest to rest against his own; the boxers slipped from the arm and fell down into the fire where they sizzled.

Neither of them paid any heed to the fire, his eyes still locked on hers as her fingernails traced a light tattoo down the sides of his chest. He groaned as her warm hands found his erection and wrapped themselves around it gently pulling it, rubbing the sensitive head against the folds of her soaking wet pussy. Maeve looked down between them and gazed upon the cock in her hands.

It looked perfect.

Slowly she began to bend her knees, planting kisses across his chest, nibbling his left nipple to elicit a further groan from the nameless stranger before continuing down over his flat stomach. As her knees found the duvet beneath them she held his throbbing cock in front of her face. Wrapping both hands around it, one atop the other; his glans protruded; his foreskin rolled back and forth under her slow strokes. She smiled feeling its thickness as she twisted her hands in opposite directions around his hot member.

Tentatively she reached out her tongue to slide across the slit tasting the salty pre-cum oozing from it; “Too long... it’s been far too long…” she whispered and opened her mouth, slowly sliding her lips down his length...

----------------

I swim upwards from the warm embrace of sleep, fragments of memory surfacing from the night before as I feel the tenderness and aches register across my body. I smell the mustiness of the blankets and feel them scratch my skin as I slowly stretch beneath their warm folds. As my mind finally nears the border of dreams and reality I feel the bruises and the bites incurred from the frenzied passion as a chill breeze cools my face. I smile as I reach for the warm body beside me. It takes me a moment to realise she isn’t there.

I open my eyes, the vision blurred in the bright morning sunshine streaming through the window. It takes me seconds to comprehend what I am seeing. I sit up rapidly and look at the room around me.

The walls are damp, the paint peeling, a bare patch of stone exposed where the lime plaster has fallen away. Glass missing from the window, the rest cracked and covered in spider’s webs. The front door hangs ajar, its bottom hinge broken. The far corner covered in a pool of water around a pile of moss covered masonry and tiles; I look upward to see a gaping hole in the roof and for a moment think I see a rope hanging from the truss above my head.

I blink and it is gone.

I stand up, the musty mildewed blanket falling from my naked form as I spin around. My clothes are hanging from a bracket beside the mantel piece; the hearth below damp and cold from years of idleness.

----------------

I have dressed myself in a state of utter bewilderment; my clothes were dry but rumpled and my boxers missing. As I move towards the door I see a piece of paper covered in dust lying on the woodworm riddled table.

“They're all gone.

Ma, Da. I knew they would go one day.

Then Alan saved me. Then he too was gone. I shouldn’t have let him go, I should have made him stay, I COULD have made him stay, but I didn’t.

I thought I could return here and start again.

I was wrong.

Finbarr, I’m sorry. I know you will be the one to find me and for that I am sorry.

Maybe I will find them all but I know I can’t stay here.

Please understand Finbarr.

Maeve.”

The door shifts and squeaks on its solitary hinge and I glance over. Only dust remains in my hand when I look back.