Page 54 of Bonetide

I want to climb that man like Tarzan and swing from all his branches.

I want to get fucking laid.

And that’s okay. I’ve accepted it, made peace with it, and decided that it’s okay. Because I deserve to have a little fun. I deserve it. And I know he’s just the man to give it to me.

Of course, the situation isn’t perfect.

He’s my neighbor, and there’s probably some proverb about not fucking your neighbor.

He also seems to be squatting at that castle—albeit in a really luxurious way since he seems to lay claim to it while everyone else says no one is supposed to live there.

He could be the serial killer that’s been murdering women in the area.

He seems to be on a first-name basis with the Loch Ness monster.

He’s really forward, and maybe more into this than I am, judging by his stalker-y behaviors—swimming back and forth to see me, standing outside my windows at night, appearing behind my laundry, and saying things like, “I have waited a long time for a Galloway to knock on this door”—whatever the fuck that means.

But I have seen that dick, and I know he has capable hands, so…

I’m shaving my legs. And everywhere else that counts.

The next morning, I have my coffee and sugary cereal with wee marshmallow hares and stare across the bay, wondering if I’ll see him appear. I know he said I would have to come to him, yet again, but still…if he could just swim over right now, that would save me a walk.

Alas, he doesn’t come. Which means I have the whole morning to chicken out. I attempt to sketch, then to read, but by noon I feel that pull—both from someplace deep inside, something destined if you want to be woo-woo about it—and from my nether regions. Because now that I’ve gotten the idea of sex in my head, I can’t get it out. Or should I say, my body can’t let the idea go, and I think I’ve become something of a heat-seeking missile.

Granted, I’m assuming that this is something he wants. He hasn’t actually told me what he wants from me; I’m supposed to tell him first. Like when you finally gather up enough courage in grade school to tell a boy you like him and only then will he say, “I like you too,” although that didn’t work out so well for me in the third grade when I told Nick Meffin I liked him, and he flung a booger at my face in way of response.

I’m not expecting anything like that from Alasdair, but I am being a tad presumptuous in assuming he’ll fuck me. The most he’s done so far is let his very intense gaze linger on parts of my body when he thinks I’m not looking (actually, he probably does know and quite obviously doesn’t care), and cup my face like a scene from a historical romance novel. When I thought he was going to kiss me yesterday, my knees were getting ready to buckle.

But he didn’t kiss me. I think he wanted to, but he refrained.

Oh, and I suppose there was the whole jerking off in front of me when he knew I was watching him.

Either way, I’m going to have to take my chances, because I can’t keep doing what I’m doing here at the cottage, pretending that the man across the bay hasn’t permeated every essence of my being. Maddie would kill me if she knew what I was thinking, but she was right in saying I had to at least get laid. Bad idea or not, whatever is brewing between Alasdair and I is…inevitable.

I get dressed for the cool, breezy weather which means thick wool socks, boots, and a cozy cardigan over a long-sleeved shirt. I also get dressed for the occasion, which means no tights or underwear under my skirt because the last thing I want is to deal with that in a hurry. Do I risk flashing someone if a gust does up my skirt? Yes. But I think the only person I’ll be flashing is him…and maybe a few sheep.

I lock the cottage, then double check it again before pocketing the key (if Alasdair isn’t a murderer, then I definitely still need to take precautions…of course I should take precautions if he is a murderer, too). Then I set out walking at a brisk pace, not wanting to dawdle. I take the lane to the main road and the main road to the turning, staying in the middle to avoid my legs being scratched up by brambles and bracken. I’m at the bottom of the access road in just under an hour, which is good time for an out-of-shape woman with fibromyalgia who is mostly thinking about an erection that isn’t yet on the table.

The access road is dry today. The trees have lost the rain-shine they had two days ago. The light is better now too, clean, early afternoon, going gold at the edges.

I am ten or fifteen steps down his road when I see Alasdair.

He is much further down. Two hundred yards, maybe more, where the road dips and the trees close in. He’s walking. Not toward me, but away from me, heading home, as if he had somehow been waiting for me for too long and gave up.

Something in my chest drops and lifts at the same time. I open my mouth. Alasdair, wait…I have the words half out of me, my hand already coming up when suddenly he stops.

He doesn’t turn at first. He just stops in the middle of the drive with his back to me, his hands at his sides, and he stands there for a long beat like he’s not quite sure what he heard and doesn’t dare hope.

Then he turns.

Slowly. There’s a deliberate way his shoulders come round before the rest of him, the way his face, when it catches the sun through the trees, does the thing it did at the doorway of the castle in the rain. That cold, careful arrangement of features coming apart, the smile that lights from within, the way his eyes find me as if he’s been waiting for me to be exactly where I am.

He starts walking toward me now.

I start walking toward him.

Neither of us runs, but the walk is not a walk. It’s the steady deliberate pace of two people who have decided that the meeting is happening, and the only question is how many seconds they have to wait for it. The distance closes, and I’m unable to look away from his face, unable to do anything but move toward him like I’m being tugged, an invisible rope around my chest and ankles.