Spindrift

Praise for the writing of Jules Jones

Buildup: Mindscan

Jules Jones writes in an unusual style I admire and is one of the few who can write a sex scene that is gracious yet close to hard core at the same time. The interesting storyline, the endearing characters, and really great sex make Mindscan my new favorite by Mr. Jones and one I openly recommend. -- Anya Khan, Just Erotic Romance Reviews Jules Jones really captures the mood of her characters, making their emotions almost come off the page at readers. The author explores the extent of Frampton’s submissiveness, the varied kinky scenes that set him off, and Reeve’s sexuality in a very erotic and poignant way…Buildup: Mindscan is a sensual and fantasy-filled peek into the healing that friendship and compassion can bring. -- Michelle, Fallen Angel Reviews Jules Jones writes a story of two men who help each other come to terms with the demons that torment them… I enjoyed the book because it grips the reader and does not let go until the last page. I hope to read more books by this author. -- Candy, Coffee Time Romance The sex scenes are smoking hot and left me needing a cold shower. The emotional bond that develops between the two men is heartwarming… Buildup: Mindscan is a wonderful book that is most definitely a keeper! -- Susan White, Just Erotic Romance Reviews

Buildup: Mindscan is now available from Loose Id.

SPINDRIFT

Jules Jones

www.loose-id.com

Warning This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

***** This book is rated:

For explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable (homoerotic sex).

Spindrift Jules Jones This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Published by Loose Id LLC 1802 N Carson Street, Suite 212-29 Carson City NV 89701-1215 www.loose-id.com

Copyright © July 2005 by Jules Jones Excerpt of Jumping the Fence copyright February 2005 by Stephanie Vaughan All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared in any form, including, but not limited to printing, photocopying, faxing, or emailing without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC.

ISBN 1-59632-135-0 Available in Adobe PDF, HTML, MobiPocket, and MS Reader

Printed in the United States of America

Editor: Raven McKnight Cover Artist: April Martinez

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Chapter One

There’s a village I live in for part of the year, one of those small villages where everyone knows everyone else and their genealogy, or so it seems. I’m not such a fool as to think that I’ve been accepted by the locals as one of them, but at least I’ve been classed as a useful resident rather than as a damned nuisance tourist -- or worse, a weekender. I’d rather keep that designation, so I’ll not be naming the village in question. And since I’ve been included in the class of ‘resident’, I made it my business to investigate the row going on on the beach one evening. I’d been out for an evening stroll along one of the more isolated beaches -- and the village is small enough that you don’t have to go far for that, at least out of tourist season. I could hear the ruckus before I rounded the corner, although it had that “keep it down so the neighbours don’t hear” quality to it. There was an argument going on between some of the fishermen I knew. I say fishermen, but some of them were long since retired and on the old-age pension, and others had taken advantage of one or another of the compensation schemes intended to persuade fishermen to give up the business while there were still fish stocks left to protect. Not many of them still made a living at the actual fishing, although some of them did nicely out of taking tourists out in their boats. But culturally they were still fishermen, which eventually turned out to be relevant to the row. There must have been ten or twelve of them, mostly the middle-aged and older ones, with one of the younger ones at the centre of the row. I might have thought that the old ones were doing a bit of ganging up, but I had no sympathy for William. He was a surly bastard, and a bigot besides. The older men had never been bothered about my being gay, had been friendly enough when they’d found it out, or at least too polite to change their attitude to me. But William had tried taunting me about it, and been most disappointed when the older men had taken my side rather than his.

2

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There was one other young man I didn’t recognise, and as I got close enough to make out the actual words, it became apparent that he was the subject of the argument. They were arguing over him in the most literal sense, for he was crouched on the ground, looking rather bewildered. And distressed. Whatever it was, it was clearly nothing I was part of. But I thought that that in itself might just make me a usefully neutral party. So rather than turn back the way I’d come, I walked over to the group. William was snarling something about the man getting his skin back when William was good and ready, and that would be only when the man had done something William wanted. The last I heard before someone noticed me and warned the others was, “It’s easy enough. His skin for hers.” And then they fell silent and stared at me. “Evening, gentleman,” I said cheerfully. “Could you do with someone not involved to act as referee?” There was silence for a moment, and then one or two of them grinned. “Aye, that’s not a bad idea,” old Jock said. “Tell us, laddie, what would you think of a man that tries to blackmail another man into delivering his sister up to him?” I’m no lad to anyone younger than old Jock, but he’s more than twice my age and entitled to call me that if he wishes. And he never did more than gentle teasing about my taste in men. There was an undertone to this I didn’t like. Jock’s question was serious. “I’d think he was an arsehole.” Or worse, but I wasn’t quite certain whether Jock had been talking about seduction or rape. “Given that arseholes are what you like, what would you know about it?” William snarled at me. “You wouldn’t know what to do with a woman if you got one!” “Neither would you, boy,” one of the other old men said softly, a hint of threat in his voice. “Or rather, the lassies know what you’d want to do, which is why you can’t get one other than by trickery.” “Give him his skin,” another rumbled. “We don’t do it like that. If you can’t get one fair and square, you don’t deserve one.” “I got one fair and square,” William snapped. “I got one the old way, and you old men are so keen on the old ways, aren’t you?” He whirled round to point at me. “Not my fault if the skin I got is one only this faggot would want!” “Your fault, boy,” Jock said. “Your fault if they’ll have nothing to do with us now.” Two of them grabbed hold of William, but he shook them off and stalked a few feet away. He turned around and said to the stranger, “You know the price for your skin. It’s safe enough, but you’ll not get it back except in exchange for another.” He stared around at the others. “And don’t think of searching my cottage. I’ll burn it if I have to.” “You wouldn’t.”

Spindrift

3

“Try me.” He smiled nastily and mimicked my upper-middle-class accent. “I’m sure the dear sweet boy will find someone to take him in if he can’t go back to the sea. The incomer faggot will take him, even if no-one else will.” He spun around and ran off. Some of the men made to follow, but Dougal said, “No point. Bastard had it well hidden before this one knew it was gone. He might burn it just to spite us.” “Burn what?” I asked. “Never you mind,” one said, as another said, “The lad’s clothes.” Skin, they’d said. Yes, it could be slang, or refer to a wetsuit, but I didn’t think it was. “He took my skin,” the stranger said, his voice desolate. I looked properly at the young man for the first time. He’d sounded not just Scottish but one of those who spoke Gaelic as their first language. I’d assumed he was a stray late tourist being bullied by William, but there was more to it than that. Not just someone who’d been swimming or sunbathing in the last of the mild weather and come back to the beach to find his clothes stolen. The young man was completely naked. I tried not to stare. There was enough gossip already. “Who is he, Jock?” “Fisherman from up the coast,” Jock said. There were things stirring in my memory. Unbelievable things, old tales that had no place in this day and age. “A fisherman from off the coast, who’s lost his skin to a thief, a thief who wanted the skin of his sister in exchange.” I looked hard at old Jock. “Is this a leg pull?” “I said up the coast.” “I know what you said.” “He knows the old tales,” Adam said behind me. “Aye, he would. He’s a writer,” another said. “Not one of us, though.” “Never pretended to be.” “Tried to fit in, he has. He lives here, doesn’t just come in for the weekend, killing our shops with his car filled with things from the big city supermarket.” “Lives with us, shops with us, drinks with us.” “Listens to us, doesn’t look down on us.” “And asks us first if he can use our stories.” I let the discussion swirl around me, knowing better than to try to sway them. I looked at the young man as they decided whether to tell me, knowing already what they would say if they said it, and not knowing whether to believe them. Silkie.

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“If there really was such a thing as silkies, if they weren’t just myth but a reality that had fled our world,” I eventually said, “then if there were any humans on earth who knew about them, it would be the fishermen. The fishermen in remote areas where the seals still are, where there aren’t many people to see. To steal skins and women from the seal people.” Dead silence. “Please tell me my writer’s imagination has run away with me.” “William was right about one thing,” Jock said. “The lad would be better off with him.” “But he’s ... well ...” another said. “Not inclined to bother those who don’t have his inclinations,” Jock said. “As you well know. Who else is to take this one in? Spare bedroom, spare cash, knows how to keep his mouth shut when he’s asked.” “Jock’s got the right of it,” Adam said. “Can’t put him on the social; there’d be questions. Be questions enough if we’re not careful. Who’s to look after him if we can’t make William see sense?” The young man shuddered, and wailed, “My skin!” Dougal knelt down next to him and said, “Don’t worry, boy, we’ll make him give it back. Might take a little while, is all; we don’t want to scare him into doing anything stupid.” Another man knelt in front of him, took hold of his hand. “You listen, boy,” he said gently. “We’ll not let anything happen to you. But we must decide what to do with you for tonight at least. You can’t go wandering the village like that.” I watched him shiver, and cursed my thoughtlessness. He was naked, and it was late in the year, and getting very cold now that the sun was gone. I pulled my coat off and knelt down to drape it over him. He needed it more than I did. He looked at me with gratitude, and my heart melted. This waif needed help, whoever he was. I wasn’t the only one in the village who could offer him a bed for the night without inconvenience, nor the only one who could readily afford to support him for a few days while they sorted things out, but I might well be the only one who was both of those things and also within the group standing here on the beach. It was clear they’d no intention of telling anyone else about him, at least not right now. They wouldn’t have told me if I hadn’t happened along, but they were willing to trust me with him now that I knew of him. “Will you take him, Richard?” Dougal asked. “At least for tonight?” And yet he was a stranger to me. I had no idea who he was; I only half believed the conclusion I’d jumped to. It seemed so unreal. “Wouldn’t it be better to let the police deal with him?” “No,” Jock said. “He’s lost, confused. The police will want answers, and his won’t be the right ones.” And there was another concern I had. I looked up at Jock. “Jock ... people will talk. You know they will.”

Spindrift

5

“Do you mind?” “Not for myself. But he’s got to deal with it as well, if he stays.” The silkie man stared first at me, then at Jock. Jock knelt down as well, another putting himself down at the same eye-level as the scared young man. “Richard likes men. If he were one to take a skin, he would have taken yours because it was you he wanted, not to have your sister’s in exchange.” “But he wouldn’t steal a skin? He’d ask?” the silkie asked Jock. “Aye. But it’s as he says. People will talk. They’ll think that he and you ...” Jock trailed off. “And it’s not a good thing, to be talked about like that. He’s used to it; he’s willing to risk it for himself. But he won’t let you do it without knowing. Because he’s not a man who would steal a skin, one way or another.” The silkie looked earnestly at Jock. “Do you trust him, Uncle Jock?” “To look after you as best he can, not to hurt you? I’d trust him even with the keeping of your skin, Niall.” I was taken aback at that. I knew, or hoped, that Jock liked me, but that was quite a recommendation. And ... Uncle Jock? If Jock was willing to trust me with the keeping of this young man, I should be willing to trust Jock’s judgement that I would be safe with ... Niall, Jock had called him. “All right, Jock, I’ll take him for a few days while you lot sort things out. As long as you’re sure it wouldn’t do more harm than good.” “Thank you.” He stood up, held a hand out to Niall. Jock was an old man, and not a tall one, but he had the strength to pull Niall to his feet. Only then did I realise how tall the silkie man was. Tall, dark, and handsome, just the way I like them. Not mine to make a play for, though. Not fair on him, not when he was a guest in my house, and traumatised with it. Jock slipped an arm around Niall’s waist and steered him towards the path off the beach. “Come on, to the house and into some clothes with you. Richard?” “I’ve probably something that’ll fit.” I stood up myself to follow them, but glanced back to the sea. Adam had gone to stand by the water’s edge and was beckoning to something out on the water. Just a small dark patch in the moonlight reflected off the water at first, and then as it came closer I saw the sleek fur and dark liquid eyes of a seal. It came right up to Adam, staying in the waves lapping against the sand but as close as it could get to him and still be in the water. He said something to it, though I couldn’t make out the words, and pointed to me. And the seal nodded, and made its way back to the deep water before turning round to look at me. I believed it then.

6

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The seal couldn’t have heard me from that distance, so I said nothing. Not “I’ll look after him”, though I promised it in my heart. I turned and followed Jock and Niall up off the beach and along the road to my cottage. It wasn’t far to walk, although I was worried about Niall’s bare feet. Then another worry occurred to me. “Jock, what do I feed him?” “Whatever you’d feed yourself. Though if you’re worried, I’ll bring you both a nice bit of herring for your supper.” Jock still fished for his own amusement and the giving of fresh fish to his friends, and I’d no doubt that he’d either have enough to give away, or could find dinner with a friend tonight. I wouldn’t have to go looking for fish to feed my unusual guest. “Thanks. I’d been planning to do a stir fry tonight, and I’ve enough that I could do it for two if I had to, but I wasn’t sure if he could eat it.” Jock grinned at me. “He’d probably be grateful for the chance. We’ve warned them not to try going into town, but they’re not averse to sharing a bite to eat when it’s brought to them.” Fine. So the silkies, like so many other native Britons, had adopted the imported cuisines of the old Empire and trade network. “I suppose he likes curry, too?” “It’s too hot,” Niall said. “Burns, and water doesn’t take it away.” “Any other adaptations to the modern world I should know about?” “I hope you’ve a spare computer,” Jock said slyly. “Let him see what he’s heard about.” “Please,” Niall said eagerly. Well, it couldn’t do him much harm as long as I supervised him, and it might keep his mind off his predicament for a bit while the men tried to get his skin back for him. “We’ll see. First thing is to get him sorted out with clothes.” “He’s taller than you,” Jock said rather doubtfully. “I’ve a set of his clothes at home, but it’s farther to take him.” “I keep a few bits spare for when my friends visit and don’t have the sense not to fall in the brook. Not quite one size fits all, but they’ll do.” Jock sniggered. “Thought you liked to discourage them from bothering you too often.” I’d grumbled to Jock in the past about my friends in the city treating my place as a weekend holiday cottage, not understanding that I was there to work and not to play host. “Falling in the brook discourages them well enough. No need to give them pneumonia with it.” Niall was looking from Jock to me. Jock explained, “Richard’s from the big city. Edinburgh. But he likes peace to write, so he lives here half the year. It’s almost far enough away to stop his friends bothering him when he doesn’t want to be bothered.”

Spindrift

7

Niall smiled at that. “Sometimes you want to be alone.” Then his face fell. “I wanted to be on my own. Just for a bit.” “I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say. I was still in shock at what he was, that he existed, was glad to have the opportunity to see such a creature -- but not at the price he’d paid. “I’m sorry, too, laddie,” Jock said, patting his shoulder. “You were taking a bit of a risk, on a beach that people use, but still, you should have been safe. We’ll sort it out, don’t you worry.” There was a nasty edge to Jock’s voice on that last sentence. I had a feeling that if William did destroy the skin, he’d be made to regret it. But revenge wouldn’t help Niall, trapped in the wrong world. Best to try to keep his mind off it as much as possible. “We’ll get you some clothes and maybe a hot shower, and then get some supper on. You’ll feel better when you’re warm and ...” Would he care about being dry? “Good idea,” Jock said. “It was cold on that beach.” We walked the rest of the way in silence, I for one glad to find that nobody else was out and about. Dark and cold and dinnertime meant nobody to see the silkie being led to my front door. I fumbled for my key, thinking that I might need to get another cut, and hoping that Niall would not be staying long enough to make it necessary. Over the threshold, and into the warmth of the central heating. I was glad of it -- it wasn’t that cold a night, and the brisk walk had kept me reasonably warm, but my coat was on Niall and Niall had nothing on underneath it. My cottage has been well and truly modernised. I like living in an old cottage, but I also like my creature comforts. It had been partly modernised by the weekenders I’d bought it from, but I’d finished the job -- not forgetting taking out some of their “improvements” that weren’t. And I’d used local craftsmen for as much of the work as possible, which had not passed unnoticed by those wondering if they were to have yet another weekender inflicted upon them. Treating this place with respect had just paid an unexpected dividend. “Go on up, you two. Spare bedroom’s on the right, Jock. Anything in the cupboard’s up for grabs. I’ll put the kettle on.” Jock looked at me, but said nothing, accepting that I didn’t feel it proper that I take Niall up while Jock made the tea. It had occurred to me that the silkie might need help with handling clothing, and I wasn’t doing it. Let Uncle Jock manage that one.

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Chapter Two The kettle was boiled and the tea brewing when Jock appeared in the kitchen. “He loves the power shower. You’ll have to watch your hot water bill.” “I can afford it. I can afford him for a few days without even noticing. Is that the only reason you’ve palmed him off on me?” “No. And do you really think it’s palming off?” I sighed; that hadn’t been a very nice way of putting it. “No. But why me, of all people?” Jock lifted the lid off the teapot and prodded the contents with a spoon, checking that I’d added enough tea to make the strong brew he liked. “You of all people will not care for yourself if people talk. And they will talk no matter who he stays with, if we don’t tell them who he really is. Maybe even if we did. Maybe more so -- there are tales about the silkie men as well as the women.” He grinned. “Their men are as attractive to our women as their women are to our men. And some people have filthy minds.” “So none of you with women in the house will want him there as well.” Jock decided that the tea was to his satisfaction and poured it out. “We’d have managed if we’d had to, and I wouldn’t have asked if you’d not come stumbling in, but it’s not such a daft idea to have you look after the fisherman who’s been swept overboard and lost his memory ...” “That your cover story?” I took a sip of my tea. I’d poured mine after a minute or two of brewing; I don’t go for the tar the old men favour. “You know he’s probably from around the islands somewhere because he speaks Gaelic, but he’s not local and none of you know him. And I offered to look after him so you lot could be out and about seeing if you could find where he belongs.” “Hadn’t thought of that last; that’s a good idea. You noticed the Gaelic?”

Spindrift

9

“He just sounded like the people I’ve heard who speak it as a first language. I suppose the silkies would. Though he speaks modern Scottish English, as well. Learnt that off the humans? Uncle Jock?” Jock sighed and set down his mug. “No, I’m not his uncle, though no denying I’d have liked to be. His grandfather was my fishing partner.” “His grandfather’s human?” Jock made an impatient gesture. “Silkie. A lot of fishermen hate seals. Think they steal their fish. But around here ... around here we know that the fish belong to both of us. Niall’s grandfather would drive the fish into my net, and we’d share the catch. Less work, less risk for both of us. We worked together even when the fishing changed, when we did it with motorboats and sonar and all the rest of it. Then he died, and my heart wasn’t in it anymore. Took the pension and gave up the motorboat. But not the little boat.” Jock was old enough to have started fishing before it had become the production line of today. He’d retired and gone back to the sort of boat he’d have first used as a boy, just to putter around the bay and up and down the coast seeing his friends. And some of his friends wore fur. “Does everyone in the village know?” I asked. “Not all of them, certainly not the new ones. Apart from you, now.” New ones in this context no doubt being anyone whose family hadn’t been here for at least three generations. “And the seals?” “Some of them are just seals. And some of them aren’t. The magic’s gone out of the world, but there’s just enough left ...” “How much longer can they keep it up?” Not just whether the magic would last, but whether they could hide. “Don’t know. They can be seals as long as the magic holds out. Whether they can be people, without being freaks ... I’d like to see one or two of them go to university, or at least learn to blend in. To provide a way out onto the land. Just in case.” “Just in case it stops being a choice?” I asked him straight out. “Jock, what the hell does William think he’s playing at? He must know he can’t force the woman to stay with him. Not these days.” The legends were of women who’d had their sealskins stolen and couldn’t return to seal shape, who’d meekly accepted that they must stay with the man who’d taken it. There was no alternative for them, unless they wished to starve or could find yet another to take them in, in a culture where such bride abduction was accepted. But it wasn’t accepted, not anymore. William could only hold the silkie woman with the connivance of his neighbours, and they’d made it very clear that he wouldn’t be getting it. “Well, thank you for not assuming that we’re a backwards wee village where a man can get away with marriage by rape.” Jock sighed. “No, you can still get away with beating your wife, if she’s too beaten down to object. That’s as true here as it is in the big city. But no

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lassie in her right mind is going to have anything to do with William until he learns to mind his manners, which is why he’s desperate enough to forget his common sense. And to do him justice, it’s not just a case of any woman will do, as long as she’s biddable. He’s in love with Ailsa, and will not see that she’s not in love with him. So he thinks of the old ways and does not see that it is neither acceptable nor practical to do it that way now.” Long speech from Jock. I thought about what Jock had said, and wondered just how well he knew how William felt. Only Jock was too decent a man to think that one could or should force a partner. “Will he give up the skin?” “His pride’s hurt. He’ll need a while to get over that. But yes, he’ll give up the skin when he’s had time to come to his senses. If he doesn’t burn it first.” “That’s why me,” I suddenly realised. This was something Jock must have been thinking about for a long time, although to give the silkies’ young people an extra option if they wanted it, rather than because there was no other option left. “If the worst happens, if Niall’s trapped on land -- well, you can hide him here; but if he wants a choice between village and city, he’ll need someone to smooth the path. Someone who’ll know how to protect him from awkward questions until he can do it for himself.” “You’ve money, you’ve friends. “ He held up a hand to stop me. “No, not friends in high places who can pull strings. Just friends who know the ins and outs, who know which forms to fill in to get him what he’s entitled to as a citizen of this country. I know it’s a lot I’m asking, but who else can I ask?” “Quiet.” I’d heard the floorboards upstairs creak, and realised that water was no longer running through the pipes up to the bathroom. “He’s out of the shower.” Jock nodded, and said only, “Look after him for me, Richard. I’ve no grandson of my own.” Jock was my friend, had made me welcome here. I owed him. And he was right -- I was the one best-placed to deal with far-away officialdom. “I’ll do what I can. Whatever is needed.” “Thank you.” And then we were silent, sipping our tea and looking at each other over our mugs, until Niall came down the stairs in his borrowed clothes. He looked like what he almost was -- a young fisherman in borrowed clothes that didn’t quite fit. Jeans and heavy jumper a little too loose, but not a problem with a large teeshirt under the jumper and a belt to hold the jeans on. Socks but no shoes on his feet. That might be a problem if he stayed more than a day or two; I had spare clothes that would fit most, but shoes are more difficult. Still, we could drive to the next town tomorrow and get him something to tide him over if necessary. Or Jock had mentioned having clothes for him; he might not need shoes.

Spindrift

11

He looked very young and vulnerable in the too-large clothes, his eyes dark pools in his pale face. “How old are you?” I asked. “Twenty-eight.” Not so bad, then. Young enough that there might still be comment about the age difference from those who would jump to conclusions, but not young enough that there would be comment merely about his age. But still, I’d add clothes that fitted to the shopping list if he was to stay longer than a day or two. His twenty-eight to my thirty-five might cause no more than some snide comment about sophisticated older men from the city taking advantage, but there’d be trouble if he looked ten years younger than he really was. Only now did I notice how truly attractive he was. I’d been too concerned about him before to think about it, but he was a handsome man, good-looking and with a beautifully melodic voice. Jock had said that the silkie men were attractive to human women, and now that I thought about it I remembered fragments of tales about that aspect of the myth. It had been the stories about the abducted women I’d been thinking about before, with the row over Niall’s skin. But the men could be called, and choose whether to answer, by a woman looking for a lover or a man to father children her husband could not give her. “I can see why some of them didn’t want him around their womenfolk.” “Put your tongue back in, Richard.” Jock chuckled. “And if you’re wondering why I wasn’t worried about you stealing skins -- well, you’ve only just noticed he’s a bonny lad, now he’s got some clothes on. You were too worried about him before.” “Am I that bloody obvious?” “Aye.” He set down his mug. “I’ll go now, Niall, if you’re all right. I’ll be back in the morning with some clothes for you.” “I’ll be all right, Uncle Jock.” He sat down at the table and picked up the mug of tea that Jock had poured for him. “Thanks.” “I’ll see myself out,” Jock said to me, and went to the front door. I heard the snick of the Yale lock as he closed it behind him, leaving me alone with Niall. With a silkie. “I was going to start dinner anyway when I got back from my walk,” I said. “Are you sure you’ll be all right with a stir fry?” “I like them, though I’ve not had them often. Will you show me how to make one?” “I sincerely hope that you have no need to know how, but if you’re interested ...” No harm in showing him, even if he went back to the sea tomorrow. And there was the possibility Jock had floated; get some of the young ones paperwork and paper qualifications, that they might have the option of the land. Niall might be beyond the normal intake age for college, but there were always adult education courses, or even the Open University if he didn’t want to leave home.

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In fact, the Open University might be a good way of keeping him occupied for a few days, give him a taste of what there might be out there for him. Just one problem. “Niall, can you read?” “Aye,” he said, sounding slightly offended. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything about your people. I don’t even know if it’s practical for you to read.” “Not paper books, but there are other things to make a mark on. And the villagers lend us books to read on the beach.” So he could read, which meant the OU website was feasible. And there were the lecture broadcasts on BBC 2 in the wee small hours, although I’d have to check what was on tonight and record it for him to watch later. And I hadn’t even told him why I’d asked if he could read. Though I’d keep off anything that might remind him that he could end up needing the education. “You could get very bored if it takes them a few days to sort William out. But I’ve books to read; and the speed’s not great out here, but you can look at the internet.” Though maybe I’d better leave that for when I could supervise him. I’d no doubt that he’d picked up a good many things from his human friends, but it wasn’t a good idea to let him stumble alone into some of the things out there. Even an ordinary news broadcast might be distressing to someone not used to it. His face lit up. “Internet?” Ah. No chance of changing my mind now. “After dinner. Not on your own, mind.” Niall nodded. “Sneaked in and watched TV without asking once. Uncle Jock found me hiding behind the sofa. Said I’d think twice about watching it again without someone there to explain things. Did, too.” So he understood why, that I was not patronising him or treating him as a child, but concerned that the raw reality of things he had only heard about might be too much for him without a guide to help him fit it into place. “Let’s start dinner.” He was an eager pupil, wanting to hear why I was doing certain things, wanting to understand the craft and science of cooking. He was clearly familiar with the local cooking style; now he was adding to his repertoire rather than starting from scratch. “Do you cook for yourself?” I asked. “When you’re in human form?” He shrugged. “Not easy to do more than spit a fish over an open fire. Easier to ask my friends. I bring fish; they cook it. Or let me cook it in their kitchen. Nobody ever says no to a lobster or two.” Oh-ho. That explained one or two delicacies that had appeared on the table when I’d been invited round to dinner. Seals can go where humans can’t, and they don’t need a boat or a fishing licence to explain what they’re doing with that boat. I wondered if I’d seen the

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silkies in the village and taken them for what they were: friends visiting from elsewhere. “We can try some other things tomorrow, if you’d like.” “I’d like that.” The food was almost done. “Let’s go through to the other room and eat there. Just stir this for me while I get the plates.” He took the wooden spoon from me, attention focused on his job. I tried not to think about how close to me he was standing, and moved away from him. He wasn’t just goodlooking; he was smart, and inquisitive, and eager to learn new things. Someone I’d like to get to know better, and not necessarily with sex in mind. And yet if things went well for him, he’d be going back to the sea. On the other hand, he was clearly comfortable on land, with his human friends. And now I knew about him, I might be included. He served the food as I held the plates for him, and then we went into the lounge. I dearly wanted to talk to him, question him, but didn’t want to remind him of why he was here in my house. He solved the problem for me. “Could I watch the TV?” I tried to remember what was likely to be on, and turned on the TV, ready to turn it off. It was a natural history programme. Nature red in tooth and claw, but then he was part of that world; I didn’t think he’d be disturbed by it as long as it wasn’t too close to home. We settled down to watch it. He was utterly rapt, making me wonder how much of the food he actually tasted. At the end of it, he sighed and said, “He’s so good at explaining things.” “You’ve seen the series before?” “Sometimes. If people remember to tell me it’s on, and I can get to a TV.” “How much do you understand of what you see on TV?” “I don’t know enough to know what I don’t understand. Maybe I think I do, but how could I tell?” He shrugged. Smart young man. If it did come down to the worst case, he’d a reasonable chance of surviving modern society, simply because he knew he was a small-town boy and had to be careful. “What would you like to do now?” He looked around the room. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather read than talk. I can forget about things for a while. I’m sorry, it’s rude; you must have questions ...” “No, go ahead. You’ve had a bad shock; it’s natural you want to take your mind off things.” He smiled at me in gratitude. “Thank you for being so understanding.” “I think if I’d gone through what you have today, I wouldn’t be taking it so well. Help yourself to the books. But let me see what you choose, to be on the safe side.”

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He nodded, then started scanning the titles. I got up to take the dishes through, and he followed me into the kitchen. “I’ll do the washing up. Don’t worry, I’ll not break anything.” “Niall, you’re a guest,” I protested. “I don’t expect you to.” “I should,” he insisted. So he washed and I dried and put away. Then we went back through to the lounge, and he sat and read while I pretended to work. Silkie. Myth, legend, sitting quietly in my living room reading a book. How could I work with that there? But in the end my pretence paid off, and I did forget the miracle and focus on the evening’s work. I put in a good hour or two before it was time to stop for the night. “Did Jock find pyjamas for you?” I asked. Niall looked up from his book, obviously replaying what I’d said, then nodded. “Want a hot drink before bed?” “No, thank you.” “I’ll find you a spare toothbrush. You don’t need to go to bed just yet if you don’t want to, but I’ll be going soon.” “I’ll take the book to bed with me. If that’s all right?” “That’s fine.” I went out to the kitchen to put some milk in the microwave, then went upstairs to the bathroom to get out a new toothbrush and a towel for Niall. He was just coming up the stairs, so I handed them to him before going back down to get my milk. He was in the bathroom when I got back, so I assumed that he was getting ready for bed. I pottered around, drinking my milk and winding down, and using the bathroom once it was free. Into bed, to think about my strange guest. I was almost asleep when the door to my room opened. Niall stood there. “Richard?” he said softly, a plaintive undertone in his voice. “What’s wrong?” He walked over to my bed. “Can I sleep with you?” “Niall ...” This was not right. He was a guest, entrusted to me by my friend. A guest who might think that he had an obligation to do this. “Richard, I can’t sleep on my own. Please. I’m not used to it.” He wasn’t human. He looked human now, but he spent most of his time as a seal. Visions of the seal nurseries I’d seen on wildlife programmes came to me. I didn’t even know if that was the same species that Niall’s people appeared to be, or if that was their normal practice, but if he normally slept with others, then no matter how used he was to human ways, he might have trouble sleeping alone this night of all nights. And it wasn’t as if there wasn’t room for him in the big bed.

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I moved over to the far side of the bed, making room for him, saying, “All right, get in.” And thinking, I’ll get you for this, Jock. One last reason why me. The men with womenfolk would not be happy at this turn of events, and the men without would not be happy, either. And Jock and any others who felt a paternal interest in Niall would not be happy for a third reason. I was the only man amongst them who would not be perturbed by another man in my bed. Or at least not perturbed for the same reason. He got into the bed with me, moved up against me, and clung to me. I put an arm around him, to find he was shaking. He’d forced reality away for the evening, but now it had caught up with him as he’d lain alone in a strange bed in a stranger’s house. I wanted to comfort him, to say it would be all right, but I didn’t know that it would be all right. If someone pushed a proud and angry man too far ... Then I realised that Niall was crying. Silently, but crying. I held him tightly, trying to comfort him as he sobbed against me. I wouldn’t give him false hope -- he wouldn’t believe me -- but I could give him real hope. “Niall, you know you’re not alone. No matter what happens. There are people who love you, who will make sure you’re all right.” Jock, who cherished him as a substitute for the grandson he didn’t have. Dougal and Adam, in a towering rage over William’s behaviour, but controlling it so as not to scare Niall. The sobbing didn’t diminish, but it didn’t get worse. I held him, and stroked his hair, and waited. Eventually, he muttered, “Sorry.” “Don’t worry. Let it out if you need to.” But he’d got control of himself again now. He still held on to me, but not with that desperate need for contact. He shifted slightly, so that he was only using my shoulder as a pillow rather than burying his head against my chest. “I’m scared,” he said simply. “That’s not surprising. But it’s true what I said. There are people who love you, who will make sure you’re all right. That in itself means William knows he hasn’t much to gain by threatening you.” Niall sighed. “They said you were a decent man. Laughed at William when he said bad things about you, said they’d rather have someone who knew what the word ‘no’ meant, and didn’t give cause for it to need to be said.” “You know about me?” It seemed that my guest had one advantage over me -- he knew about me, while I’d known nothing of his existence until a few hours ago. “I didn’t know who you were at first; I’d never seen you. But they talk about the people in the village. They worry about incomers, that the old village will die as the young ones move away, that there’ll be nobody left who knows.” This village had more reason than most to worry about turning into a ghost town, full of second homes and weekend cottages. Even ones like me, who made it their home, made it more difficult for the little mixed community of humans and silkies. Yes, I could see that I might have been the subject of discussion. That debate on the beach was no quick decision, only the sudden need to finally make a decision.

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“It isn’t just gossip,” Niall said. “I know. I’m not offended. Don’t worry about it. Want a tissue?” “I’ll go and wash in a minute.” “All right.” I held him for another minute or two; then he pulled away from me and got out of bed. I wasn’t sure whether he’d want to go back to his own bed now, but after a bit of nose-blowing and face-splashing in the bathroom he came back to me. I put an arm around him, and he settled down with his head on my shoulder again. I’d probably end up with a numb arm if he stayed there, but if it gave him comfort, I wasn’t going to complain.

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Chapter Three I woke the next morning to an unfamiliar weight and warmth next to me in the bed. It was some time since I’d taken anyone to this particular bed, so I didn’t have trouble remembering that it wasn’t a lover I was sharing it with now. Niall didn’t seem to share that view of himself. As I stirred sleepily, he rolled on top of me, his erection rubbing against me. “Niall!” I spluttered, trying to fend him off. He looked as bewildered as I felt. “But I thought you liked men?” So it was deliberate. I shouldn’t have had to think about this when I was still half asleep, and when my body was remembering of its own accord that I’d just spent the night in bed with an attractive man. “I like men. But I don’t like taking advantage of people.” Though there seemed to be some room for doubt as to who was taking advantage of whom -- Niall was refusing to shift and was bigger than me. “You don’t have to do this.” The image of those silkie women of legend haunted me. Niall, insisting on doing the washing up last night ... “Niall, I took you in because Jock asked me to. Not because I expect anything in return.” “I know,” he said, and bent down to kiss me briefly. “That’s why I want you.” “Niall, are you gay?” “There are people I like and people I don’t like. Does it matter if they’re man or woman?” Not a straight answer, but as much of an answer as I was likely to get, I suspected. Did it matter, as long as he was doing this because he wanted to rather than because he felt he should? “Richard, I want to do this.” He was unbuttoning my pyjama top as he said it, making it clear with deed as well as words. “I’ll stop if you don’t want it, but can you say that you don’t?” He slid one hand down to squeeze my erect cock through my pyjama trousers.

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All I could think of was how good it felt, and how much better it would feel without cloth in the way. I knew I shouldn’t be doing this, but Niall was doing his damnedest to convince me that I should, and there’s only so much temptation a man can resist. I put my arms around him, pulling him down against me, enjoying the feel of his hard, fit body along the length of mine. “That’s better,” he said before kissing me again. He tasted slightly of salt, which must have been my imagination, considering his attempt to drain the hot water tank the night before. He felt good in my arms even before he started thrusting against me, his cock rubbing against mine. The bloody clothes really were getting in the way now, but I didn’t want to let go of him for long enough to get them off. I grabbed at the waistband of his pyjama trousers, trying to pull them down enough to free his cock. Frustration at first, with his weight pinning them in place; then he realised what I was doing and lifted his hips slightly, just enough that I could drag the annoying cloth down past them. Oh, god, but I wanted him, wanted to feel his cock right against mine. I hauled my own clothing out of the way, far enough at least that we had skin-to-skin contact where it mattered. I could feel him properly now, hot skin against mine, his cock dragging against me. There was cream in the bedside cabinet, but I couldn’t for the life of me let go of him long enough to look for it. It would have to be rough and ready, none of the little refinements. He deserved better than that, we both did, but it was far too late to stop now. I was almost there already, morning erection on top of sharing the bed being all I’d needed by way of foreplay. He was in similar straits, frantic against me, gasping my name as he hung on to me. Then he said more than my name. “Want you, Richard. Want this ... with you ...” And it was enough for me. Last gasp of conscience swept aside by Niall’s need for me, I clutched him to me as I started to come. I’d had no lover for weeks, no-one to hold me tight in their arms as I came. Nothing but a bit of frottage, this, but oh, how good it felt. Good for Niall, too, I could see it in his face, the shock as it first hit him, then that beautiful ugliness of a face stretched and scrunched in orgasm. I could have wished it to go on forever, that intimate mingling of physical and emotional pleasure. It couldn’t, of course, but it was no hardship to lie there afterwards, still tingling with it, still with Niall in my arms, slowly coming down. Niall moved down a little, so that he could lie with his head on my chest, saying nothing but gently stroking my shoulder with one hand. When I put up my hand to cover his, he seized hold of it and would not let go. We lay like that for some time. I felt that it was more than just afterglow with Niall -he needed the physical contact, needed the reassurance that someone cared for him. So it was only after I’d been getting uncomfortable for a few minutes that I finally nudged him and said, “Sorry, but I do need to get up and go to the toilet.”

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“Mmm.” He obediently slid off me, giving me freedom to move. I clambered out of bed and looked down at the state of my pyjamas. More than a bit of a mess; we must have both been in need of that. I glanced at Niall; his expression was a cross between utter smugness and a beatific smile. “Feeling pleased with yourself?” “Mmm. That was good,” he said happily. Sleeping in the wet spot was never my favourite activity; wearing it was even worse. I stripped off my pyjamas, used them to wipe myself down, and pulled on my dressing gown. They’d been due to go in the wash anyway. By then I really did need to piss, so I went out to the toilet. No use worrying about Niall, although, after I’d done in the loo, I did go into what should have been Niall’s bedroom and grab the spare dressing gown from the back of the door. I went back to my room and tossed it on the foot of the bed. “Dressing gown for you when you want to get up. Want some tea or coffee?” He started to get up. “I’ll make it.” Damn. Should have just gone downstairs and guessed what he might like. “No, Niall. You had a rough day yesterday. You stay in bed as long as you want.” Doubt clouded his face. “Are you sure?” “Yes. You stay there; I’ll be back with the tea in a bit. Oh, what would you like for breakfast? Porridge do you?” “Yes, thank you.” Whether my style of porridge would do him was open to question, since I liked it richer and sweeter than the locals did, but I wasn’t about to ask and get another attempt to help. From what Jock had said, and what I’d seen, Niall wasn’t that fussy about food as long as it was nicely cooked. I’d just do a double amount of my usual. If he wanted more than cereal and toast, there was bacon in the fridge, and eggs, but those could wait until later. For now I’d just wander downstairs and make tea and start the porridge. I was surprised to find how late in the morning it was. Not that late, mind, just later than I’d normally wake up. But then, Niall’s distress last night had probably kept us both awake well past my usual bedtime, and maybe we’d lain there longer than I’d thought this morning, after ... after Niall and I had made love. It wasn’t just sex. There’d been affection in it, on both sides, for all that we’d only met the day before. And Niall wasn’t the only one who’d been in need of a little comfort. It was an uncomfortable thing to be thinking of as I made the tea and put the oats into the bowl of milk to soak a wee while. I almost welcomed the distraction of a knock at the kitchen door, although my conscience was not happy to see Jock there. “I’ve brought his clothes,” he said, looking me up and down. “I thought it was late enough, and he’d be needing his shoes, at least if he wants to go out.”

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“You’re not disturbing us. He’s awake, though I told him to stay in bed for a bit. He had a bit of a bad time last night. You want a tea?” “Yes.” Jock put the bundle of clothes down on the table. “Is he all right?” “He is now.” Best come straight out with it. “Jock, he slept with me last night. His idea, though I’m not saying that to get out of the responsibility. He couldn’t face sleeping on his own.” Jock said nothing. “You thought that might happen, didn’t you?” I said, trying to make it a civil question and not an accusation. “I’m sorry. But if I’d warned ye ...” Jock trailed off, obviously uncertain what to say next. “I’d have taken fright.” I sighed, not liking what I had to say next, but knowing it had to be said. “It was sleeping in both senses this morning. Still his idea, though I’ll admit that I could have done more to dissuade him. Jock, if you don’t approve, you’ll have to take him away. He was determined on it this morning, and I’m not made of stone.” Especially when I’d not had the comfort of arms around me in far too long. I’d friends in Edinburgh who’d make me happy for a night if I asked, but that was Edinburgh, and this was here. My own little oasis of peace, bought at a price. I was accepted here, but there was no man for me in this place. Until now. “Do you want my approval, laddie?” I turned my back on him, pretending to be busy pouring the tea. “Of course I do, Jock. Or at least not your disapproval. I’ll not ask you to be pleased about it, but I don’t want you angry with me.” I set both mugs on the table, sat down, and stared into mine. “You and your friends made me welcome here. You didn’t turn your backs on me when you found out I was gay. You trusted me with Niall. I don’t want to betray that trust.” “And that’s the heart of it, I think,” Jock said, sitting down to his own mug and looking at me across the table. “He’s twenty-eight. I’m not his keeper. I can try to guide him, but that’s all.” “But the age difference ...” “From where I sit,” Jock said, “you’re pretty much the same age.” “It’s not just chronological age, though, is it?” I was feeling my way through this now, trying to sort out my own feelings on the matter. “If we’re talking experience, I’m the sophisticated city man with the money and the flashy toys that could turn a boy’s head. Look, I’m not saying he’s a thick yokel easily bought. He’s a bright lad, but he’s innocent in ways I don’t even understand. I could be taking advantage of him without even meaning to.” “Worried what the villagers will think of you? Corrupting the young?” “Yes.” But if I was honest about it ... “But mostly worried about what I’ll think of myself when I stop thinking with my balls. It’s not even being gay. What if it had been his

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sister’s skin taken, and her climbing into bed with me last night because she was afraid and lonely?” Jock grinned at that. “I think Ailsa would be a good deal safer with you than Niall would, wouldn’t she?” Then he sobered. “Richard, I can’t say that I approve of it. You’re right to be worried about what people will think. But ... if it had been Ailsa ... Well, if she decided that she wanted a land man, to give her a way out, she could do a good deal worse than picking one who was a good, decent man who’d treat her well and who had the money to give her a comfortable life. A man who could give her a future beyond this village, if she so desired. And nobody would think the worse of her for it, so long as it was a man who would make her happy.” He took a swig of his tea. “So if it were Ailsa, I’d be asking what your intentions were, and if you’d stand by her and any consequences of taking her to your bed. And I’d be wanting answers I’d be happy with. But there would be answers I’d be happy with, and they needn’t involve marriage plans. I won’t deny Niall what I’d grant Ailsa.” At least Jock wasn’t angry with me for what had happened, only concerned for Niall. He’d understand why I was asking for his approval. “Look, Jock. I need you to tell me that I’m not doing something wrong, because I can’t tell if I’m doing something wrong. It’s not that I want my conscience eased; it’s that I don’t even know if I have anything to feel guilty about. I don’t know what his people would think of this; I don’t know whether he understands what he’s letting himself in for.” Then I realised that I’d been well and truly distracted. “Oh, hell, his tea’s getting cold. I’ll be back in a minute.” I stood up from the table and picked up Niall’s tea. “You can’t run away from it that easily,” Jock called after me, but he made no move to follow me. I went up the stairs on my on, and into my bedroom where Niall waited for me. He stirred sleepily in the bed, sitting up to take the tea from me. “I heard voices. Is Uncle Jock here?” “Yes, but he’ll be here a while yet, I think. You don’t need to get up just yet if you don’t want to.” He nodded at me, took a mouthful of his tea, then set the mug down on the bedside cabinet. “If you don’t mind ...” he said, snuggling back under the duvet. I sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked his hair. “No. Go back to sleep if you want. Breakfast will keep well enough.” He was holding on to the pillow, his face pushed into it. The pillow on my side of the bed. Poor little sod. He was able to sleep on his own because he had something that smelt of me to hold on to, something that didn’t leave him feeling alone and abandoned. I went back downstairs. “So long as you don’t think it’s doing more harm than good, he’s staying here.” “You’ve changed your tune. What happened just now?”

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I told him about Niall and his security blanket -- well, security pillow. Jock looked worried. “I thought he was able to deal with being on land.” “I think he is. He’s just frightened; he’ll be better when he’s had a day or two to recover.” He’d done well enough last night, as long as he’d had something to distract himself with. “He was being very sensible about things yesterday evening. But he’s in a strange house; he’s had a bad shock. It was only when he went to bed on his own and had nothing to do but think about it that he had trouble.” “I hope so, laddie, I hope so.” Jock looked weary. He looked his age. In fact, he looked as if he’d not had much sleep last night, less than Niall and I had had. “No joy with William, then?” I asked quietly, one ear on the stairs in case Niall should have changed his mind and be coming down. “No. I don’t think he’s destroyed the skin, thank god, but he’s determined not to give it up without something in return.” “But he will in the end ...” I asked uncertainly. “In the end. But maybe not soon.” Jock chewed on his lip. “I thought it would only be a day or two before he calmed down, saw sense, but now I’m not so sure. He’s so bitter ...” “And I saw his humiliation.” “It doesn’t help. But don’t feel guilty about it, Richard. It’s his problem, not yours. And it might have been even worse if you’d not come along and made everyone think about what they were saying.” “Jock, what I was asking about ...” I needed to know. Was I taking advantage of Niall? “I don’t think you’re doing him any harm amongst his own. They never caught much in the way of formal religion, at least the ones who stayed in the sea. As for the villagers, you’ll catch the brunt of it, not him.” Jock got up from his chair and walked over to the bench, where he prodded at the oatmeal with a spoon. “You’re from the city; you’re different. There’ll be talk. But not as bad as the talk there’d have been if you were a stranger. And there’ll be talk whether you share a bed or no, so long as you share a roof.” “No use worrying about it, then. Want some breakfast?” “I’ve eaten, thanks. You didn’t ask him how he likes his porridge?” “No. I didn’t want him insisting on coming down here to make it.” Jock smiled at that. “He’s a good boy. Good manners. Might be worth considering, Richard. If he’s here for a while, you could do worse than employ him as housekeeper and gardener.” I winced at that. I didn’t want anything that looked like the tales of old. But Jock had a point. “You think something to give an excuse as to why I’m willing to support him while we supposedly look for his home?”

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“A bit of work in return for his keep, that’ll not excite the tax man. People will understand that, if I put it about that he doesn’t want charity, but we’ve got to be careful about not giving him work that will want forms filling in.” “Speaking of forms, I still think we should tell the police about him.” I held up my hand to quiet Jock’s protest. “If it’s a day or two, or a week, we can sort things out and nobody need be the wiser about him. But if he has to stay, he needs to explain where he comes from. Even if it’s, ‘I don’t know. I woke up on the beach and that’s the first thing I remember.’ And if that’s our story for him, it won’t look good if we don’t report him to the police as a potential missing person in the next day or two.” Jock paced restlessly around the kitchen. He clearly didn’t like this, but I knew him well enough to know that he was winding himself up to face a hard decision he knew had to be made. “A day or two. Enough time for us to ask up and down the coast ...” “Make sure you do ask. Just in case the police check.” “Aye. We’ll start that this morning. But it wouldnae be unreasonable for us to make our own enquiries first, before involving the police.” “Since you know he must be from around here somewhere, and he’s not been hurt other than the memory loss,” I agreed. “Though that suggests a blow to the head, and the police might wonder why we didn’t take him to the doctor.” “We’ll do that this morning, as well,” Jock said. “He was confused last night, but we weren’t worried until he woke up this morning and still couldnae remember who he was.” “Better coach him first.” “Oh, he knows not to say too much. He won’t need much prompting.” “Jock, how much does he know about the outside world?” Jock stopped his pacing and came back to sit at the table. “They’re not ignorant. But you’re right about them being innocent in the way any young people from a rural area might be.” He paused and thought about it. “And yes, they’re not exposed to the outside world even as much as the farming youngsters are. In some ways they might be safer in a big town. Their ignorance wouldn’t be so obvious.” “People would just assume them to be ignorant yokels, you mean.” City assumptions about rural people might actually work in the silkies’ favour. “And nobody would think it odd having strangers around the place. Incidentally, how are you going to explain that you know Niall but not where he comes from?” “Bugger.” Jock obviously hadn’t thought about that aspect. “Of course, he’s around often enough that the villagers know him by sight, even if they don’t know who he is.” “You knew his grandfather; Niall started hanging around, but never mentioned where he came from,” I offered. “Might work. Might do better than him being a stranger, as well. Don’t think anyone will accuse him of being an illegal immigrant, not when the boy speaks Gaelic the way he

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does, but it’ll help if we can say that we’ve known him for years. Let’s see ...” Jock was well away in thought, composing a story. I left him to it and went back upstairs to see how Niall was doing. He seemed to be dozing, so I went back down to Jock. “He’s sleeping, so I’m going to get a shower and get dressed. If he’s awake by then, I’ll make us breakfast. Do you want to stay?” “I’ll be off to have a word with the others. But I’ll probably be back in half an hour. That’ll give you time to get yourself together.” “Get myself decent? Well, if you want to bring a few of the others back for a council of war, go ahead.” Jock nodded and let himself out. I picked up the bundle of Niall’s clothing and took it up to the bedroom. Then I went up to get my shower and make myself respectable. The others might well take Jock’s attitude, but there was no need to rub their noses in the fact that Niall had done more than sleep in my bed last night. So clean up the evidence, and get some fresh clothes on.

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Chapter Four Niall woke up while I was getting dressed, though I’d taken pains to be quiet getting my clothes out of the cupboard. “What’s happening?” “Jock’s gone off to talk to the others about what to tell people about you. They’ll be coming back here. You don’t have to get up if you don’t want to, though.” “I suppose I’d better.” He slid out of bed and pulled his pyjamas off. He looked at the evidence they bore. “I’d better not shock them,” he said and made to throw his pyjamas on top of the little heap that mine made. Then he paused. “Do you have others?” “Others, and a washing machine and tumble drier, so those can be washed today and be ready tonight if need be.” He nodded, and tossed his pyjamas on mine, then put on the dressing gown. “Did Jock bring my clothes?” “On the chair. You seem a bit more with it this morning.” He was thinking about practical matters now, no longer in shock at what had happened to him. He came over to me, touched his fingers to my cheek. “You helped. By being there.” Then he turned and walked away to the bathroom. “I’ll put the porridge on,” I called after him and went downstairs to make it. Not much effort, that, just put the cooking bowl in the microwave and lay the table. I was just dishing it up when Niall came down the stairs. He’d gone for a quick clean in the shower this morning, then, rather than the relaxing soak of last night. “You’re feeling a bit better.” He nodded. “You’re right. Even if the worst happens, well, I can’t go back to the sea without my skin, but I won’t be trapped.”

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Still a little fear in his expression, but he was in control of himself now. “You have choices,” I said. “You’re welcome to stay with me as long as is needed to get things sorted out. There are others who will be pleased to take you in. There’d be work for you in the village, if you wanted to stay near your people. Or you could leave, and just visit. A job somewhere else, or university maybe.” I thought of my flat in Edinburgh, how it would be to have him with me, half the year there and half here. I could easily fit my schedule around the academic year. But that was not a subject to be thought about, let alone broached. I was no William, to take advantage of the situation. “And when William sees that ...” Niall said. “Well, maybe he’ll realise that it wouldn’t be just me who’d have those choices. Ailsa would, as well.” He stared out the window towards the sea, and his expression darkened. “He shan’t have her. Not even if it costs us both our skins. She doesn’t want him.” He was in his own clothes now, and no longer fighting down panic. He looked his true age rather than the desolate waif of last night; a young man, certainly, but mature and planning what to do with his future now that his life had gone awry. He looked back at me. “Thank you for your offer of a home.” “Niall, that offer goes for both of you. You needn’t fear for Ailsa even if he does somehow get hold of her skin.” Niall sat down at the table and prodded moodily at his porridge. “Feeding me, clothing me. Giving me a bed and a roof over my head. Not just for a night or two, and you’d have made that offer without this morning, wouldn’t you? Why, Richard?” “I owe the fishermen. They made me welcome; they’ve been good friends to me. I’d have done it for their sake, never mind anything else. But how the hell do you think a writer can resist the chance at someone like you? And no, I’m not talking about sex.” He laughed, and visibly relaxed. “The fishermen said you were always ready with a notebook or a recorder if they started talking about their work or the old tales. I suppose you’d like to hear mine.” “Oh, yes. Though I’ll try not to badger you too much. Now eat your breakfast.” Jock arrived back as we were eating, with Adam and Dougal in tow. “Just the three of you?” I asked. “Everyone else is away, out asking if there’s anyone missing,” Dougal said, making for the kettle. “We’ll still have to get our story right, and the same story all round, but you’re right. The closer it is to the truth, the less chance we’ll be contradicted, and the less we all have to remember.” Adam dragged out the folding chair and set it up, making five chairs at the table. He and Jock sat down, leaving Dougal making the tea. Then he said, “We know Niall, but not which village he’s from. We found him on the beach last night. He was a bit confused, but we didn’t think anything of it at the time. But he doesn’t remember who he is, and we’re a

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bit worried now. He might have family wondering where he is, if he was supposed to be home last night.” “If the police push us,” Dougal said, “well, we think he might have been in a fight, naming no names, but we know there’s one or two in the village might take to bullying someone with no obvious family. Hit him or pushed him and then panicked when it went further than they’d meant.” I nodded. That would cover any obvious animosity between the group and William and his friends. It would be plausible to outsiders that the men had a fair idea of who was responsible but didn’t have the proof, and were loath to make public accusations without it. “So he or they checked Niall was breathing, then made off before anyone spotted them.” “You can remember that you don’t remember?” Adam said to Niall. He nodded, but said, “Why do I have to do this? You’ve always told us not to draw attention to ourselves.” “You may not have a choice,” Jock said. “If the worse comes to the worst ... well, how do you think you’re going to make a living? A legal job means paperwork. Paperwork means older paperwork. You’ve no birth certificate, no NHS record, no National Insurance number.” “Something we should be thinking about for all of the bairns, not just the land-born ones,” Dougal said over the sound of the boiling kettle. “Get them registered as home births, if we can.” “Later,” Jock said impatiently. “It’s Niall we should be thinking about now. Look, I’ve no doubt Richard here will happily support you for as long as it takes to drain you of your stories of life in the sea ...” “He’s already made that clear,” Niall said. Everyone except me snickered. I decided that sulking would be undignified. “And there’s bits and pieces of work you could pick up on the quiet,” Jock went on. “But you don’t want to have to rely on that. So we do a few things that make it easier to get the paperwork if it becomes necessary. I don’t think it will, but we need to think about what we do if I’m wrong.” “What can’t I remember, then?” Niall asked. “Anything before yesterday,” I suggested. “You recognise people, you remember their names, but only when you see them. You know who we are, but not how you know us. Means you don’t have to fake not recognising things.” “We’ll take you out and about to see if anything seems familiar,” Dougal said as he set mugs of tea down on the table. “But we’ll let drop that we think you’ve not much family, at least none you’ve contact with.” “Or maybe your mam and dad were in one of those groups that didn’t like paperwork, and bought themselves a plot of land away up in the hills, so there’s no paperwork on you to

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be found,” Adam said. “Dosed themselves with herbs, so no doctor or dentist. Though we’ll leave that for later.” “Jim Stuart will be round for his surgery tomorrow,” Jock said thoughtfully. “We’ll report the thing to him. Wouldn’t take much of a hint for him to start thinking along those lines by himself, if we insist we know the lad, but won’t say anything about him. He’ll be sympathetic if he thinks we’re trying to protect him from trouble.” Jim was the local policeman. He wasn’t originally from around here, but he’d decided he needed to get to know the people in the area he covered, and had taken a leaf out of the book of the town councilors. He held a local surgery as often as he could in each of the villages on his beat, to make up for there being no proper manned police station in most of them. “Then I’ll take Niall over to the doctor this morning,” I said. “Get him checked over, since we’re worried he may have a head injury. Unless the doctor’s going to find something that’ll have him writing a nice research note for the BMJ?” “Don’t think so,” Adam said. “They’re human enough out of the sealskin, or there wouldn’t be half-and-half bairns running about. Now, you came along while we were discussing what to do about Niall, and we told you he was a fisherman who’d been in an accident. You offered to put him up for the night. Now you’re a bit worried about him, and so are we. But if the doctor starts pushing ...” “I reckon there’s something more to it than that, but I’m an outsider, so you all clammed up on me.” I thought of something else. “Oh, and he seemed a bit confused last night, but no obvious concussion. It was only this morning when I started asking him about himself that we realised that he couldn’t remember.” “That’ll do for today, then,” Jock said. “Will you phone the doctor for an appointment?” I’d finished my breakfast, so I left them talking to Niall and went to phone the surgery I went to in the local town. There was no problem getting an immediate appointment when I explained that I was worried about a possible head injury. The receptionist even offered to ask the doctor to come out to us, but I felt guilty and refused, saying that I’d rather come on in, in case it turned out to be necessary to take him on to the hospital. I went back to the kitchen. “Right, they’ll see us as soon as we can get over there. Anything else you want to add to the story?” “Not at the moment,” Jock said. “We’ll be off.” He and the other two got up, and rinsed their mugs before leaving. I stacked the breakfast dishes in the sink. “I’ll do those,” Niall said. “You’ll go upstairs and brush your teeth,” I said. “I’m going to leave these to soak anyway. Porridge sticks if it’s not washed right away.” “Sorry.”

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“I wasn’t criticising, Niall. We were busy, and it’s no bother to leave them to soak. Go and get ready.” He went and got ready, and so did I, and we got in my car. I checked that he’d done his seatbelt up properly. “I’ve been in a car before. Though not often.” “Yes, and you’ll have been in a car with your fishermen friends. I know what some of them are like about seatbelts.” Niall tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help it. “I know what you mean. They do make me wear one, but as for themselves ...” “Do as I say, not as I do,” I said piously. “They treat me the same way if I go out with them on the boats.” “Is it just that all old people are like that?” “They’re better than many.” There were one or two of my older friends and relatives who were best described as geriatric delinquents. I considered them a shining example to aspire to when I got to be that age. I wasn’t sure, in at least one case, how he’d managed to survive long enough to get to be that age himself. Niall spent the rest of the trip looking around him at the countryside, and then the town. Not that big a town to me, but still an object of curiosity to him. I was lucky enough to find a parking spot right outside the surgery, and handed Niall over with the only slightly censored explanation of how he’d come to be in my keeping. Niall was whisked off into the doctor’s office, while I was left to battle with NHS paperwork. New patient, no records, NHS number unknown, address unknown, everything unknown except his name and his age. I didn’t even have his date of birth. But it was a quiet morning, and the receptionist had time to help me. She found the right forms to cover the situation, and helped me wade through them. A useful start on providing Niall with a paper identity. Get one bit of paper and others follow. This trip would be useful for the cover-up in more ways than one. Dr Matthews brought Niall out after a bit and asked to see me in his office. Once we were alone, he said bluntly, “Is there any chance the young man’s been sexually assaulted?” I blinked at that, hearing at first an accusation. Then I realised that the doctor was concerned about what might have happened to Niall before he’d been found. “I don’t know.” “There’s no obvious blow to the head that would explain the amnesia he claims. But he does have bruises that are consistent with a fight as well as with falling out of a boat. And when I asked him what state his clothes were in, whether they were torn as if he’d been on rocks on the shore, he wouldn’t tell me.” And of course we hadn’t thought to make sure we all had the same story about his nakedness. I didn’t even know whether his nakedness was normal for one of his kind just out of his skin -- surely the silkies didn’t walk naked amongst humans in the old stories.

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Carefully, I said, “I don’t think he’s been assaulted in that way. But he might have been bullied with an element of that to it. Why?” “He has a rather odd pattern of amnesia, and no obvious physical injuries that would explain it as a purely mechanical injury. But it’s not inconsistent with a slight concussion and a severe emotional shock together, and you said he seemed confused last night. I suppose it could be that he was involved in some sort of accident and a fight?” Very definitely fishing for information. “I honestly don’t know. I went for a stroll along the beach last night and found some of the men I know with him ...” I realised what that sounded like, and made it clear. “... in a fine old state of worry about him. But all they told me was that he was one of the fishermen from up the coast, and he’d had an accident and could do with a bed for the night. I’m an outsider. They may well have thought there was more to it than that, but they wouldn’t tell me.” Dr Matthews chewed on his lip. “I don’t like it. You think it was both, don’t you? Half drowned on top of a fight with someone.” “I think they do.” “Well, I’ll ask his permission to do an intimate examination and take samples. Look, I’m sorry about this, but when I’ve got a young man that the locals asked you to take in when you don’t even know him, I’ve got to think about the possibility that they think he’s gay -and that there might have been homophobic bullying.” Oh, yes, there would be ramifications from them asking me to take Niall in. I even wondered if the doctor was right. Was there an element of that in William’s bullying of a man who seemed more interested in the shape of a partner’s mind than the shape of a partner’s genitals? “You can forget about that with the men who found him,” I said. “They’ve never given me any trouble; they’ve supported me against ones who would. But, yes, there are ones who would, although I don’t think they’d go that far.” “Mm. Well, I’ll check, and if there’s anything obvious, we’ll have to consider telling the police. Otherwise, I’d be happier if he went to the hospital for observation for a day or two, in case there’s a brain injury I’m not picking up, but he should be all right as long as he’s watched and you bring him in at once if there’s any problem other than the amnesia. The scrapes and bruises will heal well enough. If he’s still having mental problems in a few weeks, we’ll need to consider specialist help.” I got the distinct impression that the doctor wasn’t entirely convinced about the amnesia story. Maybe we should have done some research first to make it more plausible. On the other hand, he seemed to have accepted that Niall was from the area, and had had some sort of unpleasant experience that explained Niall’s claim that he didn’t remember who he was. That certainly wouldn’t hurt the situation if it came to creating paperwork for him. “Thank you, doctor. Anything I should be watching for?”

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“Uneven pupils, get him straight to the hospital. If the confusion gets worse again, slurred speech, anything else that makes him look drunk when you know he can’t be -- Oh, keep him off alcohol for a few days. And anything else.” “That’s one problem that doesn’t seem to have made it to the village.” He gave me a cynical grin. “My dear man, you’ve been my patient long enough now that I have formed the impression you’re very conventional in most ways. I doubt you’d get to see it. But tell your fishermen friends I said to be careful about it. They’ll know if there’s a drug problem in the village, even if they don’t tell the police about it.” He went over to the door and back out to the waiting room. “Mr McCrae, would you come back into the office, please?” Niall followed him into the office, glancing at me but not asking questions. The doctor said, very gently, “There’s one more examination I’d like to do. Your injuries suggest that you may have been in a fight. I’d like to examine you for evidence of sexual assault, and take samples if necessary.” That did provoke a reaction. He looked at me, his expression panicked. “Richard, I didn’t say anything!” “It’s all right.” I hastened to put an arm around him. “The doctor isn’t suggesting anything about me. He’s worried that something might have happened on the beach, and you’re suppressing your memory because of it.” Dr Matthews coughed gently. “I take it I’ll need a sample from you, as well, for elimination?” “I suppose so. Though if you do find anything internally, you won’t need to eliminate me. It’ll be someone else.” He shook his head. “You should have told me there’d been some sort of sexual contact between you two. I won’t ask. But the police will.” “Police?” Niall asked. “Only if there’s an obvious reason to get them involved,” the doctor said. “And only with your permission. Now, may I examine you? And would you like to have the nurse in?” “Nurse?” One of the cultural things he might not be aware of. “The doctor needs to have someone else present as a witness,” I explained. I didn’t go into details. I was a little surprised that the doctor was willing to let me be the chaperone, but perhaps he was concerned about not inflicting yet another stranger on Niall. “I’d rather you stayed,” Niall said. So I stayed while Niall undressed and allowed himself to be examined. At the end of it the doctor said, “Well, no evidence of anal sex. Doesn’t rule out other things, of course, but that is a relief.”

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It was a relief to me, as well. I knew that the amnesia was a fake, but it had dawned on me during the last half-hour that the doctor might have hit on the right explanation for at least part of Niall’s reluctance to talk about what had happened yesterday. “Do we need to get the police involved?” “I still think he’s been in a fight, but I’m a lot less worried about that. All right, young man, you can go and sit in the waiting room again.” He waited until Niall had closed the door behind him, then said, “I’m going to write up his notes so that they can be used in evidence if something did happen and he decides to talk about it. But I don’t see any point in involving the police at this stage. It’s only a nasty suspicion I had -- there’s nothing physical to suggest anything more than a fight, and that’s not worth pursuing unless there’s a head injury that worsens.” Now that I had the nasty suspicion as well, I was glad to hear that there’d be some tangible record if it did turn out to be justified. The fight I didn’t want brought up with the police, not until after William had been made to part with Niall’s skin. “Well, we’ll have to tell the police about him if we can’t find where he belongs. If we do, we can let them worry about whether there’s any point in assault charges.” Jim Stuart wouldn’t push things if he thought Niall didn’t want it and it would be settled quietly in the village. He’d only get himself involved against Niall’s wishes if he thought there was likely to be further brawling or that Niall was under duress; and he wasn’t likely to be given reason to think that until we were past all hope for the skin. “Fair enough. Now, I don’t think you’ve anything to worry about in the long term. The best fit for his problem is transient global amnesia -- it’s the reality behind the stories about people waking up and not knowing who they are. It can be triggered by many things, including severe emotional stress and sudden immersion in cold water.” “So if he’d fallen out of his boat ...” How very convenient that our ideas on how Niall might have plausibly come to be on the beach fitted one possible type of amnesia even without an obvious head injury. “Or been pushed out during a fight, or any combination of things,” Dr Matthews said. “There are several obvious possibilities for triggers. It’s essentially a physical reaction within the body, which can be triggered by physical or emotional traumas. I’m not too worried about a stroke, not at his age and when there are no other signs and plenty of other possible reasons for a TGA incident.” “So what’s likely to happen?” I asked. “Most cases recover their memory within a few hours or days, although they may never remember the time just prior to the TGA episode itself. If I was worried about being sued, or there were indications of a trigger that was a medical problem in itself, I’d want him in hospital in the meantime. But to be honest, he’s probably better off in familiar surroundings.” The doctor opened the office door for me. “Don’t hesitate to bring him in

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again if necessary. And get him straight to the hospital if you’re the slightest bit concerned about brain injury.” I waited until we were well outside the surgery, and well away from anyone who could overhear. “Niall, is there any chance the doctor could be right?” Niall looked uncomfortable. “William said things ... No, he didn’t do anything. That’s not what the fight was about. It was about Ailsa, and later my skin. But he did say them.” “So you were in a fight.” And William had said things. The doctor’s guess was wrong, but only because he didn’t know about the silkies and because he’d assumed that Niall was being honest about the reasons for his refusal to think about last night, whether or not it involved actual amnesia. He’d been wrong in the details, but not in the general shape of things. Suddenly I was very glad that he’d asked to examine Niall properly. “What happened, Niall? William found you on the beach and had a go at you over Ailsa, the two of you had a row, and you went off looking for a bit of peace and quiet. Only when you went back for your skin, it was gone.” Niall nodded, looking miserable. “She’d been with me, only she ran off when she saw William. So when he found a skin hidden, he thought he’d found hers. But when he realised he’d got the wrong one -- well, that was nearly as good, wasn’t it? Use me to get to her.” “Oh, Niall.” I didn’t care that it was a public footpath, that there were people who could see even if they weren’t close enough to hear. I put my arms around him and held him. He was shaking again, but this time he didn’t lose control. A few seconds later he said, “I’ll be all right,” and I let go. “Let’s have a walk,” I suggested. Let him walk it off. He nodded, and walked at my side as I headed towards the town centre. He was soon looking around him, quietly asking me questions about what he was seeing. I thought that there was a bit of effort to it, but he seemed genuinely interested, as well. After a while we came to a park and sat on a bench in the bright autumn sunshine. The bedding wasn’t yet faded, bright flowers against the green grass. “I like this place,” he said. “It’s different, but not too different.” “No matter what happens, I’ll take you to see Edinburgh one day. I think you’d like it.” “A day or two ...” he said rather wistfully. “You’ll need more than a day or two just to see a little of it. But you don’t have to do it all at once. A weekend every so often.” “When you go back for meetings?” he asked. “Just how much do you know about me?” Though it wasn’t surprising -- his human friends were exactly the people who kept an eye on my cottage for me when I wasn’t around. If they talked amongst themselves, he’d know about my short trips back to the bright lights during my long stints in the village.

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“Not really fair, is it?” He smiled at me, his face lit up with genuine mirth. “I know a lot more about you than you do about me.” He stood up and walked over to the flowerbed. I followed him, stood over him as he knelt to cradle a flower head in his hand. “I know you love gardening, but you get caught up in your work and forget about the garden,” he said. “Uncle Jock suggested I could do some gardening work for you.” “You don’t need to, as far as I’m concerned, but he’s probably right about you doing a bit of work for me.” I knelt next to him and admired the last bumblebee of autumn busy at its work. “It’ll look better, and I’m not just thinking about people jumping to conclusions about how else you might be earning your keep. They’ll think more of you for doing a bit of work in return for your food.” “Bit of gardening, bit of housework, go out fishing with the others when they need an extra hand and bring in some fish for us both. That will look right with the village, that I’m pulling my weight.” “You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?” No wonder he’d been quiet in the car. I was impressed with him, with the way he’d fought down his fear and worked out how to deal with his situation. I glanced at my watch, wondering whether Jock would be around when we got back, and was surprised to see that it was lunchtime. “Look, do you want to eat here? We can go home if you like, but we could just as easily go and have lunch in a cafe here.” “I’d like that,” he said eagerly. “More of a choice here.” Scratch fish and chips, he probably had that often enough at home, or at least at what counted as home on land. Definitely not anywhere that had deep-fried Mars Bar on the menu; if he didn’t already have bad habits, I wasn’t starting him on that path. Come to think of it, anything with a large overlap with the village chippie’s menu was probably not worth bothering with. “We could find a cafe, or I know where there’s a decent Chinese restaurant that does lunch, or maybe a pub,” I suggested. “Though the cafe and the pub will probably be stuff you can get at home. Or we can just wander around until we find something we like.” “Wander for a bit, then go for the Chinese if we haven’t seen anything,” Niall said. “I like the Chinese I’ve tried, but the chippie doesn’t have much.” Oh, god, if the village chip shop was the limit of his experience of Chinese cuisine, he needed to have his horizons broadened. He might not have much opportunity to eat away from the village, but at least he could find out what he liked and learn to cook it himself. “You, my lad, are going to get a crash course on cooking if you stay with me.” “Good,” he said. “Fish gets boring.” I’d bet that comment would shock his ancestors. Niall certainly didn’t want to stay in the sea all his life, even if he’d rather not have to move to land permanently.

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Chapter Five In the end we went to a pub, where Niall promptly opted for that great British traditional pub dish -- lasagne. Well, it was probably something he didn’t get much opportunity to try, since the village pub tended to stick to Ye Traditional Scottish Food for the tourists. He’d have had wine with it, as well, if I’d not reminded him that he wasn’t supposed to be drinking alcohol with his possible head injury. He pouted a little, but had the wit not to argue about it in public. I almost promised him a raid on my somewhat limited wine cellar, before deciding that I’d done more than enough to turn his head today. We didn’t talk much over lunch -- there wasn’t much that we could talk about in public without risking straying into areas that shouldn’t be overheard. It would have been easy enough to stay off the topic of Niall’s ancestry; the difficulty was making sure we didn’t do anything to spoil the story of him not remembering anything before yesterday. I stuck to nice safe topics like food and gardening, and Niall followed my lead. He was obviously used to being careful what he said when he wasn’t sure who was listening -- it was the added burden of remembering that he supposedly didn’t remember that made conversation stilted. We still managed to relax. The food was good, the company was pleasant, and there was no harm in paying attention more to the former than the latter. We emerged into the bright sunshine outside the pub in cheerful mood. “I suppose we’d better be going home,” Niall said, sounding rather reluctant. “A bit of shopping first, maybe, but yes, we’d better be getting back.” Picking up a bit of meat and veg wouldn’t be a bad idea if I was going to be cooking for two for a few days. And after this morning, there was a bit of other shopping I wanted to do. A trip to the butcher’s and the greengrocer’s, and the supermarket for a few items I could do with stocking up on that weren’t always in the village shop, and one item I definitely didn’t want to buy in the village even if it was available there. I wasn’t sure what

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the expiry date was on the packet of condoms sitting forlornly at the back of the bathroom cupboard. Large, anonymous supermarkets have their uses. Shopping and getting another spare key cut took a while. It was late afternoon by the time we got home. I put the kettle on and started unpacking the groceries, showing Niall where I kept things. Jock showed up just as the kettle boiled. “I saw your car outside.” “And here was me thinking that it was because you can hear the sound of a kettle being filled from across the village.” Niall laughed, obviously familiar with Jock’s tea habit. “It wasn’t too bad a day, Uncle Jock.” “Glad to hear it, lad. How’d things go with the doctor, Richard?” “He’s not entirely convinced the amnesia’s real, although he didn’t quite come out and say so. He is convinced that Niall’s been traumatised by an unpleasant experience. And seeing that it was me who was asked to put Niall up for the night, he’s got some interesting theories as to what that experience might have been.” Jock scowled at that. “Didn’t think of that. On the other hand, it’s not such a stupid thing to think, if you know how some people’s minds work. And William has said things like that.” “He said them yesterday, Uncle Jock,” Niall said quietly. “Not just to Richard. To me, when we were fighting.” Jock spun round and stared at Niall. “You never said anything.” Niall shrugged. “Didn’t seem important. William says anything when he’s trying to hurt. It was only when the doctor started asking about it ...” Jock sighed. “At least it makes the story more believable. And if people start pointing fingers at William, well, he’s only himself to blame.” None of it named, oh, no. I hadn’t had to explain my unpleasant suspicion that William might be both one of those men who need to prove their masculinity to themselves, and one of those men who think that only the man underneath is queer. “You don’t think he would?” “He’s a bully, but not quite that sort of bully,” Jock said. “Not a man lashing out at what he fears in himself. Or so I’d have thought until now.” Poetic justice if William had started people wondering that about him. I couldn’t find it in my heart to feel sorry for him. Though I did say, “He doesn’t like me anyway. I thought my being queer was just a convenient excuse to have a go at me. He’d have found some other reason if it hadn’t been that.” Jock grinned evilly. “Aye, it was a shock to him when he was baiting you about being a city faggot, and you said, ‘Yes, I’m gay and I’m from the city -- which do you hate more?’ He never dreamed that you really were queer, let alone that you’d say so in public like that.”

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I shrugged, feeling rather uncomfortable. “I wasn’t trying to lie about who I am. The subject just didn’t come up until then.” “No need to worry, Richard. Nobody thought you’d been deliberately deceiving them. Not even William. Now, what else did the doctor say?” So we all sat down at the kitchen table, and I gave Jock a recital of the day’s events, not forgetting to mention that one Niall McCrae was now a registered patient at the practice. “Not a bad day’s work,” Jock said at the end of it. “And you?” “Oh, we’ve had a fine time putting on a show, looking for anyone missing a young man,” Jock said, leaning back in his chair and stretching himself until his joints creaked. “Dropped a few hints along the way. They’ll grow nicely in the telling, until they’re all contradicting themselves, and then all we’ll have to do is keep quiet and look mysterious when we’re asked if any or all of them are true.” “You’re enjoying this, you evil old bugger,” I remarked politely. “And it’s all in a good cause,” Jock cackled. Niall said, “Uncle Jock likes winding people up.” “Well, don’t you be following my example.” Niall glanced at me and mouthed, “Do as I say.” I tried to keep a straight face, but must have failed, because Jock glared at me. “What are you two up to?” “Just a discussion about old men earlier today. You were right, Jock; Niall and I are pretty much the same age. I shouldn’t have been worrying about it.” “I’m glad you’re getting on so well,” Jock snapped, and then his expression softened. “I am glad.” “So am I,” Niall said, looking at me. Whatever he’d heard about me, before he’d met me ... Had he been curious about me, wanted to meet me? I’d still rather we’d never met, given what it had cost Niall already, might yet cost him, but I was glad that we had. Jock levered himself up out of the chair. “I’d best be going back to the search. Though there’s one bit of all this that’s not fakery -- the others will be pleased to hear there’s no harm other than a few bruises.” “You were worried about him last night, then.” Jock looked down at Niall and sighed. “Thought there might have been more of a fight, or about more, than either of them was letting on. Though I didn’t think about a real head injury until this morning. I was glad when he came down those stairs for breakfast, looking as well as you’d expect given what happened.” He ruffled Niall’s hair affectionately. “Don’t be too much of a bother to Richard, now. He’s still got his own work to do, even if it’s easy

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for him to put it off for a day or two.” He looked back at me. “I’ll come over after dinner for a bit, if that’s all right.” “Do you want to have dinner here?” I asked. Jock shook his head. “Don’t know when I’ll be free. I’ve William to have another wee chat with. But I might be over at some point.” He set his mug by the sink and left. So Niall and I were alone together again. Niall looked at me, then looked away, focusing on the kitchen clock. “It’s getting on.” Getting on in the afternoon. Getting dark outside. It wasn’t actually that late by the clock, but by the sun we’d been out most of the day in the end, what with the days being short at this time of the year. I should really try to put in some work today, even if it was only to pump Niall about his life. No, not only. There was nothing only about Niall. Niall said, “Shall I do the dishes?” “Yes, thanks.” Might as well start getting used to the idea that I’d acquired a housekeeper. And I had one last bit of shopping to be putting away. I picked up the bag and went upstairs with it. It was mostly oddments for the bathroom, replacements and extras in recognition of there being an extra person in the house. I hadn’t even thought about it this morning, but Niall must have found the bag of disposable razors I kept in the bathroom cupboard for guests. A razor and the toothbrush I’d given him were propped neatly in the spare glass on the shelf above the sink. If he did stay longer than a few days, or even if this became one of the houses he used as a base when on land, I’d have to think about getting him something better than the disposables. The condoms and K-Y went in my bedside cabinet. Within easy reach if we needed them, but out of sight for a casual glance around the room. I was glad Jock hadn’t offered to help unpack the shopping. He’d have undoubtedly preferred that I have condoms, but would also probably prefer not to be confronted with them. That task done, I went back downstairs to see how Niall was getting on. He’d washed the dishes and stacked them neatly in the drainer, and now he was investigating the contents of the cupboards. “Just trying to learn where everything goes,” he said when he saw me. “Didn’t think you’d be too pleased if you couldn’t find anything because I’d put it away in the wrong place.” “No, and thank you for not trying to put things away until you’ve learnt where they go.” I picked up the tea towel and started drying dishes, telling Niall to keep looking around the kitchen. I stacked the dishes on the table as I dried them, and he found the right places to put them, mostly by opening every cupboard until he found the right one, and then leaving

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the cupboard door open so he could see where things went. It didn’t take long, with there being only the breakfast things and the collection of tea mugs. “Lamb chops tonight?” he asked. “With mash and green peas. Not very exotic, I’m afraid, but I really do need to get a bit of work done tonight, so I don’t want anything too fiddly.” I snapped the tea towel to shake out the creases, and hung it up. “I’ve no urgent deadlines, but I try to keep to the routine of at least a certain amount of work a day. Keeps me in the habit.” “Lamb chops will do me fine,” Niall said. “Do you want me to do them? It’ll give you some time, and I know how to grill chops and do mashed potatoes without help.” He smiled rather shyly. “It’s one bit of cooking I do know how to do. First thing I learned. It’s easier than boiling an egg.” “My lad, boiling an egg is not easy if you don’t know how. At least you can see whether a chop’s ready by sticking a fork in it.” I glanced at the clock. “No need to do anything about it for a bit, though. Go and read your book. Or put the TV on, if you want.” The TV would be distracting, but his mere presence was distracting anyway. “Computer?” he suggested; then his face fell. “Sorry. You’d need to be keeping an eye on me. And you’ll be working on it anyway.” “There’s the laptop, but, no, I don’t want you roaming around the net on your own.” I thought about it. “Though there are games you can play, or ebooks to read, if you need to get used to using one.” “Might try that after dinner. I’ll read for the moment.” And so we settled down in the lounge, comfortable, quiet company for each other. In spite of everything, I’d actually managed to forget he was there by the time he decided to put dinner on. I was startled when he got up to go to the kitchen. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to make you jump.” “I’m not used to being able to work in peace when there’s someone actually here.” If I had friends visiting from the city, they all too often kept trying to draw me into conversation. The TV I could tune out, and people talking as long as they weren’t loud, but not people talking to me. “Why did you buy this place?” Niall asked. “Was it to get somewhere quiet to work?” It seemed to be simple curiosity. Well, if he wanted to chat ... I checked my word count and found that I’d managed my word quota for the day. More would be nice, but I’d hit the minimum. No harm in taking a break, especially as dinner would be ready in half an hour or so anyway. I might as well go and keep an eye on what Niall was doing in the kitchen, just in case he had trouble with an unfamiliar oven. “I originally came down here to do some research for a book.” Niall nodded. “You were writing about fishing in the 1950s, and you wanted to get the details right.”

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“Go and get on with dinner, if you want. I’ve done for the moment; I’ll come with you.” “I can manage by myself,” Niall said. “I didn’t mean to disturb your work.” “No harm in taking a break; I’ve done my minimum for the day.” I stood up and stretched, feeling the stiffness in my hands. Another reason to take a break now. “Anyway, as it sounds as if you’ve already heard, I wanted to talk to the people who’d done it, or at least heard about it directly from people who’d done it.” I followed Niall into the kitchen. “I decided that I might as well make, not a holiday of it exactly, but a working vacation. I rented the cottage for three months so I could do a good chunk of the writing on the spot, not just the initial research. It turned out to be useful because I could go back and check details that I didn’t think of until I was actually writing.” “And then you decided that you liked it here.” Niall busied himself with getting dinner ready, but kept talking to me. “So you decided to just buy the cottage.” “The owners had got bored with it and wanted to sell. I was having problems at home with needing to take the phone off the hook, locking the door, and turning the doorbell off. I thought it was an ideal opportunity to move somewhere with a bit of peace and quiet, but where I’d already made some friends who I knew would respect it if they found a do-notdisturb note on the door.” I watched what Niall was doing, but he seemed to be managing with the unfamiliar kitchen. “I never intended to move in full-time, but it was somewhere I could escape to for a month or two at a time when I was in full working mode and didn’t want to be dragged out to socialise.” “Didn’t work out quite the way you expected,” Niall said, grinning. “No. Potato peeler’s in the drawer to your left.” I didn’t feel entirely comfortable sitting watching Niall do all the work, but it seemed to be making him more comfortable to be doing something to contribute to the household. “My friends in the city thought it was very generous of me to buy a holiday cottage for them to have weekends away. Which I wouldn’t mind if they’d actually go for long walks and leave me alone. But they don’t. They think I’ll be grateful for the company.” I realised how that might seem. “That doesn’t mean you, Niall. Even with the trip out today, I’ve got more work done in the last hour or two than I sometimes get through on a day when my city friends visit.” It wasn’t that I didn’t like my friends, enjoy their company. But I couldn’t switch off when they were here, couldn’t drop straight into writing and pour out a day’s worth in a solid hour or two at the keyboard. “People who work a job with regular hours don’t always understand that being able to set your own hours isn’t the same as being able to stop work whenever you feel like it,” Niall said. “Grandad said that could be a problem with some of the weekenders, even back when he and Jock started working together.” “What about your people, Niall? Surely you don’t have to work at all, if you don’t have to? Not at human jobs, I mean.”

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He shrugged. “Don’t have to. But doing a bit of work in exchange for something you want is only fair. We can’t really barter much now, not when you all use money these days. And gold and silver doesn’t get you far; people ask questions.” “Coins from old wrecks?” I guessed, wanting to hear more but afraid of upsetting him if talking about the sea would remind him of his current plight. “There’s more than enough off the coast,” he said. “We’ve no use for them other than trade. And that they look pretty.” He started cutting up the potatoes into evenly sized pieces, clearly at home with the task. “And the people who owned them are long dead, them and their sons and daughters. It hurt no-one that we took the coins when we had need of them for the land.” “What did you use them for?” “This was mostly before my time, mind,” Niall said. “I heard about this from the old people. But take this morning. Back when you had to pay for the doctor, when there was no National Health Service, well, if one of us was bad enough to take the risk, a gold sovereign was good money even a century after it was minted. A silver thruppenny bit would pay for the transport to get there if need be.” It made sense. A cash economy and coins that didn’t corrode on the seabed made it easy for the seal people to get by on land when they absolutely had to. “But now money that’s worth much is all paper.” “There are ways around it.” He tipped the potatoes into the pan and set it on the stove. “It’s not so bad here. We’ve folk we can trust to keep our money for us.” “But not all of your people have human friends and workmates they can trust.” “No.” He put the chops under the grill and checked that he’d turned it to the right heat, then came and sat down at the table with me. “See, William’s a pain in the arse, but he still thinks we’re people. It’s just that he’s not very nice to people whether they’re your people or my people. There are others would think they’ve a right to steal from us because of who we are, because they think that if there’s coin to be found, they should have it all, with just a token or two as thanks for those that brought it to them.” I could see the distinction he was drawing. William might be a bastard, but the business with Ailsa was simply a lovesick man using any means that came to hand. He’d deal with the silkies on an equal basis to humans. There were others who would exploit them and justify it to themselves on the basis that the seal people weren’t really human. And there’d be damn all the silkies could do about it, so long as the human concerned stayed off the sea. “I suppose this is part of why the old folk want you to have a land identity. If you’ve got a bank account, you’ve somewhere safe to keep your money. If you can work legally, you don’t need to worry about someone not giving you the wages promised because there’s nothing you can do about it.”

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He grinned rather savagely. “Oh, there are things we can do about it. And we don’t need to work for anyone. We have all we need in the sea. It’s just that there are things we need, and then there are things we want, and some of the things we want are only to be found on land.” “Piss off one silkie by not paying him, piss off all of them. You’ll only get to do it once. But it’s still a damnable nuisance for the silkies.” “Aye.” He was fiddling with the pepper mill now. “And besides, there are more and more things we get cut off from. The TV, for instance. Now, I know a lot of it’s rubbish. But there are good things on it, as well. That wildlife programme last night -- I don’t need to see it. But it makes my life richer. And I can’t have it unless there’s someone willing to let me into their house.” I thought about some of the things Jock had said, and what they implied. “Or unless you take the land route, give up the sea.” Niall sighed and shook his head. “We didn’t always have to make the choice. Land or sea. Now it seems we must.” He held his hand out flat, the pepper mill resting on it. “As simple a thing as this. Seasoning for your daily meat. We can have waterproof pouches to keep a bit of traded pepper by us, and there are rocks to grind with. But this makes life so much easier. And how long do you think the gears would last, if I could not find a way to keep it safe?” Like any country boy, he could see the bright lights of the city and long for the riches to be found there. He was just more aware than most of the price he might have to pay. “If there was a way to have both land and sea ...” “There is. For now. For those of us who have our skins,” he added bitterly. I reached across the table and took hold of his hand. There was nothing else that I could do for him. I could not go to William and demand the return of the skin -- my interference would only make things worse. All I could do was sit here with him, and wait with him, while others determined his fate. We sat in silence for long moments, until Niall sighed and freed his hand from mine. “I’d better check the dinner.” He stood up and went over to the stove. “You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to,” I said quietly. “It does help to talk to you,” Niall said. “Not just about my skin. About ... about loving this place, but not wanting to be here all of my life. I want the land. But I don’t want to have to give up my home to have it.” I could understand his problem, caught between two different worlds, wanting both. “I want this village. I need what I find here. But if I had to give up the city altogether to have it, the price would be too high.” “That’s it exactly.” Niall came back to the table. “The people here, well, most of them are content with the village and with having the town not too far away, so long as they’ve a

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car or the bus service. The ones it doesn’t suit, well, they want out, and they don’t want to come back. But what about me?” “It’s not just the choice between land and sea for you, is it? It’s that you love the village where you grew up, but you want more than that. And the old fishermen understand that, and they want more for their young people than being trapped in a dying industry, but some of their young people have very special problems in finding another life.” “Even if I get my skin back -- what am I to do?” “I’ll give what help I can. And you needn’t think you owe me a debt beyond telling me about yourself.” There was a shadow of fear in Niall’s eyes now. “But you can’t tell. You can’t use it. If people know about us ...” “What you said about the TV,” I reminded him. “It makes my life richer. I don’t need to write it down as a true story, and I don’t need to write it down as a what-if story just the way you’ve told it to me.” How to explain to him the transmutation a writer works, taking little bits from here and there, fragments of people they know, incidents from real life, and weaving them into a new whole? “What it does ... well, the story I write from what you tell me needn’t have anything to do with the sea, or even with ancient myth. But it gives me an insight into how it feels to be dealing with a not-quite-alien culture, and I can use that to write about something completely different to the silkies that are real after all. And if readers do see a resemblance, it’s only to be expected from someone who’s read widely in the old myths.” “The book you wrote when you first came here,” he said. “They could see that you’d got the details of how the fishing works, and there were things they told you about, things that had happened to them or people they’d known. But it was all mixed up together, so that some of the things you had in the book were things that really happened, but you had them happen to people you’d made up.” “I watch TV documentaries, and I read up on things, and if I can, I talk to the people who did those things. It makes the story feel real. It didn’t happen, but it could have. Only some things get changed a lot more than others between me being told about them and me writing the words on paper.” I grinned at him. “And besides, I want to know everything there is in the world to know. As Jock likes to remind me ever so gently from time to time.” “So it’s not one of the tales you want to write down while there’s still time?” he asked rather uncertainly. I’d been doing a bit of that. Making records of some of the oral tradition while it was there to be had, along with the directly relevant research. I might want it one day myself, and it was no hardship to pass copies over to the old men and women for them to pass on to the grandchildren scattered to the cities. If your family move on, move out, there may be nobody there at the hearth to listen to the old tales you have to tell, but they’ll still be pleased to have the chance to hear them.

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“It is. But most of that I’ve been doing for the people who tell the tales, not to publish. If you want it kept secret, it will be. Only the silkies will have it.” He seemed satisfied with that. Well, I’d respected the wishes of the people in the village, not used stories without permission first. He had some reason to trust my reassurances. “Time to set the table,” I suggested. We’d been sitting there long enough that dinner was probably not far off ready. “You check the food; I’ll do the table.”

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Chapter Six He was quiet over dinner, perhaps still thinking about the possible consequences of his sudden involvement with me. He knew something about me, but he’d still never met me until yesterday. He had to rely on what other people had told him, and what he could judge of me from his own short experience. And it was not just his own fate that hung in the balance if I chose to betray the trust I’d been given. “Richard,” he said eventually, “you don’t need the money from writing, do you?” “No. I’ve inherited money of my own; I don’t need to work for a living. The writing income is nice to have, but I don’t need it other than as a way of proving my writing’s good enough that other people will pay good money for it.” “You could afford to keep me even if you never sold another word.” “I want to hear your story because it interests me. I would want to hear it even if I never typed another word, let alone sold it. And I’ve money enough that I don’t have to worry about anything other than your pride if I feel like keeping you as an ornament to the household.” He laughed at that. “Don’t think I’d fit on the mantelpiece.” “Seriously, Niall. I’ve never bothered with a housekeeper when I’m actually here, because I can’t be bothered with the intrusion. But I could well afford one. If you want to stay here for a bit without feeling obliged to me, well, I’ve no objection to giving board to someone who’ll do a bit round the house for me and who understands that I don’t necessarily want a wee bit of company while I’m working. Does that make you happier about being able to say no if you don’t want to tell me about your people?” I still didn’t like what looked to me as if it could be exploitation, but Jock was right about giving Niall real work to do in exchange for his keep. This was another good reason for it -- to give Niall peace of mind about what I might want in return for my help.

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“Thanks.” He stared into the distance. “It’s just ... well, I’ve spent my entire life being careful. And now it’s not just that an outsider knows about me, about us; he wants to know more than anyone has ever known.” He looked back at me. “And you do, don’t you?” he challenged me. “I want to know everything there ever was and ever will be,” I acknowledged. “But I’m also capable of remembering my manners and respecting people’s privacy. Occasionally after having my shins kicked, I’ll admit.” “A true bard,” he said, grinning. “I’m sorry, Richard. It’s not that I don’t trust you.” “It’s all right, Niall. I’d be asking a lot, even if you’d not just been through what you’ve been through over your skin. I don’t want to pester you about it now, anyway.” I stood up and started clearing the dishes from the table. “It’s only that you started talking about it yourself, and it seemed to be helping you sort out what you want to do, in the short term, at least.” “It does,” he said, helping me with the dishes. “Like I said, just knowing there’s someone to talk to who won’t feel betrayed by my wanting more than just what’s here, who won’t look down on me for not being willing to give up all of what I already have to go chasing what they think is important -- that helps.” “The ones who can’t understand why anyone would want to leave, and the ones who can’t understand why anyone would want to stay. You’ve had this conversation before.” “Aye. With Jock and the other old fishermen. They understand better than the ones my age, funnily enough.” “Some of them, at any rate.” Jock and his friends were an odd bunch. Not all of the old men of the village were as tolerant of change, of differences, as they were. Maybe it was the long association with the silkies. “What about you, Richard? You’re different.” “Because I come from a comfortably upper-middle-class family where half the relatives had the sort of job that made it perfectly feasible to spend a month or two or three at the summer cottage, working, not just a frantic rush down to the weekend retreat for compulsory relaxation. I never learnt as a child that I had to choose between the city and the country, only that I had to think about how I divided my time.” I was reminiscing now, but why not, when I had an audience who seemed to be enjoying it? “I had a few years as a city boy, bright lights and all, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially the other city boys.” Niall smirked slightly at that. “I thought that might be easier in the city, from what I’ve read.” “I don’t know. Maybe my family was just more old-fashioned than most about wanting quality of life along with the money. Other people seem to be unable to have both, even when they’ve got enough money that they don’t need to work.” “But you do work,” Niall reminded me. “You don’t have to work, but you do anyway.”

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“Yes, but I found work that kept me happily occupied rather than being a burden to me. I enjoyed being a city boy so much that I didn’t miss this side of things until I came down here, but when I did, I organised things so that I could have both.” “That’s why some of your friends annoy you, isn’t it?” Niall said softly. “It’s not just them not understanding that you’re working when you’re here, even when you’re not in front of the computer. They want the life you’ve got here, but they don’t want to put the effort in to get it. They don’t even see the effort you’ve put in. You’re part of the village even though you’re an outsider, and they want the good bits of that without the bad.” Just how much had I said to my village friends over the last few years, and what conclusions had they drawn from it? “You’re no innocent about people’s behaviour, are you?” “Dougal’s very fond of Agatha Christie, and Miss Marple does say all the world’s mirrored in a village.” “Too true. At least the village mostly lets me keep out of the local vendettas. That bit of fitting in I can do without.” “So could I.” Niall sighed, then went on with his washing up. “I wish I’d known you before.” I put my hand on his shoulder, rubbed gently. “Look. You know you’re welcome in my house even if your skin’s returned first thing tomorrow morning.” “I’m glad of it.” He fell silent and said nothing more after that than questions about where to put things away. When we went back to the lounge, he picked up the Radio Times and flicked through it. “Anything you want to watch?” he asked. I shook my head. “I’d rather get on with work, since it seems to be flowing tonight.” “Will I disturb you?” “Not if you keep the sound down.” I felt rather guilty now about my rant on people disturbing me. “If you want to talk, I’m happy to. It’s just that if you’d rather watch TV or read, I’ll get on with some work.” “I could do with something to switch off with,” Niall said, flopping down on the sofa. “It’s been a long day, even if we didn’t really do all that much.” “Well, if there’s nothing on TV, you can always look through the videos and DVDs.” I sat down at my computer, reassured that Niall would ask if he needed something. I was soon happily scribbling notes, the sound of the TV a quiet background noise that kept me company rather than intruding. I barely noticed when the programme finished and Niall started prowling around the bookshelves. The rest of the evening went much as the one before, with Niall quietly reading as I got on with my work. It was getting late enough to think about going to bed when I finally surfaced. Niall glanced up at me as I pushed the chair away from the desk. “Do you fancy a bit of supper?” he asked.

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I could guess where he’d picked that habit up from. “I’ll just have some hot milk before I go to bed. But there’s a tea bread in the kitchen, if you fancy a bit of toast or something.” “I think I’ll have a slice. Shall I make your milk?” “Thanks. Half a mug, forty seconds in the microwave.” He nodded and went out to the kitchen. I could get used to this. I could get used to it all too easily. Not just my supper being made for me, but the quiet, undemanding company of the evening. I didn’t think it was just trying not to disturb me, not looking at how far he’d got through his book. Niall was one of those people who are capable of enjoying someone’s company without needing to talk to them. I’d had friends at university like that. We’d while away a Sunday afternoon sitting in one another’s rooms, studying or reading for pleasure, with no more said in three or four hours than “Want a cup of tea?” It was enough to know that there was someone else there. We’d mostly gone our own way after university, too far apart to see each other often, but the one or two still within easy distance had been occasional refuges for me, still were when I was in Edinburgh. I barely heard a quiet knock -- at the kitchen door, I thought. I got up to go and answer it, but then heard voices. Jock came through to me a few seconds later. “William’s still in a mood,” he said without preamble. “I think it’s best if we leave it for now. You don’t mind Niall staying here a bit longer?” “No. He’s good company, and he doesn’t get in the way. He can stay as long as he likes, and I’m not saying that because he’s decorative.” Jock grunted in agreement. “I don’t mind saying that the pair of you are suited to each other, and I’m not referring to that, either.” “Not quite at home anywhere. We talked about it.” “Well, if this has to happen, I’m glad it happened while you were here. At least there’s somewhere to put Niall that makes it quite, quite obvious that it’s not the end of the world if he loses his skin. Obvious to Niall and William both.” “That point has occurred to Niall. And I’ll take his sister, too, if need be. Mind, I don’t have room to board the entire clan.” Jock chuckled. “Nobody’s asking you to. One of them’s quite enough to be going on with, and it’s enough to make the point should anyone else be getting ideas about if William gets away with it ...” “One or two of William’s friends, you mean.” I’d been told William hadn’t been so bad as a teenager, that he’d fallen into bad company. Having met the company occasionally, I could believe it. “They’ll regret it if they try,” Niall said coldly from the doorway where he was standing. He brought a mug over to me, then sat down on the sofa with his plate.

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You could get away with abusing one silkie’s trust, but only one silkie. The fishermen had been afraid that the silkie people would have nothing to do with them because of William’s behaviour. And Niall and any other silkie who frequented the village would know exactly who William was friends with, which boats to avoid. Or sink. I looked at the ruthless expression on the fairy man’s face, and a chill ran down my spine. William I thought might be forgiven eventually, because he was genuinely in love with Ailsa and allowances could be made. Someone who tried it simply as an easy way to force a woman had better not have any business on the water after that. Silkies might be among the gentler of the fairy folk of legend, but even they could be an unforgiving lot when sufficiently provoked. Then Niall’s expression softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, Richard.” “You’re not the only one who’s had a bit of a shock these last two days,” I muttered into my milk. “We can’t go to the land for justice. We have to make our own,” he said. “It’s not even that. It’s ...” I groped for the words, fumbling because I wasn’t even sure myself of why he’d scared me. And then I understood. “When I first saw you, you were vulnerable, in need of help. And now ... well, it’s like going to help a bedraggled, halfdrowned cat some bastard’s chucked in the pond, and getting it warm and dry and comfortable -- and then seeing the claws and teeth it could have used against me if it had mistaken me for someone who meant it harm.” “It’s still good to know that there’s someone who pulled me from the pond, who’d do it again if need be,” Niall said. And I would. For all that he’d just frightened me, he was still vulnerable and in need of help. We stared at each other. Jock coughed gently. “I’ll just leave you two to sort this out between you,” he said. “I’ll see myself out.” We were silent until we heard the door close behind Jock. Then Niall said, “Richard ...” “It’s all right. It was just a bit of a shock, that’s all. Not just what I said about teeth and claws, but suddenly being reminded of what you are, what that implies.” “I thought you believed it.” “I did. But I was too busy being worried about you to have the screaming heebiejeebies last night.” That broke the tension between us. Niall smiled and said, “I suppose it’s a bit of a shock to find that your myth is a reality.” “Just a bit, yes.” I reached over for his plate. “Anyway, now that Jock has thoroughly shaken us up, we should probably try to get some sleep. I’ll wash these up; you go and use the bathroom first.”

50

Jules Jones

He nodded, and went out and away up the stairs. I took the plate and mug out to the kitchen to rinse and stack in the drainer. A prosaic task, reminding me that the real world was still there even if it had turned out to have more in it than I’d ever thought to see. Niall had finished in the bathroom by the time I got myself upstairs. Both bedroom doors were slightly ajar, both lights were off. My guess was that he was waiting in my room, afraid not of the dark but of being alone. And we never had got around to doing the laundry. Still, there were spare pyjamas if he wanted them. I went through my nighttime routine, habit keeping me going. Then I picked up a damp flannel and went to my room, not knowing quite what to expect. He was standing naked in the moonlight that streamed in through the window, the curtains wide open. He was well back from the window, but with the moonlight gleaming silver on his body he might still be visible from outside. I might have told him to close the curtains just in case there was anyone about to see, but I knew what he was staring at. The sea. He didn’t even look around at me as I came in. I threw the flannel on the chair, then walked up behind him and put my arms around his waist, saying nothing, just being there for him. He folded his arms over mine, shivering slightly as he did so. It wasn’t from cold; he might be naked, but the room was warm enough with the central heating. He was taller than me, but not so much that I couldn’t see over his shoulder, follow the line of his gaze. It was only a short walk from my cottage to the beach, not so far that I couldn’t make out a black speck on the water, one small black speck in the silver glitter of the moonlight. “Ailsa?” I asked quietly. “Probably.” “She’ll be all right. She knows how desperate William is; she knows to stay well clear. There was one of your people at the beach last night. Adam told her what had happened.” The speck moved and was gone. I held him, waiting for as long as it might take for him to break the spell that the sight of the sea had cast over him. When he finally moved, it was to twist around in my arms and seize me in his, clinging to me. Clinging to me, and then kissing me frantically. I could feel the need in him, the desperate need for contact. What startled me was recognising the matching desperate need in myself. I wanted him so badly, not just for sex but for someone to hold and be held by. At last he let go of my mouth, though he still held me tightly. “Don’t push me away, Richard,” he pleaded. “This isn’t payment in kind, I swear.” “I know, Niall, I know.” I reached up with one hand to cradle the back of his head in my palm. “It’s all right.” “There’s never been anyone for me before,” he said. “Not on land. None that would admit it, at any rate.”

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“You’ve never been to bed with a man before?” He’d not struck me as shy or inexperienced this morning, not even the sort of inexperience that goes with being no virgin but having only been with women. “Not in this shape. Not more than a quick fumble on the beach with one or two who’d deny it afterwards. My own people ...” He shrugged. “They don’t deny it if that’s what they like, but there aren’t many who do. And none have chosen me on the nights of the dance, not before one of our women has claimed me for her due.” So that was the way of it. He’d had sex, but not a relationship to go with it. I wondered what the dance was, what it entailed. It was clearly something to do with silkie culture -- the legends spoke of the nights when silkies danced in human form upon the beach -- but now was not the time to press him on that. What he needed now was reassurance and a safe place to be himself. “What do you want, Niall?” I asked, careful to pay attention to his body language. “You,” he said simply. Then, perhaps realising that a little more detail might be useful, “I want to feel you in me.” Not just a quick fumble, and not with someone who would deny him afterwards. Whatever he was looking for with me, it wasn’t payment in kind, nor was it just a young man looking for an easy way out of this village with someone who’d treat him well and who’d make him happy. “All right, Niall. But you’ll need to let go of me, for I can’t get my clothes off until you do.” “Sorry,” he said, looking a little embarrassed. He let go of me and stepped back slightly, giving me room to move. I stepped away from him but didn’t turn away as I stripped. I wanted to look at him, admire his slim body, while I still had enough self-control to do so. He was beautiful, well-muscled without being overmuscled, just as you’d expect from someone who’d built those muscles in earning a living. Some things must translate from seal body to human body, for he looked like a swimmer. Naked now, I went to the bedside cabinet for the condoms. I had a duty to him, not just to use them but to make sure he understood that he should use them with any who came after me. “You know about condoms?” “Aye. My da told me that I wasn’t to be leaving babies about that I couldn’t claim, nor risking picking up other things to be leaving about.” “Sensible man, your da.” Satisfied that he didn’t need the safe-sex lecture right now, I opened a condom and rolled it onto my cock. “You don’t need one tonight, I think, but you know where the packet is if you need to practice putting one on.” He was watching me intently, dark gaze fixed on my fingers as I handled the condom. “I know how. I was given a packet for just that reason when I was first old enough,” he said, “but I’m a bit out of practice. Tomorrow.”

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Again that odd mix of innocence and experience that had had me worried about whether I was taking advantage. He was an anachronism, something out of ancient legend, but he was well aware of the modern world and its benefits and dangers. I wanted to make this as good as possible for him; he deserved better than a quick fumble. Whether he’d let me make it slow and good was another matter -- I could hear his breathing quickening already. He was hard, had been since he’d clung to me as if he couldn’t let go. His erection strained up towards his belly, straight and solid and beautiful. But he was still inexperienced, and if he wanted to be on the bottom, I wanted him to be in a physical position where he still had some control. I had a cane armchair in the bedroom, light but sturdy. I dragged it over to the centre of the room. “Use that to lean on,” I said before going back to the bedside cabinet for the K-Y. While I was getting that out, he rearranged the chair to his liking, placing it so that he could lean on the back for support -- while looking out to sea. I said nothing, but warmed the K-Y in my hand, taking the chill off it. He still jerked as I used it on him. “Sorry,” I said, “didn’t mean to startle you.” “Feels different to what we use. And the village boys ...” “Just used spit.” That being what was available. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. “Well, you can get away with that, but this is better.” “Mm,” he agreed happily. No sign of resistance; he obviously knew how to relax when it wasn’t a hurried rush to get done before someone came by. He was squirming and pushing back onto my fingers by the time I was satisfied that he’d be all right. He wouldn’t be that tight, but that could wait for another time. I was sure now that there would be another time, more than one, for however long it took to restore Niall to the sea. I pushed away the thought of silkie women weeping for their lost home. Niall wanted this with me, tonight at least. The flannel was handy to wipe my hands clean. More of the K-Y warmed in my hand, this time for me. Onto my cock, quickly now, though I’d done it slow and teasing as foreplay often enough. Niall wouldn’t wait for that, was already wanking himself with one hand. “All right, all right,” I soothed. “I’ll do you now, only I didn’t want to hurt you by being careless.” “I can take it,” he said. The boast of a young man eager to prove himself. “I know. But tonight you don’t have to worry about someone coming past, or sand in the wrong place, or any of the other delights of outdoor sex. I want you to enjoy it, not prove something to me.” I eased myself against him, reminding myself to keep control and take it carefully to begin with. He was a little too tall for comfort, with the stance he’d taken. “Spread your feet a little.”

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He did as I said, gasping a little as my cockhead slid past his hole. “That’s it,” I said, and he pushed back against me. A little resistance, a little fumbling as I positioned myself just right, and then he opened to me, the tip of my cock sliding inside. He groaned and tried to force himself further back. “Shh, shh, it’s not a race.” Though I was having trouble holding back myself. “Just relax, give yourself a minute if you need to.” He held still, then said in astonishment, “It doesn’t hurt!” “Oh, Niall.” Had they been that clueless or careless, the village boys he’d experimented with? “It shouldn’t hurt, not if you’re doing it right. Not unless you want it to.” “I thought it was just the difference in shape.” “I think it was the difference between doing it as quickly as possible, and taking your time.” I eased a little further in, feeling him warm and tight around me. I couldn’t last much longer myself, for all the rude thoughts I was directing at Niall’s companions in teenage experimentation. It took all the self-control I had not to just thrust into him. He was warm and willing in my arms, no virgin I needed to be careful of, but still a stranger to just how damned good this could be with someone who took the trouble to make it so. Temptation personified. So I’d make it good, make it better than anyone he’d ever had before. At least in this shape. He listened to me then, letting me set the pace. He was wanking himself hard by the time I was as deep as I could get, but he hadn’t tried to push me into taking him faster than I felt he could handle. “All right?” I asked, wanting to be certain. “Feels good,” he muttered. “Feels better when someone else does this for you.” I reached for his cock, pushing his hand out of the way. He let me do it, just as he’d let me take control all along. “Comfortable?” He took a firmer grip on the back of the chair, using both hands again now that I was dealing with his cock for him. “Fine now.” He’d be all right, properly braced now so that he had some control over the pace, and used to the feel of me filling him. I felt no more qualms about pulling back, feeling air instead of him around my cock, and then thrusting back in, glorying in the feel of his body squeezing tightly around mine. I squeezed hard on his cock in turn, keeping to the rhythm as our bodies pulled apart and came together again, making a tight tunnel of my hand for him to thrust into with each beat of our rhythm. I had my other arm wrapped around his waist for support, letting him hold us both up against the chair. I could feel strong muscles under my arm, flexing to hold us in place as I thrust into him. His skin smelt good, freshly sweaty on a clean body, and I wanted to suck at it. Not practical in this position, but next time we’d do it in bed.

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Then he started clenching around me, deliberately, timing it with the rhythm we’d established. “Niall, I can’t hold off if you do that!” I could hardly get the words out; my mind was spinning in pleasure. “Good,” he said smugly. Then, rather less smug now, “Damn, neither can I!” I had just enough of my mind left to think that if I couldn’t make it long, maybe I could make it together. “All right, if you want it quick ...” I ground my cock into him, fast and deep, and pulled back for another thrust. I just managed to get both hands round his cock, squeezing him right along the full length as I slammed into him again. “Now!” I said, and by god we did, just like that, right as I reached the limit of my stroke. He yelped, and his cock jumped in my hand as his arse clutched around me, perfect timing for my own gasp and shudder as I started to come. We held still then, wrapped around each other as we came together. It’s not something I normally worry about, but, oh, it felt so sweet to do it the first time I was in him. Twice now we’d managed it, which I tried not to see as some sort of omen. Just luck, really. The same luck that had brought me onto the beach at just the right time, perhaps. I held his cock until he’d finished, his come spurting into my hand. Then I shifted a little to hold him around his waist, keep him wrapped up safe and warm in my arms until we were able to stand without the aid of the chair. We were both shaking when we finally pulled apart, my cock slipping from him. He turned around and put his arms around me, holding me as if he’d never let me go. He rubbed his cheek against my hair. “Thank you, Richard.” His voice was hoarse. “Think you’ll sleep now?” “Aye.” He pulled back slightly so that he could look me in the face. “That helped. A lot.” Then he kissed me gently on the lips, affection rather than arousal now. “I could probably even sleep on my own, if I had to. But I don’t want to.” “Neither do I.” God help me, if he’d announced that he was away off to his own room, I’d have tried to persuade him to stay. At least it was persuade -- I wouldn’t sink into the trap of telling him. “But we’d better clean up now.” I reluctantly let go of him and pulled off the condom with shaking hands. That went into a tissue and into the wastepaper basket, and by the time I’d finished with that, he’d already wandered into the bathroom. I followed him in and joined him at the sink for a quick wipedown. Then we went back to the bedroom, to what I realised was probably now our bedroom, and to bed. He cuddled up to me, one arm wrapped around me, but at least tonight I didn’t sense that desperate need for comfort. The reassurance that I was there, yes, and the simple pleasure of holding someone after sex, but that was all.

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I cuddled up to him in turn, seeking the contact. He looked at me in surprise. “I’m all right, Richard. I don’t need to be held tonight.” “But I do,” I said before I could censor myself. He looked worried. “I really didn’t mean to scare you earlier,” he said. “I know you never meant me any harm.” Not surprising he’d jumped to that conclusion; he was probably even right to some extent, but it was simpler than that. “It’s a while since I’ve had anyone to hold me. And humans don’t do well without the occasional cuddle from someone else.” He stared at me. “There are even scientific studies to prove it,” I said. “A cuddle a day keeps the doctor away, or at least has a measurable effect on the immune system.” He smiled at that. “Do your people really need to see it in a research paper before knowing that?” “No. And it doesn’t usually bother me. But I have had a bit of a shock the last two days, and it’s nice to have a cuddle.” He sighed and said, “I know exactly what you mean. I needed that, Richard. It wasn’t payment -- I needed it.” “Was it good?” I asked. “I want the truth, Niall, not a boost to my ego. I know Adam said there weren’t any real differences when you’re in human form, but if it doesn’t work for you because there are differences, I need to know.” “It was good,” he said, sounding sleepy now. “And one of the ways in which it was good was knowing that I could tell you if it wasn’t.” That reassurance I hadn’t explicitly asked for, but was glad to have. I settled down to sleep, my conscience at peace for the moment.

56

Jules Jones

Chapter Seven Niall was still asleep when I woke up the next morning, though as I tried to get out of bed without waking him, he stirred and opened his eyes. He saw me, and smiled. I kissed him. That made his smile even broader. “You don’t need to get up yet,” I said. “I’ll go and make the tea.” “No, Niall. I was getting up anyway. I’ll make the tea; you stay there for a bit. You’ve Jim Stuart to face this morning. I want you awake and refreshed.” He groaned and pulled the duvet up over his head. “Come on, Jim’s a nice bloke.” I hadn’t had much in the way of dealings with him, but he’d struck me as a decent copper, one who’d be sympathetic to Niall’s plight. “Yes, but I’ve always been told to keep out of the way of the police,” came a muffled voice from under the duvet. “Now I have to change the habit of a lifetime.” “It’ll be good practice,” I said, then hastily added, “for if you want to start going into town and so on. Jock seems to want to have you lot set up to be able to do that if you want to, instead of being stuck in the village.” Yesterday’s jaunt provided me with an example. “What if one of you had to go to hospital? At least Jim’s local officialdom.” Niall re-emerged from under the bedclothes. “That’s true. At least I’ve seen him before. Talked to him, even.” “That’s the spirit.” I patted his shoulder, then hauled myself out of bed and into the bathroom. Ten minutes later, I was standing in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil and realising that I still didn’t know what Niall’s preference in porridge was. I liked mine made

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with milk, not water. He’d seemed happy enough with it that way, but I decided to check. I went back upstairs and found him in the bathroom. “Thought I’d better get up,” he said, before I could say anything. “I was awake anyway.” Well, he’d had a much better night’s sleep last night. I wouldn’t nag him to go back to bed. “How do you like your porridge? I didn’t think to ask yesterday, but I make it with milk rather than water.” “Milk, please,” he said. “And full cream if you’ve got it, not semi. Sorry, I didn’t think about it in the shop yesterday.” When I raised an eyebrow at him, he said, “I need the calories, even if you don’t. It’s cold out there in the sea.” It made sense. If he had to stay for more than a few nights, I might have to make him cut back to a level suitable for his human metabolism, but even then he would probably need more than I did. I made sure I got enough exercise to be healthy, but it wasn’t the heavy labour of a fishing boat. “I’ve got full cream, but there’s cream, as well. Only, you can put that on afterwards; it’s a bit rich for me.” “Fine,” he said, giving me a smile. “Have I time for a shower?” “As long as you’re quick.” He was. He hadn’t even bothered to dress before coming downstairs, just wrapped himself in his dressing gown. He arrived just as I was setting the porridge on the table. He sat down, and he did indeed reach for the cream jug, pouring it on without even tasting the porridge first. Sugar, too, though not so much of that. “I hope you’ve got good teeth or a good dentist,” I said. “Good teeth. And Jock to nag me about toothbrushes.” “Jock’s where you mostly stay, then?” “Aye.” He stopped eating long enough to say, “He was my granddad’s partner, so that’s where granddad stayed if he wanted a night or two onshore. And when I got curious, I went, too.” I remembered what could happen to seals, and didn’t ask him any more about his grandfather. Or the rest of his family, or even if he had a family in the way that I would think of it. I didn’t even know if he saw much of them, other than Ailsa. Mind, I didn’t see much of my own, and not necessarily because they didn’t quite approve of me and my lifestyle. The weeks drift by, and then you realise that it’s nearly a birthday, or Christmas, or some other season of visiting those who are far away. At least nobody would complain if I didn’t turn up for a few weeks, or showed up with a handsome young fisherman in my wake. They’d even take it at face value, most of them, if I said that the people who’d helped me with my research had called in the debt, that I was helping one of their young people find a way out of fishing.

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“Richard?” “Mmm?” “You seemed a bit far away.” “Just thinking that it’s a good thing my family has learned not to ask questions.” I grinned in reminiscence. “If one of them did drop in on me in Edinburgh and you were there, they’d accept what I said about you being someone from the village up for a visit. They’d probably even believe it.” “Will we go to Edinburgh?” he asked, sounding wistful. Then he said, “I hope my family understand about you.” “If that was Ailsa on the beach the other night, she seemed to accept it. But I imagine they’ll stay away for a while.” Niall sighed. “It’s not good. There are some will say it’s not just William, that there are others, and others worse than him. And they’d be right.” “She must have heard what your friends had to say to William about it.” I patted his hand. “Worry about it later. Forget you’re a silkie, at least for this morning. Today you’re a fisherman with transient global amnesia.” He grinned at me. “Aye. Nice long words. Does a simple fisherman know them?” “You’re not stupid, and you’ve been home-educated by parents who had books, even if they didn’t believe in schools.” He set down his spoon and stared at the remains of his porridge. “Of course. I never went to school. I was taught by the adults around me. No school records. So it must have been home-schooling.” He sighed and dug the spoon into the porridge once again. “So much to remember.” “You don’t, not just yet,” I reminded him. “You don’t remember, and anything you do, well, that’s just your memory starting to come back.” “Keep it simple; keep it as close to the truth as possible.” I nodded. “Just don’t mention that your isolated home is under the sea, not next to it.” “Even that story’s not going to last much longer, is it?” he said. “There are no remote places anymore, not when the spy satellites can read a number plate.” My feeling was that this had occurred to Jock some time back. “Yours may be the last generation that can easily blend in, you know.” Not that people couldn’t manage it, but the life of an illegal immigrant can be a hard one. His gaze was distant now, his mind busy with more than the mechanical process of eating his breakfast. Finally, he said, “There are old abandoned farms around here. They’d do, if there are no official records of visits to see if anyone was living there.” “Reclusive families, maybe squatting, maybe on land they’ve a right to but not telling the council they’re there?” We’d both finished eating, so I started clearing the table. “Let

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Jock and the others plant that theory, though. You’re amnesiac for as long as we can get away with it.” “I suppose that’s the easiest, for now.” He got up and helped me clear the table, putting away the cream and sugar. We stacked the dishes in the sink, and I ran some hot water for them to soak. When I turned around, Niall still seemed far away. I went over to him and hugged him. “It will be all right.” He held me in turn and smiled down at me. Not a completely happy smile, there was a rather wistful cast to it. “I can believe that. Now. When I’ve got something good out of it.” Then he kissed me. I’m not so old yet that I can’t get it up twice in twelve hours, with the right incentive. Niall was very much the right incentive. Tall, dark, and handsome, wrapped up in a dressing gown, his hair still smelling faintly of the shampoo. He was a wonderful armful, and I was sorely tempted to take him back to bed. I held him and kissed him, and we weren’t far off the point of no return when there was a knock on the back door. You’d think we were a pair of teenagers, the way we guiltily jumped apart. I checked that our dressing gowns weren’t showing enough to embarrass us, then went to unlock the kitchen door. Adam just shook his head at me. “Sorry to throw a bucket of cold water over the pair of you. But you’d best put a net curtain over the window if you’re going to be doing that in the kitchen.” “Sorry,” I muttered. He looked at me for a few seconds, then said, “Well, I can see why Jock thought it best if you took him on. Only be careful, now, both of you. People talk.” “Sorry,” Niall muttered in turn. “Too busy thinking about other things not to discuss in public.” “I can believe that. No harm done, not when it’s only me, but a few folk will always find something nasty to say,” Adam said. “Don’t give them something to talk about. Now, do you think you’ll be ready in time for Jim’s surgery? He’ll be here first thing today.” I glanced at the clock. We’d been up at a more reasonable time this morning, and there was plenty of time yet. “Can’t see why not.” Adam nodded. “Away up the stairs with you and get dressed, Niall. Best to be early.” “I still need to shower,” I said. “Do you want me along?” “Don’t take this amiss, lad, but maybe not. Let his friends take him along, the ones who can say they’ve known him for years. Jim Stuart can always come to see you if he wants to check on anything.”

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Fair enough. According to our story, I was only someone they’d asked to give Niall a bed for the night; there wasn’t anything I could tell Jim Stuart about his history. “I need to catch up on work, so I’ll be here all morning.” “Good,” Adam said. “It’ll help if we can say there’s someone willing to support him, but Jim will want to check. Best if you’re here when he comes calling.” He pulled out a chair and sat down. “I’ll wait for him to get dressed.” I assumed that Adam would want a cup of tea, and put the kettle on again. “I’ll tell Jim that I’m happy to put him up for a week or two, in thanks for the help you people gave me with my research. It’s true enough; I’d do it for that even without ...” I trailed off, not liking to say it out loud. Adam looked up at me, his face sombre. “I hope you know what you’re getting into, laddie. You’re a nice wee soul, and I’d not like to see you hurt. He’s not like you. He’ll want a wife and bairns one day, maybe.” “I know he’s bisexual.” Niall at least had the possibility of an honest legal marriage, unlike me. “It’s not just that. He’s one of the silkie folk; even if he stays with you, he has ties elsewhere.” “I won’t hold him, Adam. I’d be over there at William’s cottage taking it apart if I thought there was any chance of finding Niall’s skin.” “And the more credit to you for it. But even if he never finds his skin, he’ll always be a silkie. His people are here, and he has obligations.” There was some undercurrent here I could feel but not quite fathom. Adam was trying to warn me -- for my own good, I thought -- but wasn’t going to tell me why. Not yet, at any rate. I was still the incomer, trusted more than most, but trusted with this tale only out of necessity. “I know I’ll have to give him up.” And that thought was already an aching hurt. I’d never believed in love at first sight, but this was perilously close to it. Not love, not yet, but the bone-deep knowledge that it could be. Something must have shown in my face. Adam said, very quietly, “Go and have your shower, Richard. And don’t worry about it for now.”

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Chapter Eight They were gone when I went back downstairs, their mugs neatly rinsed and stacked on the draining board. The house felt empty without him, after two days of constant companionship. That was what I missed, the comforting, undemanding companionship that had reminded me of my time at university. That was how I had known that it could be love; that I had felt that quite Platonic pleasure in someone’s presence once again, with someone I also very badly wanted to take to bed. I buried myself in that other comfort of mine, my work. There was research to be done, and after a while I didn’t even have to resist the temptation to research silkie legends. I was startled when I heard the doorbell ring. I opened the door to find it blocked by six-foot-six of policeman. They’ve long since loosened the height requirements, but Jim Stuart would have fitted in very nicely back in the days when policemen were recruited in part for their ability to loom over miscreants. He wasn’t quite looming, but he definitely wanted a wee chat. “I understand you’ve offered a home to Mr McCrae,” he said without preamble. “At least for the moment.” I stood back from the door. “Would you like to come in?” “Thank you.” He carefully closed the door behind him and followed me into the lounge, where he settled himself into the sofa. He took out his notebook and glanced at it. “Now, would you like to tell me what happened the other night? It seems there was a bit of a fight, and McCrae wasn’t in a fit state to go home on his own, so you were asked to look after him.” Canny bastard. I doubted the others would have told him outright about the fight; he’d tossed that in to see if I’d bite and confirm his own suspicions. Since him having those suspicions was what we wanted, I was perfectly happy to tell him the absolute truth. “I don’t know if there was a fight. I stumbled into an almighty row about something or other, but

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they wouldn’t tell me exactly what it was about, and there wasn’t any actual fighting at that point.” “But there might have been,” he prompted. “There probably was, but I got the run-around when I asked what was going on. They’re friends with me, but I’m still an outsider. What I don’t know, I can’t tell to you or anyone else they don’t want knowing about it.” “I know what you mean, Mr Dunn,” Stuart said, tapping his notebook with his pencil. “That gang of old reprobates want me to find out where he comes from so they can return him, but they won’t tell me how and why he can’t remember that for himself. I don’t mind, so long as there’s no more trouble, but I will not be pleased if there is.” That was very definitely a warning. I picked my way carefully. “The doctor said he might well have been in a fight. Not with them, I’m certain. I think they’ve a good idea who it was and maybe what it was about, but they’ve no proof. They won’t start anything now, but if someone else does, they’ll finish it.” “They are definitely ... annoyed about something,” Stuart rumbled. “They seem to care a lot for the young man, even if they don’t know where he actually comes from. Do you have any suggestions on that point?” “Jock said Niall’s the grandson of his old fishing partner. But he doesn’t know where Niall lives, and I think he’s telling the truth. Seemed to be a case of carefully not knowing and now regretting it.” Jim nodded. “My feeling, too. He wanted to take McCrae home, but couldn’t. So how did you get mixed up in this?” “I’ve a spare bedroom, and I owe them a favour. When we realised it might be a bit longer than one night, well, I can afford it easily enough, and I work at home, so I’m home all day to keep an eye on him. The doctor thought he’d be better off with people he knows rather than in hospital, but he needs to be watched for a few days. I don’t mind; he’s good company.” “Is he now?” There was the hint of a sardonic smile on Stuart’s face. I kept quiet. “I think you understand me,” Stuart said. “Yes. But is it relevant?” “Of course it’s relevant, Mr Dunn. I don’t know what the fight was about, but when those men ask the village queer to take in a stray, I have to wonder.” I refused to bristle at the insult. He went on, “No offence intended, Mr Dunn. But you must admit that those are the words that would be used by some in the village, and your friends will be well aware of that, even if they don’t mind your tastes.”

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“They’re well aware of that,” I muttered. “I pointed it out to them at the time.” “So maybe they think that if they need to board him somewhere for the night, and have no room or no inclination to take him in themselves, what the fight was about means he might be safer with you than with some others in the village.” He’d jumped to that conclusion quickly enough, but so had the doctor. The doctor and the policeman were both men who had to think about such things. I knew I had the doctor’s support; I was starting to think I might have the policeman’s, as well. “I think it was mostly that I was there, and convenient. And I’ve my suspicions about something else, as well, although that was more after we knew he’d need looking after for a while. But you’re probably right.” Jim Stuart set down his notebook, folded his hands in his lap, and looked hard at me. “And the something else?” “They’re old men worried about the future of the village and their young people. An educated man from the city, with contacts, well, he could be a useful friend to someone who’s still young enough to get out of fishing, maybe go to university ...” I saw the expression on his face and hastily added, “Not in exchange for sexual favours. Just that they’re trying to expose him to the idea that there’s a way out he can take, and it needn’t mean abandoning the village permanently.” Stuart slowly scanned the room -- the computer with its office-class printer, the collection of books and research material overflowing a desk, the rack of stationery. “The idea that you can have a white-collar job and still live here, if you’ve the self-discipline to telecommute.” He nodded. “Not so bad an idea. Do you have any objection to keeping him if it turns out to be a long-term responsibility?” “No. He’s good company, and he’s actually useful. Jock suggested that he can do odd jobs for me to earn his keep. And he doesn’t bother me when I’m working.” The skin around his eyes crinkled, even if he didn’t quite smile. “I’ve been hearing about that. Old Man Jock did suggest that he might be useful to you simply as an excuse to tell your friends that they’ll have to sleep on the couch if they want to visit.” I couldn’t help it; I started laughing at that. “It never occurred to me, but, yes, it would be a wonderful excuse. Sorry, that’s my live-in housekeeper’s bedroom; you’re on the couch.” “I will not ask you if he does have his own bedroom, Mr Dunn. Please ensure that I do not have to do so.” He put away his notebook and stood up. “I’ll need to call again at some point, but I have enough information for now. I’ll look into what needs to be done if, by some mischance, he’s one of the few who don’t recover from the amnesia. It’s unlikely it will be needed, but best to be on the safe side.” He walked towards the door, then paused and said, “Don’t hesitate to ring the station if you feel threatened. I know it’s some distance, so I can’t be here immediately, but the mere fact that I turn up will be of help in discouraging any future attempts to continue the ... discussion ... of two nights ago.”

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“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. “I’ve never had problems myself, but Niall coming here after that fight might touch something off.” “Thank you, Mr Dunn, for bothering to get involved,” he said rather dourly. “It would have been easy for you to say you wanted nothing to do with it, especially as ‘what will the neighbours say’ is not a trivial concern for you. I’m glad to know that there’s at least one person in this little mess who has the sense to call me in.” “I’m sure they’d have told you about it eventually.” He grinned cynically. “Aye. Eventually. Even with your prodding, they waited until today.” “To give them their due, by the time we realised there might be a problem, it was as easy to wait until this morning anyway.” I followed him to the door. “Oh, do you have my phone number?” “Jock gave it to me. And he’s made sure McCrae has it written down on a piece of paper now. They’ve politely made themselves scarce over at the boats so that I could talk to you without feeling crowded, so I don’t know how many you’ll have home for lunch or when.” “Thanks for letting me know.” I watched him walk away down the street, back towards the village hall where he must have parked his car. That had gone more easily than I’d expected, and along the lines Jock had hoped for. Jim Stuart had his suspicions, but would leave well enough alone as long as there was no further trouble. And he was definitely thinking about how to get Niall an official identity. I shut the door and heaved a sigh of relief. One more hurdle jumped. And Jim Stuart was on our side in more than the matter of Niall’s supposed amnesia problem. We could let things lie now for a while. Officialdom officially knew and was content to let Niall stay with me while procedures were followed. I glanced at my watch and found it was almost lunchtime. Bread and cheese and a bit of salad would do nicely; it wouldn’t matter what time they came back, or how many of them. In the end it was one o’clock on the dot, and Jock, Adam, and Dougal with Niall. “We thought we’d best leave it, not rush straight in as soon as he’d left,” Adam said. “So what happened?” I ran through what we’d said. They looked pleased. “Well done, lad,” Dougal said. “That’ll keep him happy. He won’t be getting himself involved if he thinks there’s no need.” “He hasn’t got time to go chasing will-o’-the-wisps.” Jock snorted. “He knows there’s something going on, but he doesn’t care what it is so long as there’s no trouble comes out of it.” He dug a spoon into the pickle jar and spread a lavish layer on his bread. “He’s satisfied

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that Niall’s local and being looked after, so he won’t pry. He’ll just check nobody’s looking for a young man gone missing, and file the paperwork.” “He was inspecting me to see if I was a suitable nursemaid, wasn’t he?” I asked. Jock grinned. “He didn’t come right out and say it, but he did ask if we were happy about Niall staying on here.” “And then went off to inspect you,” Adam said. He waved a knife at the block of cheese. “Though I don’t think he’s worried about Niall starving.” “He did ask about clothes, though, if it was necessary to get an interim payment from the social to get him some basics,” Jock said. “I told him Niall had things at my house, for when he needed a change of clothes from the boat, and you had some spare clothing for visitors.” Which reminded me of something I still hadn’t asked about. “What do we say if someone asks about the clothes he was wearing on the night he was hurt?” I looked at Niall. “For that matter, why weren’t you wearing clothes? I’m sure some of the legends suggest that silkies do, in human form.” He shrugged. “Whatever we last wore before putting on our skin is there the next time we take it off. Nowadays we usually make sure we do have something on, to be on the safe side. But I took my clothes off to go swimming. It’s harder work swimming in this shape. Sometimes that’s what you want.” Such as when you’re angry and want to work it off with exercise. “William took your clothes along with your skin?” “Ailsa and I wear the same sort of thing. He’d have thought they were hers, in the dark.” “Probably just snatched the bundle without even looking,” Jock said. “He’d have been in a hurry to get it away out of sight.” Again that sudden chill tension from Niall. He was very protective of his sister. I put an arm around his waist, ignoring the presence of the older men. They carefully didn’t notice, Dougal clattering his way up from the folding chair to put the kettle on. They chattered on about what they might do with the rest of the day, and Niall gradually relaxed. Eventually Adam said, “What Richard asked -- has anyone said anything about Niall’s clothes yet?” Nobody had. “Stay with the truth, then,” Adam said. “No clothes on him when we found him, but he was wet as if he’d been swimming. He was confused, and we didn’t think to ask him, but someone probably stole them from the beach.” “But don’t say anything unless someone asks,” said Jock.

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There was general agreement to that. It seemed to be some sort of signal; they all got up from the table. “Come round to the boatshed tomorrow,” Adam said to Niall. “There’s work mending nets, if you want it.” Adam was officially retired, but Adam’s son and grandson still ran boats, with a bit of help from Adam. The work would be real, and plausible as something that might be done in exchange for a bit of cash in hand. “Unless there’s something else I should be doing?” Niall said hesitantly, looking around at me. “Not at the moment, I think. Jim Stuart said to leave the paperwork with him.” Adam nodded. “We’ll see you tomorrow, then.” The three old men let themselves out through the kitchen door and wandered off. I got up from my chair and locked the door behind them. I might not have lace to put up in the window, but I could make sure nobody wandered into the house unannounced. Niall started clearing the table. I went to help him, but when we’d done that, he insisted on doing the dishes by himself. “I’ve taken enough of your time today, with Jim Stuart coming around here.” “It’s no bother. Besides, I want to hear from you how it went this morning.” He stopped what he was doing, still holding one plate in his hand. After a few seconds, he said, “It was awkward. But it wasn’t as bad as I feared. You were right; it was better to start with someone I at least recognise.” “Did he recognise you?” I asked. Niall nodded. “He said he could remember seeing me around the village, but he didn’t remember seeing me anywhere else in particular.” Something else occurred to him. “Oh, and he talked to me in Gaelic.” Jim Stuart wasn’t a native speaker, but he might well be fluent enough to pick up on whether Niall was. It could be for more reason than checking that Niall was genuinely Scottish. “Might have been checking to see if it’s worth getting someone to trace your accent to a particular area.” “He’s going to try, isn’t he?” Niall asked. He went back to his washing up. “He cared.” The thought seemed to please him. “I think he’ll check to make sure you’re not on the missing persons register, and then leave things alone for a week or two to see if you get your memory back. He’s satisfied himself that you’re being looked after, so the only thing is whether there’s someone worrying about why you haven’t come home.” “It’s good to know people care,” he said wistfully. “I don’t get quite so frightened about what would happen if people found out about us.” I rubbed one hand up and down his back, trying to comfort him. “You need to be careful. But there are as many would try to protect your people as would exploit them.”

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He reached back to touch me. “Like you.” Then he said, “Would you get me the information on the Open University? The others thought it was a good idea. I’d like to read through it.” “I’ll set up the laptop for you. You can browse their site, get a feel for what’s available.” I went to organise the machine for him, pleased that he’d have something to occupy himself with for a few hours. He spent most of the afternoon with the computer. I checked occasionally to make sure he wasn’t straying off the site, but he seemed to be fascinated with the different courses. He had several pages of scribbled notes by the time he got up to make dinner. I left him to it, deciding that if I was going to give him the job of housekeeper, I should do it and quash my misgivings about exploiting his situation. He’d ask me if he needed help, and there were basic cookbooks in the kitchen. He was on a Chinese kick, apparently. He’d produced a very passable lemon chicken. He waited rather anxiously until I’d taken my first mouthful, then asked, “Is it all right?” “It’s very good for your first go.” Hell, if he could cook like this out of a book, I’d swallow my scruples and let him do most of the cooking without arguing about it. He looked relieved. “Thank you. I followed the instructions in the book with the photos. That made it a lot easier, but it didn’t look quite the way I was expecting.” “That’s because you were expecting it to look like a greasy spoon takeaway, not what you’d be served in a sit-down restaurant,” I reassured him. “It doesn’t have to be day-glo yellow to be lemon sauce.” “Maybe I’ll try pizza next,” he suggested. “Though we’ll need to get some fresh basil.”

Fresh basil? This from someone who’d probably never seen the stuff until I’d taken him to the supermarket yesterday? “You’ve wanted to broaden your horizons for a long time, haven’t you?” “I’ve been to France and the Netherlands,” he said, grinning. “Bit of a long swim, and I don’t speak the language, but I’ve been to both a few times. The money changing to euros didn’t help.” I could see that; if the silkies had to rely on a stash of banknotes hidden somewhere, the change from francs and guilders to euros would have been a real pain. They’d have had to get all their European currency changed over again. “I suppose someone can always get money changed for you, but they wouldn’t want to do it too often, in case questions were asked.” He nodded. “Occasionally someone will get a batch of notes and hold it for us. The euros make it easier in some ways -- we only need to keep one lot of currency for most places now, and the fishermen often put in at an Irish port, so they’ve reason to carry euros.” “You’d like Australia; they’ve got plastic banknotes that don’t mind getting wet,” I said. “A bit far to swim even for your people, though, I think.”

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“We don’t go as far as some other seals do,” he said. I watched him carefully, checking for stress but trying not to be obvious about it. He went on, “We mostly hang about in areas we know. It’s safer.” “No culling here.” “No.” His mouth turned down. “Easier to get away when you understand what’s happening, but even so ... one or two of us have been caught in the cull.” He stared out of the window at the darkness. “Their names will be remembered.” Because even in extremis, they had not shed their skins in front of hostile humans, had not sacrificed that thin thread of safety that secrecy offered the silkies. He looked back at me, but there wasn’t the bitter anger there now, just regretful acceptance. “It’s not like that, Richard,” he said, reading my expression. “It’s not murder to the ones who do it; they don’t know, and they don’t do it out of malice. How many thousands of you die on the roads every year? But you accept it. It’s part of life, a price you’re willing to pay in exchange for the benefits.” I wondered if it would be worth them giving up the secrecy, but the price would undoubtedly be too high. They’d be curiosities, freaks -- or experimental material. Intelligent marine mammals were already being used in navy experiments; I shuddered to think what might happen to someone like Niall. Britain didn’t have the draft, but in countries that did ... “Richard?” “I wondered if it was really worth the price for you; and then remembered reasons why it is.” He stabbed a fork into his dinner. “The joys of reality TV. You people still have a freak show mentality, don’t you? You’re just not quite as honest about it as a hundred years ago.” My people. The food suddenly weighed heavily in my stomach. “Not all of us.” “I’m sorry, Richard. I didn’t mean to ...” “All relationships take negotiation,” I reminded him. “We just have slightly more unusual things to negotiate than most.” Not even all that unusual, really. The exact details might be different, but most of my friends with cross-cultural relationships had fairly similar problems to work around, including ‘what will the family say’. And most of them seemed to manage things fairly well, so I couldn’t see why Niall and I couldn’t. “Let’s talk about something more cheerful. Anything on TV you want to watch tonight?” “I’ll have to check the Radio Times, but probably.” And watch TV we did. It was good to cuddle up on the sofa with Niall, leaning my head on his shoulder. We didn’t talk about anything to do with who he was, what he was, until he said, “It’s so good to be able to do this. Sit here holding a man like this, no pressure to do anything, just be together. I didn’t know it could be like this.” “You’ve only had a choice between those who want to hide it, and those who wouldn’t but aren’t interested in you?”

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“You’re interested in me, though, aren’t you?” he asked, smiling at me. “Let’s see now. Tall, dark, handsome, intelligent, has the same problems as me with wanting to have both the worlds he lives in rather than choosing one ...” I slid my hand down his chest, and further on down to cup his erection. “And well-hung, if we’re going to consider the more basic motives. Yes, I think I’d be interested in you quite apart from the fact that I’m fascinated by the fact you exist.” He grinned at me and laid his hand over mine. “At least I can be quite, quite certain you don’t want me only for my body.” “Though it’s certainly not a minor factor in my considerations.” It was a magnificent body, one I’d have been very happy to have in my bed if I’d been looking for just sex. That it housed an equally attractive mind made things even better. He kissed me, lightly at first, then harder, reaching to hold me with both arms around me. I was still holding his cock, but I wanted more body contact. I scrambled to kneel over him, wanting to hold him, wanting to feel him pressed against me. We were both panting by the time he pulled away a little and said, “Let’s have an early night?” “The curtains are closed if you want to stay down here.” “No,” he said. “I want you in me again. I want to do that and know it’ll feel good right from the start. And the condoms are upstairs.” Oh, god, that was good to hear him say. The sensible part of my mind was glad to hear him thinking about safety; the rest of me was just glad to hear him say how much he wanted me to take him upstairs and fuck him. I could see it in my mind’s eye, see him under me, desperate for me. “Now, Richard. I don’t think I can wait much longer.” “All right.” I scrambled off him and got to my feet. He was only a step behind me all the way up the stairs, willing and eager. I might have gone for a slow strip, building up to it, but I’d caught fire from his need. I wrenched my clothes off and grabbed a condom. This wasn’t the time to suggest he practice putting one on me; I put it on quickly while he pulled back the covers on the bed. I had just enough sense left to say, “Put a pillow under your hips,” as he arranged himself face-down on the bed. I was thirty-five, and behaving like a teenager -- with someone I wanted very much to impress. Jumping straight onto him wasn’t a good idea, however eager he might be. From somewhere I found the self-control to take it slowly, to apply the K-Y properly so that I could be certain he’d be comfortable. Then I settled myself down on him, feeling hot skin pressed against mine, hard muscles under me. “All right?” He nodded, and I eased myself into him, trying to take it slowly. It was easier to control my pace tonight; he wasn’t trying to push me into going faster, but accepting the pace I set. It was hard to hold back, with him hot and tight around me, but somehow I managed it. Slow and deep and good, and then I was all the way in.

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That was the limit of my self-control. Niall was enjoying himself, no doubt about that, not with the way he was gasping and moaning. I pulled back and shoved in again, hard. He pushed back in turn, slamming us together, urging me on. I didn’t have to worry about us falling over. I didn’t have to worry about whether he was all right. I didn’t have to worry about a thing except fucking him as hard as I could. I could smell his excitement, his skin hot with exertion and lust. “Harder!” he said, and I did, confident he could take it. “Almost there,” he said next, and I was startled. It was good, but it was only a few strokes; had he really been that close before we’d even tumbled into bed? And then he flailed around with one hand and somehow found mine and squeezed my hand with his as his arse squeezed my cock in the rhythm of orgasm. No coming together tonight, but I didn’t care, just did my best to catch up with him. That lovely tight squeezing around my cock helped, oh, indeed it did, and it was only a few seconds after he’d slumped in satisfied exhaustion that I felt it start to hit me. And then nothing existed for me outside the bed and the man in my arms as I came. We might have been fast getting there, but it took forever to come. And then I was done, collapsed onto Niall, his body warm and welcoming beneath me. We lay like that for a while, too wrung out to move. Eventually I remembered my manners and eased off to lie next to him. I kept one arm draped across his back, not wanting to lose contact with him. He opened one eye and peered at me. “So it wasn’t just a lucky chance last night,” he murmured. “It can be that good every time.” “Don’t raise your expectations too much,” I warned. “It’s not always mind-blowingly wonderful.” “Don’t care, as long as it is sometimes.” He stirred himself enough to stretch his arms. “There’s something to be said for doing it in this shape and in a bed. With the right man.” He smiled at me. “Why couldn’t you have moved here when I was still young enough to think with my balls?” “When you’d have jumped on me without thinking on the night I said I was gay, instead of listening to warnings about not getting involved with incomers?” I guessed. He sighed. “No, I don’t suppose I was ever quite that stupid with hormones. It’s just ... I wish there’d been someone as comfortable as you are with wanting men. But anyone I could have trusted wouldn’t have been.” “Pretty much by definition,” I said. “Even if you’re out and unashamed -- well, it’s hard to be comfortable about it if you’re still living in the small village where you were born.” “I was. But it’s different for me.” I turned on my side so I could hold him. “It’s all right. You’ve got choices now.” “Lost some, gained some,” he said, and clung on to me for a minute or two.

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Finally we let go of one another. “Better get cleaned up and go to bed,” he said. “Well, back to bed.” So we did. It wasn’t all that late, but by the time we’d cleaned up, gone downstairs to make a bit of supper, and then gone back upstairs again, it was late enough to be thinking of sleep. There was still sadness in his eyes as he stared at the sea for a moment, but now it was a nagging ache he could live with, not overwhelming loneliness. Then he came to me, a comforting warm weight next to me in the bed.

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Chapter Nine There was a mug of tea on the bedside table when I woke up the next morning. “I’ve put the oats to soak,” Niall said. “Didn’t want to start cooking the porridge until you were awake.” “Mmph.” I turned over, found that he was in the bed rather than on it, and hugged him. “When did you wake up?” “Not long ago. But it was late enough to think about getting up, so I went down to start breakfast. You woke up when I brought the tea up.” “Thanks.” I’d have been quite happy to stay there for a bit, enjoying a gentle doze with him in my arms, but he had work to do that morning. Five minutes, enough for the tea to cool to drinkable temperature, that would have to do. Luxury, this, company in bed without the pressure to perform because time was short, knowing he’d be back tonight instead of leaving after a weekend break. If only he’d be here forever. I quashed that thought and enjoyed what I had. Five minutes, no more, and then I forced myself to sit up and drink my tea. We went downstairs to breakfast together; breakfast and the normal everyday chit-chat over breakfast. Anyone would think he really was just a young fisherman who’d taken a fancy to me and moved in for a while. Especially when he went off to a day’s work at the boatshed, leaving me to my work at home. “I probably won’t be home for lunch. I can make myself a sandwich if I do get back,” was the last thing he said to me as he left. Home. I cherished that word all morning.

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He didn’t make it back for lunch, but I hadn’t expected him to. He was with people he knew, doing work he’d undoubtedly done before, just the sort of thing he needed to make him feel safe for a bit. I made lunch for myself, just sandwiches, then went for a walk. I’ve always tried to keep myself in reasonable shape, but I had more of an incentive now. I ambled round the village shops, dropped my shopping off at home, then went for a walk along the shore. I kept an eye out for any pretty shells or rocks to add to the stash I kept for visiting friends to take away. The last time I’d walked along the shore, I hadn’t even been beachcombing, but I’d come home with my most unusual find yet. I looked out to sea, wondering if any of the seals were about. The silkies certainly knew about Niall by now; Ailsa must have told the others. There was no sign of them. It was low tide, and there was a seal haul-out not far up the coast, so they might all just be up there at this time of day, but it might be that they’d taken themselves out of easy reach. I would have, under the circumstances. The sun was getting low in the sky when I finally wandered homewards, which might have been why I saw what I did. The seal watching the harbour entrance might have been taking the chance that it wouldn’t be spotted in the glare reflected off the water. It certainly knew I’d seen it -- it alternated between checking the harbour and checking what I was doing. As I came level with where it floated in the water, I stopped and held up my hands in a gesture of peace. It knew who I was, I was certain. It wasn’t hostile, but it was definitely interested in me. Ailsa, maybe, but definitely a silkie. William hadn’t put out to sea since he’d taken Niall’s skin. The man might be a bully, but he wasn’t stupid. He must have known there’d be watchers. If he went out for hours or days, others might take the opportunity to come in and search. I waited, in case the silkie wanted to come closer, but it stayed where it was. Not scared of me, I felt, but concentrating on a job and not willing to be distracted for more than a few seconds at a time. I walked on, not wanting to distract him or her any further. The house was empty when I got home, but it wasn’t late, so I didn’t worry. I made myself a cup of tea and went back to work. The encounter on the shore had unsettled me, and I wanted to take my mind off it. I didn’t want to think about the times I’d walked past seals, unknowing, unthinking, seeing nothing other than magnificent wild animals. Niall came home at dinnertime, bringing dinner with him. One of the boats must have been out for a day trip, for the fish was beautifully fresh. Fish he knew well how to cook, though he was threatening to do some experimentation with sauces now he had an audience that would appreciate it. Jock had not been joking about me employing Niall in a domestic capacity; the silkie was having the time of his life in a kitchen kitted up for serious cooking. “The novelty will wear off,” I pointed out.

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“Eventually,” he said with a grin. “I wouldn’t want to earn my living at it, but I enjoy it.” “Niall, you’re welcome here even after you get your skin back. If you want to come and play in my kitchen, feel free.” He kissed me lightly on the cheek. “I know. Thank you.” Then he glanced towards the window. “Better draw the curtains.” I did so and went around the house closing the rest. It was cold outside now; there was no point in leaving the curtains open and letting the heat out, never mind giving us some privacy. I left the bedroom curtains half open again so that Niall could see the sea. I looked, but could see no dark dot on the waves tonight. It was only after dinner, when we were sitting on the sofa, that I thought of something. “Niall, even if your people won’t come on shore now, could Jock or the others take you out in the boat? Take you somewhere your family will feel safe coming to see you?” “Adam suggested the same thing,” Niall said. “He thinks that if we use the small boat, so they can see who’s there, they’ll feel safe. Though we’ll have to hope that someone sees us ...” “They’re watching, Niall. I saw one of your people watching the harbour today. They’ll know.” He looked at me. “How did you know it wasn’t a seal?” “It might have been shaped like a seal, but it was a person, not an animal. And it was interested in me, though not enough to break off from watching the harbour.” “Someone who recognised you.” Niall had realised the implication of the silkie not caring if I knew what it was. “They know I’m with you, that Jock trusted you. They won’t trust you, but they don’t think you’re about to tell anyone about them.” “Sorry, I should have told you earlier. I gave him or her the chance to talk to me, but whoever it was didn’t want to stop watching the harbour. I think they might be waiting for William to go out.” “He’s not daft. He won’t go anywhere until he’s certain he can hide my skin where it won’t be found if anything happens to him.” I felt that ripple of fear again. I’d never see seals in the same way again. But the silkie by the shore hadn’t made me feel threatened. Curious about me, yes, but not angry with me. I wasn’t seen as a stealer of skins. And yet everything Niall had said about William ... “You and William were friends once, weren’t you?” Niall sighed. “Aye. As I said, he was never what you’d call a nice person, but he treated us the same as he did anyone else. Still does -- even these days, there’s one or two of us he gets with well enough, works with. Though they won’t have anything to do with him now, I think.”

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“So people will be pissed off with him over the skin, but they will wait for him to come to his senses.” “But not forever.” Niall stared down at his hands. “And whatever I may think of him ... I don’t want him drowned. I just want my skin back.” “What happened?” “We drifted apart. I didn’t like the people he started hanging around with; he didn’t like me not liking them.” And round and round we go. I’d heard bits of this story before, that William’s old friends hadn’t liked his new friends, the feeling was mutual, and William had tried to walk a tightrope but fallen off on the wrong side as bad feelings fed off each other. Now I had a new angle on it. “And I don’t suppose he was too happy when he realised that you really are bi, that it wasn’t just mucking about with the lads because you can’t get a girl.” Niall shook his head. “He ... he just couldn’t handle it. All he thought about was what his new friends would say if they knew. So ...” And once you’ve chosen your side in that sort of fight, it takes a great deal of courage to admit that you might have been wrong. Especially in a small village where everyone knows everyone else, where you’ll lose face in a very big way indeed. I didn’t think much of William, but I could understand his behaviour even if I didn’t forgive it. “And so you remember the boy you were friends with, and you’re torn.” “Am I stupid, to still want it the way it was?” I rubbed at his back. “No. What the others have said to me ... it sounds as if he could have gone either way. He’d a violent temper and he always hated outsiders, but he might have been all right if he’d not fallen in with that bunch of thugs.” The fishermen could be a rough lot, and that included my friends -- Jim Stuart hadn’t been amiss in calling them reprobates. But there was rough, and then there were William’s drinking friends. “I knew what he was capable of. So did Ailsa. So when he started to court her, she wasn’t interested. And he couldn’t understand it, because they’d been friends, and maybe more than friends. He thought it was just her being angry with him about me. He couldn’t see that things had gone wrong between them.” “So that drove the wedge even deeper.” And I’d stepped into this maelstrom all unknowing. “He’ll see sense, Niall. It might take a while, but he’ll accept that it won’t work.” “I hope so. I don’t want to have to stay on land forever. And I don’t want to have to go out in a boat to bring his body back in. He was my friend, once.” There was nothing I could do but hold him, and after a while turn on the TV and find something to distract him. That worked, and he was reasonably cheerful by the time we went to bed. But he didn’t want sex. “Sorry. It’s not earlier, honestly. I’m just tired.”

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“You’ve been working all day. Don’t worry about it.” I certainly wasn’t worried about it. I’d already had more this week than I normally managed in a month or two. But I was also old enough to have discovered that sometimes it just isn’t going to happen even with a new and thrilling lover, and it doesn’t mean anything other than you’re tired, or distracted, or just prefer sex first thing in the morning to sex last thing at night. He was secure enough to say he didn’t want it, and that was what mattered. And besides ... “I’m not a teenager any more. I can’t get it up every night, not even with an incentive like you.” He laughed and reached out to pull me against him. “Still nice to sleep with you, though,” he said. A sentiment I could heartily agree with.

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Chapter Ten He was plastered along my back when I woke up the next morning, and I could feel the evidence that his libido had recovered. His cock was hot and hard against my arse; his arm was tight around my chest. But he was still sleeping, by the sound of his breathing. I let him sleep on, happy to lie there and enjoy having someone hold me like that. He woke up a few minutes later. “Mmm. Richard?” “You’re interested now, then?” “Mmm.” He wriggled slightly. “You know where the condoms are.” “You don’t mind?” He sounded slightly hesitant. “I like it either way around, Niall.” Either way around, and a variety of other activities, as well. He let go of me and sat up to grope for the condoms. I rolled over to see what he was doing, ready to help if he needed it, but he seemed to be managing well enough. I rolled onto my back. “Uh ... Richard ... I’m not sure I can manage if you’re that way up.” “It will work, but if you’re not comfortable ...” I grabbed a pillow and turned over again. I wanted to be able to hold him, but if he was worrying about what he was doing, it wouldn’t be much fun for either of us. Better to let him build his confidence. “Maybe some other time,” he said, sounding happier now. He fumbled a little with the K-Y, dropping a bit on my back. I jumped, startled by the cold. “Sorry, I’m not used to the texture. It got away from me.”

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He was experienced, but not with quite the same experiences as me. “Have you ever actually done it in a bed before?” I asked. “With women, a couple of times. Not with men, until you.” He paused, then said, “I like it.” “Good.” I settled down to enjoy the way he carefully applied the K-Y. It was foreplay in itself the way he did it, slowly, paying attention to what he was doing. Not that we needed much foreplay this morning; we were both hard and ready. “Is that all right?” he asked. “I thought I knew what I was doing with land men, but I’m not so sure now.” “That’s fine. Just try to take it slowly at first.” He did take it slowly as he pushed into me, a level of self-control I’m sure he couldn’t have managed the first couple of times. He might have had clumsy partners in the past, but he knew better than to emulate them. It felt wonderful as he filled me. Then at last he was right inside me and asking if I was all right, because he couldn’t hold on much longer. “I’m fine, keep going.” He pulled out, then pushed back in again, shoving me against the pillow under me. Absolute bliss, sensation outside and in. He was nuzzling at my neck, muttering about how good I tasted, then pulling away again for another stroke, and another and another. He’d been ready, coming straight out of a wet dream, I think, but I’d been ready, too. I wanted him desperately, wanted him filling up the empty place inside me. Then he was almost there, I could tell. I wasn’t quite ready, but I didn’t care, just enjoyed the way he wrapped his arms tightly around me, hugged me to him as he plunged in for his last stroke. Then he stopped, shuddering, as I reveled in his strength. He was coming and I wasn’t, but it didn’t matter; it wouldn’t be long for me now. And then he finished, and he thought to pull out and slide off me so that I could get a hand to my cock. He held me again as I stroked myself, once, twice, three times. And then I was coming, empty now but surrounded by him. I relaxed into it, no thought now but how good it felt. “Thank you,” he said, some aeons later. I turned over so that I could hold him. “You were very good.” “I was worried I’d hurt you.” “No,” I reassured him. “You learn fast.” He smiled at me. “You’re a good teacher.” He kissed me lightly and went on. “That first time you fucked me, when you told me to slow down, that it wasn't a race ... that was so good to hear. Even if I did want it fast at the time.”

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So he had been listening to everything I'd said that first time, when I'd tried to show him that it could and should be good for the man underneath. “Knowing that you can take it slowly, if you want to, it doesn’t have to be fast ...” “Mmm.” He shut his eyes then, and I decided that wasn’t a bad idea. We dozed for fifteen or twenty minutes before staggering out of bed. I wasn’t impressed with the state of the sheets; I’d have to think about changing them soon. But they could wait until later. Showers, then a leisurely breakfast, and then we dressed in clothing suitable for a trip out in a boat. We were just going out for a bit of recreational fishing, as far as anyone else was concerned. William might well guess what was going on, but William had his own reasons not to follow. It turned out to be Jock taking us out, which I’d expected even if it was Adam who’d first suggested it to Niall. He looked us over and grunted in approval. “We’re just out for a day’s quiet pottering around, aren’t we?” “Just you?” I asked. He nodded. “Don’t want to scare them off. Too many of us, and they’ll be worried about being outnumbered. I hope you’ve got a good lunch packed; we might be out until dark.” “I hope this works.” Niall had been cut off from his people for several days now, and they must be wondering what was happening, even if they had been reassured that he was safe. “So do I, laddie, so do I.” I looked around to see if I could spot any of them as we left the harbour. Jock was taking the boat out as slowly as he could without arousing suspicion, but I still couldn’t see anything. I was sure we must have been seen, though. The silkie I’d seen the day before had made it obvious that the harbour was watched. We headed up the coast. Jock explained that he was heading for a cove that was known for good line fishing, but was well isolated. There was a beach surrounded by a cliff, where anyone trying to get to the beach by land could be easily spotted. “Though they still might not come,” he warned. “I know where you mean,” Niall said. “It should be safe enough, especially if I go to the beach and you stay on the boat.” He looked at me. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Richard ...” “It’s all right. It’s not you I have to convince, is it?” It took her over an hour to be convinced, once we’d settled into our spot. I’m sure that Jock had seen her watching, but said nothing, giving her time to satisfy herself that only the three of us were there. Then she was next to the boat, a sleek shape in the water, looking up at me with very human eyes.

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“Hello, Ailsa,” Jock said. “Don’t worry, pet, he’s safe.” I could hear the affection in Jock’s voice, the love he had for his partner’s grandchildren. Niall came over to our side of the boat. “Will you come onboard?” She shook her head. “Take the dinghy,” I said to him. “You know me now, but Ailsa doesn’t. She’ll feel safer on the beach, with just you.” “I could swim with her ...” he said wistfully. “And then we have to explain why your hair’s wet when we get back. Most humans don’t go swimming at this time of year, especially when they’ve just had an accident. Which you have, remember?” Ailsa looked worried, and I cursed myself. “He hasn’t, but we told people he had to cover things,” I explained. “I’ll use the dinghy,” Niall said, and swung it into the water. Jock and I watched him paddle the dinghy to the beach, the seal following him. And then the seal wasn’t a seal, but a young woman, tall and slim, dressed in jeans and jumper and holding a fur. Even from out on the water, at some distance, I could see the resemblance to Niall. And why William found her irresistible. She was beautiful. “Lovely-looking lass, isn’t she?” Jock said quietly beside me. “Yes. No wonder William’s after her.” “It’s more than that. He does love her, Richard. It would be easier if he didn’t.” “He’d be more willing to give Niall back his skin, for a start.” Jock nodded. “He’d never have been such a fool as to take it in the first place if he wasn’t desperate. He might be lucky he got Niall’s, at that. He’s a quiet boy; he wouldn’t have started a fight. She’d have clouted William one straight off.” I looked at her again. She was nearly as tall as Niall, and like him, she was slim but muscular. If she’d clouted William one, he’d have known about it. “What would you have done with her if she’d been the one in need of a home?” “Someone would have taken her in for as long as needful. But she’s been itching to get herself papers anyway. She wants to go to university.” “He seems to like the idea, as well,” I said. “He’s been going through the OU website.” “So he said. But she’s got a specific career in mind.” Jock went to the storage locker and pulled out the binoculars. “I’ll just check we don’t have an audience.” He scanned the land quickly, apparently not expecting to see anything. Then he looked more carefully at the sea. “Anything?” I asked.

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“Two seals. Probably silkies, though I can’t tell at this distance. No boats.” “We weren’t followed, then. Now what?” “We wait.” Jock sat down and pulled out his thermos of tea. I sat down again as well, where I could watch the pair on the beach. They’d finished hugging each other and were sitting down. Niall was talking animatedly, Ailsa listening to him. They must have talked for a good half-hour before they got into the dinghy and paddled it back to us. Niall climbed into the boat and held out a hand to Ailsa. She scrambled into the boat, clinging to her bundled coat. Her skin. She looked at me and said, “Thank you for looking after my brother.” She sounded like him, and at this distance the physical resemblance was obvious. I knew that if I’d been bi, I’d have wanted her. As it was, there was a faint echo of what I felt for Niall, a rarity for me where women were concerned. Something to do with them being fairy folk, or was it just that they appealed to me anyway? “I’ve told her,” Niall said. “About us.” “You don’t mind?” I asked her, wary of her reaction to Niall being involved with a human. From what both Niall and Jock had said, I didn’t think she’d mind him being involved with a man. She smiled at me. “No. I’m glad he’s found someone he likes. I wish he’d had a choice about it, but at least he’s got something good out of it.” “We’re trying to get his skin back, but we have to be careful.” I pointed at the skin she held. “May I see it? So that I know what I’m looking for?” She hesitated, then spread it out a little. It looked rather like a fur cape, what little I could see of it, short fur mottled with the markings of a grey seal. It had folded down to a smaller size than I had somehow expected, so I’d need to be careful about checking nooks and crannies if I had the chance. “Thanks.” “I doubt you’ll find it,” Jock said, “but at least if you do stumble over it, you’ll know what you’re looking at.” He nodded at Ailsa. “Sit down and have a cup of tea, lass. There’s nobody here but us.” “That tar you drink, Uncle Jock?” She flashed a smile at him. “Not everyone likes having to hack it out of the mug with a spoon.” “These two brought their own. You can have some of theirs. Now, what’s been going on?” “I could ask you that,” she said. “What does that eejit think he’s doing? It’s the twentyfirst century, whether he likes it or not.” I busied myself pouring tea for her. “Milk, sugar?” I asked, feeling an eejit myself. A dainty tea party this was not.

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“Nice manners he has,” she said. “Milk, thanks.” “He’s a lovesick eejit,” Jock grunted. “I hope it’s that he’s just a damn fool, and it’s not the geas working again. We don’t need that sort of trouble.” She turned white and nearly dropped the mug I was trying to hand her. “No.” “Geas?” I asked, though I had an idea of what they might be talking about. “The idea in the legends that some of the men who stole skins couldn’t help themselves? I thought that was just an excuse.” “It’s an excuse, and it was real,” Niall said. “Only a few were affected, and you could fight it if you tried.” “And it hasn’t happened in living memory.” Jock looked sour. “The magic’s fading. But if it’s flared up again ...” “That could be good as well as bad,” Ailsa said. “But I think it’s just William. At least it

is William, and not a stranger.” Niall grabbed hold of my hand. “Strangers aren’t all bad.” “I don’t think your Richard counts as a stranger,” Ailsa said. “It’s not as if we don’t know anything about him, whether he can be trusted.” They were doing it again. Half the conversation wasn’t in words, and I was missing out on it. I didn’t think it was even deliberate, and I didn’t like to ask, in case it was something that came under “if you don’t know, you can’t tell”. I didn’t want to know things I could betray by accident, not unless I needed to know them. I dragged the conversation back in a direction that was important to me. “Ailsa, Niall’s welcome to stay with me as long as he wants. But will there be any trouble about it from your people? Him staying with me, when I knew nothing about you until a few nights ago.” She shrugged. “There’ll be one or two who bitch about it, but they’d bitch about anything. You know now about us, and he swears blind that you’re not a skin thief, that he’s with you because he wants to be.” She looked me up and down with a grin. “And I can see why.” She wasn’t coming on to me, but I had the distinct impression she approved of her brother’s taste in men. “Don’t tease him, lassie,” Jock said. “He’s had enough shocks to cope with these last few days.” “Well, I’ll let everyone know that Niall’s all right. But I don’t think they’ll be too happy with William, even so.” She set down her mug, and patted Niall’s shoulder. “I’ll tell them about Richard. But you’ll have to tell them yourself, you know.” She might have set down the mug, but she still clung to her skin. “Leave that until we have a better idea about how long Niall will be staying with Richard,” Jock said. “William’s not in a mood to give up the skin lightly.” He picked up the binoculars and did another sweep. “Will they be coming in to work next week?”

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“Some might. Don’t rely on it.” “Do they really think we approve?” Jock asked her. “Are they afraid?” “No. But if they don’t work, their partners have an incentive to lean on William.” She grinned viciously, and I could see why Jock thought she was the one William had need to be wary of. I could see why William wanted her, but I’d be damned if I could see why he thought this woman might be cowed merely by the loss of her skin. Unless it was as Niall had suggested, that William thought it was taking her brother’s side in a quarrel, that all he had to do was make her see how desperate he was for her. “Don’t think it will work, Ailsa,” Jock said, very quietly. “If you’d set your heart on something, and did a foolish thing in pursuit of it, how easy would you find it to back down with everyone telling you what a fool you are?” She abruptly sat down, looking glum. “Very hard indeed, if I were William.” “Give him time to talk himself round, lass. Less chance of losing the skin for good, that way.” “All right. But there’s only so long we’ll wait, Uncle Jock. Even if Niall’s happy with Richard, we won’t let people get the idea they can get away with it. What if there hadn’t been a Richard? And now we must come to Niall; he cannot come to us.” Her voice was bitter now. “He can dance with us upon the shore, but he cannot swim with us no more.” An idea popped into my mind. “But he can. At least a bit.” They stared at me, all three of them. “Land men can swim, but it’s not the same as being able to dive,” Ailsa said. “But we can dive, with the right gear. We can’t swim as fast as seals, but with scuba gear ...” Now this was something practical I could do for Niall, where my money really would make a difference. “He’d need to go to a diving school, but there’s one not so far away. It’s a long drive, but it’s doable if we stay overnight. And once he was competent to dive without supervision ...” The hope dawning in Niall’s eyes told me just how afraid he’d been that he’d never have real contact with his people again. “We never thought of that,” Ailsa said in wonder. “We’ve never had to deal with this since scuba gear became a real option,” Jock said. “It’s a good idea, Richard. It’s not the same, but it’s better than nothing.” “It’s a lot better than nothing,” Niall said. “It’ll cost money,” Ailsa said. “I can afford it. I’m rich, and I’m eccentric, and I research the strangest things. Nobody will ask questions if I decide I want to learn to dive, and bring my boyfriend along.” Jock snickered at me. “We just thought you were entertaining, boy. We never dreamed your daft ways would be useful.”

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“Well, I won’t be telling anyone I’m learning to dive because my boyfriend wants to take me home to meet his family.” Ailsa started laughing. “I suppose that’s what you’re doing,” she managed to gasp between bouts of laughter. “That’ll make a nice change, someone expecting to come to us.” Niall cuddled up to me. “Go home and tell them I’ve found a nice man.” “I’ll do that.” Ailsa stood up and shook out her skin. “I’d best be going now.” She went to the rail and flung the skin over herself. It was a peculiar process to watch, and a physically uncomfortable one. It was like watching someone put on a cloak or a costume. But something seemed to happen to the space she occupied, so that I was watching a seal shape and a woman shape both at the same time. My eyeballs itched, as if they were trying to turn themselves inside out. “Don’t look at her if it feels uncomfortable,” I heard Jock say. I blinked. “Now you warn me.” And in that space of time, the woman had vanished, and a seal hung in the air before splashing heavily into the sea. She swam away to the open sea, all of us watching her. Niall watching her until well after she’d gone from sight. Jock clapped him on the shoulder. “Back to fishing, boy. We’ll want to go home with something.” We came home with fish enough, which were divided amongst us. Adam came to meet us at the quay. “You’ve talked to them, then?” “Ailsa only,” Jock said. “They’re not happy, but they’re staying away to put pressure on William, not because they think we winked at it.” “What does she think of him?” Him being me. “Oh, a nice-looking lad with an even temper, a generous heart, and plenty of money? She’ll overlook the fact he’s not a silkie, since he and Niall have hit it off.” “Don’t mind Jock,” Adam said to me as I squirmed with embarrassment. “He’s only winding you up. Be sensible, you old devil.” “I am being sensible. She didn’t say it like that, but she was thinking it. Wasn’t she, Niall?” Niall flushed pink. It suited him. “She’s practical. And she knows I haven’t had much luck with our own folk.” “Well, you’ve struck lucky now,” Jock said. “Take yourselves off home, the pair of you. And I’ll ask around, see if anyone knows anything about the diving schools.” “Diving schools?” I heard Adam say as we walked away. “Do you want to learn to dive?” Niall asked me.

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“I’d never thought to, before. But I wouldn’t mind learning. We’ll leave it a bit, though, because the doctor will kill me if he hears I’ve been letting you do something like that while there’s still the slightest possibility of a head injury.” Niall kicked at a stone lying in the street, and we watched it skitter along in front of us. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of an evening in the pub, either.” I’d been selfish, keeping him to myself. I should have thought about him wanting a drink with his mates, but he’d been in such shock it hadn’t occurred to me that he might want to. “Can’t see why not; it’s been a few days now. D’you want to go after dinner?” He thought about it, then shook his head. “Not tonight. Friday night, William might be in with his friends.” “Quiet night in at home, then.” “Aye. I’d like that. I like being with you.” Just like any courting couple. Though unlike other courting couples, I wouldn’t reach for his hand here in the street. That could wait until we got home. We were sitting on the sofa after dinner, arms around each other, when Niall said, “What Jock said about Ailsa ... It’s not really true. Or it is, but not the way he said it.” “You mean, she’s glad you’ve found someone, and that I’m someone who doesn’t make her worry about how I’ll treat you, and that I’ve the money to look after you if it becomes necessary, and in that order.” “You don’t mind?” he asked. “After William’s antics, I’m not surprised she wants to be sure you haven’t fallen in with someone like him.” “Haven’t seen any sign of that,” he said, kissing me. “Couldn’t accuse you of trying to push me into something I don’t want.” “As I recall, you were the one who jumped on me.” And very glad I was of it, too, even if I’d nearly had a fit at the time. Tall and handsome, stronger than me without making me feel threatened, hard muscle under my wandering hands. All this just the package for a mind that fascinated me. The right things in common, with enough differences to make life interesting. I’d have wanted him even without the thing that no story-spinner could ignore. Right now I was more interested in his body. We might have already made love once today, but the sheer novelty of having a lover hadn’t worn off yet, and I was ready for more. “I think I’d better go and get the condoms.” “We can do something that doesn’t need them,” Niall said. “I don’t want to stop.” I groped for his cock, squeezing it through his jeans. “I want to suck you, and I’m not doing that without a condom. It’s probably safe, but I’m not teaching you bad habits.”

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He gasped as I said that I wanted to suck him, and pushed against my hand. “Get the condoms,” he said, his voice ragged. All I wanted to do was push him down on the sofa and frantically thrust against him, but I pulled myself away and ran up the stairs. He’d clearly not had much experience with people saying that to him, if it turned him on that fast. I snatched the condoms up and ran back downstairs, wondering whether and where I could safely leave a few in the lounge for future use. I could have done without having to go up to get them, though I certainly didn’t regret the sight that greeted me as I got back. Niall had his fly open and his hand wrapped around his cock, leaning back with his head thrown back against the sofa as he worked himself. I flung myself down in front of him, fumbling at the small foil packet, trying to get it open without tearing the condom. I managed it at last and grabbed at Niall’s hand, forcing him to let go of his cock long enough for me to roll the condom on. He wriggled and tried to thrust, even as I leaned on his thighs to make him keep still. As I got the top half unrolled, I took hold of his cock with my free hand and squeezed, giving him the sensation he craved while I finished unrolling the condom right to the base of his cock. Then I shifted my hand, stroking down the length of his cock, leaving the tip free. The condom was secure; all I had to do was lean over and suck his cock into my mouth. It was an awkward position, and I’d get a stiff neck if I held it for long, but that wasn’t going to be a problem. Niall whimpered and tried to shove more of his cock into my mouth, then grabbed hold of my head and tried to pull me down. But I had control and forced him to wait, to feel every millimetre as I gradually took him in, engulfing him. I didn’t try for the full length, not in this position, but hand and mouth together were more than enough to satisfy Niall. Quick and dirty sex on the sofa, still in our clothes, and, god, did it feel good listening to him moaning like that with no more than a minute of sex. Hot, hard mouthful, and I wanted to reach for my own cock and a matching hot, hard handful, but Niall was almost there anyway; it made more sense to focus on him. Too damned awkward in this position to get a hand on his balls, so I had to content myself with just his cock, but I could feel how close he was. One more good suck should do it ... ... And one more good suck did do it, him shouting my name as his cock jerked and leapt in my mouth. I held him there until he’d finished, ignoring the ache in my own cock. Only when he’d quite done did I release him, and then it was only to climb up on the sofa with him and hold him in my arms as he collapsed in contentment. “Sorry,” he said, opening one eye to peer at me. “Can’t do you, not yet.” “I’ll wait.” I didn’t have to wait for long, and anticipation made it all the better. He dozed in my arms for a few minutes, then groped for my cock. He managed my fly, but even that was a

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struggle with his lack of coordination. “You’ll have to put the condom on. I can’t quite manage it,” he mumbled. I managed to snag the packet from where I’d dropped it on the sofa, and extract a condom. I didn’t much like having to let go of him to get it out of the foil, but it was only a few seconds’ work to get the condom on. And then he was sprawled across the sofa, head in my lap and my cock in his mouth. I’d have liked it to last, but the wait had only been long enough to sharpen my hunger for him, not to lose interest. I was close to coming even as his lips closed around me, and feeling him slide down my cock took me to the edge. One good hard suck and I was away, coming as if I hadn’t had it for months. I slumped back and let it happen, glorying in the sensation. Then it was Niall’s turn to hold me as I came down, holding me against him, stroking my hair. We ended up sprawled on the sofa together, wrapped around each other and wrapped in contentment. Eventually Niall said, “I’m not sure whether condoms are better or worse for squelchiness.” “Better for the first few minutes. Then they leak.” I wriggled away from him and peeled the offending article off. “Out of the way. I’ll take it to the bin.” Niall sat up and handed his now-repellent item to me. I took them into the kitchen and dumped them, then washed my hands and made some attempt at tidying my clothes. No helping it, even with the condoms it was probably going to be laundry day tomorrow. Niall had apparently reached the same conclusion. “Get changed, or just put on pyjamas and dressing gown?” The pyjamas hadn’t seen much use after the first night, but since we needed to wear something, and they definitely weren’t going to get in the way tonight ... “Pyjamas.” Pyjamas it was, but we went back downstairs and cuddled up on the sofa again to watch TV. As I leaned contentedly against him, I realised that Jock had been reassuring me, in his own way. Reassuring me that Ailsa approved of me, for soundly pragmatic reasons. She thought I was the right man for her brother, even if I wasn’t one of their people. It helped a lot to know that; to know that he wouldn’t come under any pressure to leave me, at least from that direction.

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Chapter Eleven It was a week after I’d met him that Niall and I finally went to the pub together. We headed straight for the corner where Jock’s little gang were congregated. I parked Niall with them and went to get a round in. Keith, the landlord, was behind the bar tonight. “You’ve still got the young man staying with you, then?” he asked as he served me. Just curiosity as far as I could tell, no undertones to it. “And expect him to be staying a while longer. He’s still got problems with his memory, although we’re not bothered now about him having a head injury.” “So I don’t need to be worrying about whether I should be serving him this,” Keith said as he handed over another pint. “But I won’t let him have more than a couple, if you don’t mind.” “Probably better if he takes it slowly, just in case,” I said. “Thanks. I’ll be glad to have your backup if they start pushing him to drink more than he wants.” Keith looked behind me to where the others were sitting. “I think they’ve actually got a bit of sense, even if they are rowdy. I wouldn’t let them in here otherwise.” He looked back at me. “Though I’ll never understand how a nice, quiet man like you got mixed up with that lot.” “I’m their mascot, I think.” He grinned and shook his head. “I suppose it’s just that you take them as they are, so they return the compliment. But take your friend home early. He’s not a heavy drinker anyway, and he doesn’t need them forgetting that he’s still recovering from a crack on the head.” Which settled the question of whether Niall had been in here often enough for the landlord to remember him. I didn’t ask. I wasn’t sure if Keith knew about the silkies, but I

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didn’t expect him to be saying anything about it in the public bar even if he did. I took the drinks over to the tables and settled down for a nice evening. Niall was sensible and kept it at two halves, and everyone else was sensible and let him. I was just thinking that it was getting on time to go home when William arrived, in the company of his thuggish friends. William glanced towards us, saw Niall and I sitting squashed up together in the corner, and froze. Then he stalked towards us and snarled, “Oh, very cosy. I might have known you’d land on your feet. Or on your knees, with your mouth open.” “Fuck off, William,” Niall snapped, shocking me. “Looks as if fucking’s what you’ve been doing.” Keith emerged from behind the bar. “Enough!” “Nice customers you have, Keith,” William taunted, or tried to. “Aye. I’ve nice, quiet customers who mind their own business and don’t bother anyone else. That’s the way I like it.” Keith planted himself between William’s group and us, and pointed at the door. “So you can leave.” “That’s all right, I was leaving anyway. Don’t know what I might catch off the glasses in here.” William swung around and headed to the door, his friends following, sniggering behind him. His parting shot was, “And don’t think you’ll be getting it back any time soon.” Keith stared after him, then said, under his breath, “Stupid bastard.” I wouldn’t have heard it if he’d not been standing so close to us. “At least he didn’t name what he took, Keith,” Adam said quietly. “Have you outsiders in here tonight?” “Only your man there, and I take it he’s heard already. Even so ...” Then he came and sat with us, pulling up a chair from the empty table next to us. “I take it that it was William caused all this?” He looked at Niall. “I wondered if it was more than an accident, but I didn’t like to ask.” “There wasn’t an accident, though there was a fight,” Dougal said. “You can imagine over what. He thought he’d found Ailsa’s.” Keith rocked back on his chair. “He did what?” Then more quietly, “Bride-stealing? Christ Almighty, no wonder none of them have been in since.” “They’re more than a bit pissed off,” Jock said. “At least some good’s come out of it, with Richard walking into things and innocently asking if he could help.” Jock grinned at me. “You had no idea what you were getting into, did you?” Keith looked at me. “So are you two ...” “Yes, although that wasn’t the original idea.” I pointed at Jock. “He asked me to look after Niall, just for a bit while they tried to get his skin back, and things just sort of developed.”

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Keith snorted in amusement. “One in the eye for that eejit. Well, you’re welcome in my pub, no matter who you sleep with, so long as you drink quietly and spend freely. Which you do. But I’d leave it ten or fifteen minutes before going home, just in case they’re hanging around.” He got up and went back to his position behind the bar. We followed his advice, and more than that, we were walked home just to be on the safe side. But it gave me a good feeling to know whose side Keith had taken. Jim Stuart came around a day or two after that, to check on how Niall was and to deliver some booklets and paperwork. “There should be no trouble getting you a National Insurance number, McCrae, although it’s going to be interesting getting your friends on the boats to admit that they’ll hire you.” He stared at Jock, who’d happened to be visiting when he’d arrived. “I dare say they’ll not be interested in admitting that they’ve already hired you, since I imagine they’ve no idea what your National Insurance number was.” “Do you think we’d be sitting here flapping our jaws about getting him a new one if we knew what the old one was?” Jock snapped. “We might have traced him through that if we’d known it.” Jim Stuart grinned, in a less-than-friendly manner. “I notice you didn’t quite answer the question. Ah well, I’ll not push you on it. It’ll save you the bother of making up a story.” “So why the interest in whether they’ll hire him now?” I asked, trying to derail the argument that was brewing. “Because needing it for a potential job is one of the legitimate reasons for asking for one if you don’t already have it,” the policeman explained. “If you don’t need one, they won’t issue one. Now, you’ll need to go in to the office in town and explain your situation to them. It’ll help if you can take letters from people like your landlord and potential employers. And it’ll be easier if you’re not trying to claim social security benefits.” That didn’t surprise me. “So if I write a letter saying I’m willing to support him until he finds a permanent job, in exchange for casual work around the house ...” Stuart nodded. “And it would help if at least one of the fishermen put it in writing about having casual work for him. Settle down, Jock. I’m only trying to help him; I’m not trying to shop him to the taxman.” Jock scowled but settled down. “I know you are. And thank you. It’s not every policeman we’ve had would take the trouble. If you’ve finished, I’ll take Niall down to the boats, see if anyone will write the letter.” Jim Stuart nodded, and Jock took Niall away. Only when they’d gone did Stuart say to me, “Somehow I doubt that man’s ever had a National Insurance number. There are more people in this village than are in the official records. My best guess is that they were some group that more or less cut itself off decades ago. You could manage it around here if your neighbours co-operated. But I doubt they’d tell me, so I won’t ask.”

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Which was exactly the line Jock had wanted him to be thinking along. “He really can’t go home,” I said. “Jock’s more worried than he lets on about what will happen to him if this problem doesn’t resolve itself.” “But it’s not that he’s had a row with his people?” “Not as far as I can tell.” Stuart shuffled the papers lying on the table. “I don’t mind telling you, I’m worried. Because Old Man Jock is worried enough to drag me into it. Do his people know where he is?” I debated whether to lie, but we’d decided on the truth wherever possible. “His sister turned up looking for him after a few days. She decided that he was better off staying with us and pushed off again, but Jock was a lot less worried after that. At least they know he’s safe.” Stuart nodded, looking less worried himself. “I’ll leave things with you, then. As long as there’s nobody wondering what’s happened to him. There’s no reason to pursue the assault charge?” “His memory’s still screwed, but there don’t seem to be any other ill-effects.” “Not worth stirring things up, then, unless he wants to press charges.” He stood up to go.

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Chapter Twelve And things drifted on in much the same way for several weeks. We learned more about each other, settling comfortably into a routine. It was punctuated with the occasional milestone for a freshly minted land man. Niall went for his interview at the Department of Work and Pensions, or whatever it was called this month, nervous as he went in but triumphant afterwards at having coped with a stranger representing officialdom. And I had my first meeting to go to in Edinburgh since I’d met Niall. I made a short break of it and took him with me for a few days. I thought it best to make it only two or three days beyond the time needed to deal with business affairs, promising him that there would be more trips in the future. “It’ll be a bit much for you the first time,” I warned him as we were packing. “You’ll get tired and want to hide in the flat to recover after a while.” “I don’t want to be away too long, anyway,” Niall said. “In case something happens here.” In case William saw sense at last, which did not seem likely. Though one benefit of this trip might be that it would make it clear that Niall was making a new life for himself, one that need not include the return of his skin. One of the things I wanted to do in Edinburgh was take Niall shopping for clothes, but we packed enough clothes to last him the two or three days. “You can always leave some things at the flat for the next trip,” I explained. “Though I don’t have much money to buy clothes with,” he said rather doubtfully. Which brought us back round to the topic of money, and the fact that I had plenty of it and he didn’t. That could be a strain on a relationship, but this relationship had unusual circumstances. There were two things to consider here -- what officialdom would think of regular payments from me to Niall, and what Niall would think of it. “I can’t officially pay

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you a housekeeper’s wages. It would cause all sorts of problems with paperwork. I can give my partner a weekly housekeeping allowance, the same as any man would give his wife. And any decent man would consider it money his wife had earned as her share in a partnership, whether she went out to paid work or not. It’s not a gift, and it’s not charity.” Niall nodded. “It’s money I earned fairly, whether you call it wages or allowance. But if anyone asks, it’s an allowance.” I’d checked with the others what the current fair rate for a live-in housekeeper was in the area. Now I handed Niall an envelope. “That’s your back money for the time you’ve been with me. But don’t go wild with it. I don’t mind giving you more if that’s not enough, but I’ll have to answer to Jock if I turn you into a spendthrift.” Niall took the envelope and riffled through the contents, saying, “Aye, if it’s my own money fairly earned, I can do as I like with it, but wasting it and then having to ask for more -- Jock would kick my arse for it even if I am twenty-eight now.” I grinned at the mental image of the wizened old man kicking the arse of this strapping young man. But I knew Jock, and I knew he’d do it if he thought it was warranted. “And he’d kick mine for letting you. I’m not trying to control what you do with it, Niall. It’s your money. But ask me for advice if you think you need it.” He took fifty pounds in tens out of the envelope and put it into his wallet, then closed the envelope and tucked it into the inside pocket of the overnight bag I’d given him. Then he put his arms around me. “I know you’re not using it as a leash. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful, and I’ll ask before buying things. You’ve a better idea than I do of what’s a fair price for a lot of things.” He kissed me quickly, then said, “I probably need to get a cash box to keep here.” “What you really need is a bank account, but that’s going to take a while. Cash box it is for the moment.” I gave him a quick hug in turn, then went back to the packing, satisfied that I’d done the right thing in giving him the money as a lump sum. It’s a long drive to Edinburgh, and we had plenty of time to talk. I tried to paint a word picture for him of the things we might do in the short time we’d be there. Shopping, of course. Niall wanted to window shop, for the sheer novelty of seeing that many shops in one place. “But there are other things to do as well,” I said. “Theatre, museums ...” “Different pretty scenery,” he said, looking out of the car window at the currently available example. It wasn’t that interesting a stretch of the road, not to me, but perhaps if you’d never seen it before it had a certain appeal. “That, too.” Edinburgh is certainly a city with scenery. I was looking forward to taking him for a walk along Princes Street, with that spectacular view across the gardens in the narrow valley to the rugged lump of rock with the castle perched on top. “Can’t promise you a rugby match; I don’t follow it, so I’ve no idea what’s on.”

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“I wouldn’t mind seeing one, but I’m not that interested.” He gave me a sly grin. “Other than seeing if their shorts really are as short as they look on TV.” “Well, yes, that is part of the appeal.” Of course, there were other things on the tourist trail catering to that sort of interest, but I thought those could wait for a later trip. This one was as much as anything to let Niall get a feel for the city. What hit him first when we got there was the sheer physical size of the city, how long it took us to drive from the outer edge to my flat in the city centre. “All these houses ...” he said quietly. “You must have known how big it is.” “Some of my friends have seen it from the water, so I knew it was big. But it’s not the same as seeing it,” he said. “I suppose if I’d ever made a trip up the firth, seen it from the sea myself ... But I preferred to go to quieter places; it’s a lot safer.” “Why’ve you never been?” I asked. “There are seals in the firth all the way up past the Forth Bridge; you’d be safe enough as long as you looked out for traffic.” “Safe enough in the water, but why bother when I can’t safely come to shore? What would I do with my skin? I could carry it, but that has its own problems when I don’t know the area.” “No resident silkies to ask?” I asked, carefully. This was treading on dangerous ground, specific details that it might be better for me not to know. Niall drummed his fingers on the dashboard, thinking for a minute. “I honestly don’t know. There were a few, a long time ago, but our folk never had much contact with them. And where there’s a lot of your people, we assimilate or we leave. Too many eyes to see what shouldn’t be seen.” He pulled out the UK road atlas, turned to the Edinburgh area, and studied it. I was too busy navigating my way through the traffic to pay much attention to what he was doing, but I suggested, “Take a look at the A to Z of the city, as well, if you’re trying to work out whether there are any places that might be safe to come to shore.” “There are places where you could probably manage it, if you had a safe base on land,” he said. “Thinking about what to do if you want to go to university in the city?” I asked. “It’ll be a lot easier if you have a car, but we should be able to find somewhere that’s safe.” “If I get my skin back. And if others want to visit.” It would have been nice to be able to hug him, but it wasn’t a practical option. At least we were nearly home now. Home. Funny how your perceptions shift. The village was home, and my flat was home as well. And now home was wherever Niall was. If that went both ways, he’d learn to be comfortable in the city. Home for him would stretch to include a flat where it was safe to be himself, in the very heart of Edinburgh.

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I pulled up outside the garage entrance for the flats, unwilling to drive straight at the door and risk finding a flat battery in the remote control. I’d been away for a while. But the door swung up, and I eased the car down the ramp. One of the benefits of having bought a flat in an expensive modern development was secure off-street parking. Even that hadn’t guaranteed me a space without extra precautions, so I had to fumble for the key to the post barring the front of the space that had my flat number prominently marked on the wall at the back. “What’s that for?” Niall asked as I laid the post flat. “It’s your own assigned space, isn’t it? Other people shouldn’t be using it anyway.” “Yes, but I’m away so much that one or two people started thinking it would be all right to use my space for their visitors or a second car, since I wasn’t using it.” I got back into the car and edged it forward into its space. “Which is bloody annoying when I get back after a long drive and have to go around knocking on doors finding the guilty party. If they’re even in.” “You really have moved into the village as your main home, haven’t you?” Niall asked, sounding amused. “This is your second home now.” He got out of the car as I opened the boot, and lifted both bags out of the boot before I could get round to get mine. He was quite strong enough to handle both bags with ease, so I let him do so and concentrated on locking up the car. Then he followed me up the stairs to my flat. Our flat, now. None of the neighbours came past before I had Niall safely inside, to my relief. They were pleasant enough folk, but one or two of them were awful gossips, and “your young man” would have been a juicy target. He didn’t need an interrogation from those determined to extract his life history, no matter how benignly meant. He followed me into the bedroom and dumped the bags on the floor, then looked around the room. “It’s nice.” It was nice, and I’d been very happy here. Happy enough that I’d kept it for my own use rather than letting it out after I’d moved to the village, preferring to stay here rather than in a hotel or with friends on my trips to the city. Now I was glad of that, that I had a real home here that I could bring Niall to. “Come through to the sitting room.” Niall admired the room, then made for the window. “My god!” I’d bought this flat in part because of the spectacular view over the city. I’d thought it worth the long trudge up the stairs. Now Niall was staring at the view. It was late in the day, the sky turning to pink and washing the buildings with a soft hue that made the city seem to glow. It couldn’t have been more different to the view from our cottage back in the village. I went over to stand behind him and hug him. “It’s wonderful,” he breathed. “Not always. But it does look pretty tonight.” I kissed the back of his neck. “Let’s have a cup of tea, then a quick walk. I know it’ll be getting dark by the time we’ve had something to drink, but I really do need a tea and biscuit before going out.”

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“Aye, that was a long drive. Give me a minute, then I’ll put the kettle on.” “I’ll do that. You look at the view while it’s there to be had.” I opened the window to let the room air a bit, then went to put the kettle on. Niall had had his fill of the view by the time I’d made tea and pottered around to check that the flat was all right. He joined me on the sofa and paid a little more attention to the room itself. “More books?” he said, looking at the built-in bookcase that lined one wall. He grinned. “At least I’ll have something to do if the weather’s bad while you’re at your meeting.” “Have you read every single book in the village?” He’d certainly made a good effort at mine. “No.” He paused for effect. “Not yet.” “Idiot. Shall we get a takeaway, or go to a restaurant?” He stretched a little, testing how cramped his muscles were. “We need a walk, but I don’t think I want to stay out. I’m tired as well. And I was just sitting there; I didn’t have to concentrate. You must be really tired.” “Just being a passenger isn’t much fun, either. But I could do with stretching my legs, after that drive.” So we went for a walk, to the very nice Chinese restaurant ten minutes’ walk away, and brought our dinner home. It took more than ten minutes to walk the distance this time, at least on the way there. Niall looked around him all the way there and much of the way back, gawping like any tourist, and on the way there he even stopped in places to look at the buildings. “The buildings here are different, and not just because they’re big town buildings rather than village buildings.” “Different architectural styles,” I said. “Go up north and it’ll be different again. Watch where you’re putting your feet.” The street was fairly clean, but there was still the odd bit of litter blowing about. Niall looked at the crisp bag in disgust. “It’s not all pretty, then.” “No. And don’t forget it. Edinburgh’s a fairly safe place, but there are areas it would be wise to stay away from if you don’t know what you’re doing.” He shrugged. “There are hazards everywhere. Just different hazards.” He stepped neatly aside as someone shouldered past him. “Though I could do without all the people on the street shoving me into the road.” I steered him to the other side of the pavement, putting myself between him and the road. “They’re not; they’re just not making allowances for people who aren’t used to it. You learn to walk around other people even in a crowd. You’re not doing so badly, at that.” The pavement wasn’t that crowded tonight, but it was still crowded enough to be a hazard to someone not used to it.

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“But I have to think about it -- I have to watch them and not what I’d like to look at,” Niall grumbled. “You manage it without looking at them.” I laughed, and slipped my arm around his waist to give him a quick hug. “You’ll learn.” Then I let go of him, not wanting to make us any more of an obstacle than we already were. It was easier on the way home; Niall wanted to get back while the food was still hot, and was mostly content to look at where he was going rather than at his surroundings. We ate dinner on the sofa so that we could sit close together rather than across a table from one another. After dinner we cuddled on the sofa, and I ended up dozing on Niall’s shoulder. He was taller than me, tall enough to make a comfortable pillow. I was woken by the feel of someone gently stroking my hair. I opened my eyes and was disorientated for a second, seeing my sitting room in Edinburgh. Then I remembered that I’d brought Niall here to share the other half of my life for a little while. “You’re tired from the driving,” Niall said very quietly. “Go to bed, Richard. I’ll tidy up.” I did as he said, and was asleep within a few minutes. I woke up briefly when he got in beside me, woke up for just long enough to hug him and tell him to wake me if he had trouble sleeping in a strange bed. “Not with you here” was the last thing I heard before I went back to sleep. The room felt strange to me the next morning, a combination of not having slept in the flat for several weeks, and not having slept with company in the flat for a good deal longer than that. I slipped out of bed, trying not to wake Niall, and went to make the tea. He’d obviously managed to find things in the kitchen last night, for the only sign of our meal was the dishes stacked neatly in the dish rack to dry. He was just waking when I got back. He blinked sleepily at me and smiled, sending a shiver down my spine. I’d started to think that this would never happen for me, that I would be here in this room with a lover of several weeks, a lover who might stay for good. I set down the tea and grabbed the pack of condoms that I’d pulled out of my bag last night as I’d groped sleepily for my toothbrush. “I’m breakfast this morning, I see,” he said, laughing as I flung the covers back and jumped on the bed. “What an excellent idea.” He was already half hard, his cock swelling even as I grabbed hold of it with my free hand. I settled my hand firmly around his cock, then watched his face as I squeezed and pumped. He was already breathing hard, with mouth open and eyes half shut. Then he remembered his manners and reached for my cock in turn. I gasped and nearly lost my own rhythm as those strong fingers closed around my cock. It took only a few strokes to bring us both to hard and eager readiness.

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Reluctantly I let go of him. I pulled the condom out of its foil and rolled it down his cock, loving the way he twisted and tried to thrust into my hands; the way he could hardly control himself even though he was trying. I managed to get the condom in place, and then I bent to take him into my mouth. Regular sex over the last few weeks hadn’t spoilt this for me; I was still eager to have Niall filling my mouth. I took half the length at once and sucked hard, then backed off a little to catch my breath. Then I settled one hand in a tight grip around the bottom half of his cock, and licked and sucked at the head. My reward was hearing him whimpering wordlessly, then calling my name, begging me to take more of him in. I teased him a little longer, enough to keep him on the edge without letting him come. I wanted him to remember this morning, the first time we’d made love in this place. I wanted to remember it myself, in the long days ahead, if we did part after all. Then I couldn’t hold off any longer, because I wanted it, I needed it myself. I sat up again, so that I could shuffle around, so that we could suck each other at the same time. But he said, “No,” and held out his arms to me. “I want to be able to hold you,” he said and spread his legs for me. “I want to see you. I want to be with you.” He was so earnest as he said it, telling me that he wanted more than a random fuck, that he wanted me and no-one else. I reached for the K-Y, feeling for it rather than look away from him as he gazed up at me. I remembered to put my own condom on before making my hands slippery with the jelly and carefully preparing him. Then I dropped the tube over the side of the bed and pulled a pillow under him as he lifted his hips for me. We were both ready, more than ready, and I plunged straight into him. Into that hard, muscular body that opened willingly to me, welcoming me in. He pulled me down to lie on top of him, seeking as much skin contact as he could get. I almost slipped out of him, and then he found the right position so that he could hold me against him as I fucked him. He’d learnt to take things slowly when that was right for our mood, but this morning he wanted it hard and fast, and I gave him what he wanted. He was clutching at me, saying my name, and I knew he was almost there. I wasn’t, not quite, but I wasn’t going to make him wait. I pulled away from him, almost out of him, and then shoved back into him as fast as I could. “I want you, Niall. Only you.” His fingers dug into my back, and I knew I’d have bruises later. His body squeezed my cock tightly, and that I didn’t mind at all. I held still for him as he came, watching his face. Watching the way he saw nothing at all for a few seconds, and then looked at me as if he couldn’t bear to look away. And then he was done, and I didn’t have to think about anything but my own pleasure. I could plough into him without worrying if he was enjoying it, because I knew he had. I thrust into him, feeling him tight around me, feeling his hands stroking my back now, his own urgency faded away.

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Then he pulled my head down and kissed me, thrusting his tongue into my mouth. It was enough, it was all I needed, and I knew I was going to come. I relaxed and let it happen, let the feeling rise in me. And I was coming into him, tangled up with him, him holding me close and whispering endearments to me. I collapsed onto him, with no more conscious thought left to me but how very good it was to have him hold me as I finished coming. After a while I minded my manners and slid off him, but he kept hold of me so that I was still tucked up against him. I rested my head on his shoulder and my arm across his chest, making sure he knew I still wanted to hold him. We lay like that for a while before he reluctantly stirred. “I need to go to the loo.” “Mmm.” I’d been while I’d waited for the kettle to boil, but I’d never given him the chance before jumping on him. I let go of him so that he could get out of bed. I gave him a minute or two, then went to have a shower. It being an expensive flat, the shower was big enough for two, so it didn’t take quite as long as if we’d had separate showers. But our tea was still on the cool side when we finally drank it.

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Chapter Thirteen We had a lazy, leisurely breakfast, and then I asked him what he wanted to do for the day. “Shopping, first. You’re right, I should get some clothes while I’ve the chance. But sightseeing, as well.” “Princes Street it is. That’s got shopping and sightseeing. You could keep yourself amused there all day if you’d a mind to. It’s close enough to walk it, so you can look at the buildings on the way.” He smiled at that. “That sounds like the best thing for today, then.” He loved Princes Street. He loved the shops; he loved the gardens; he loved the view of the castle sitting high on its rock. He even loved the crowds, although the novelty wore off soon enough. And he was utterly enchanted by the trains. He hadn’t realised that they were there until after lunch, when we walked through Princes Street Gardens and he heard the whistle of one as it passed along the track at the very bottom of the gardens. He asked what it was, and when I told him, he insisted that we walk down into Waverley Station so that he could see them properly. Trains are trains, there’s no romance in them any more. Not unless you’re watching someone see one up close for the first time in his life. Then even a bog-standard Intercity becomes as exciting as any lovingly preserved steam locomotive. “We can take a ride as far as Haymarket, if you like,” I said, “but there isn’t really time for anything else today.” The five minute run to the next station wouldn’t give him much time to enjoy the ride, but at least from Haymarket there’d be another train back to Waverley within a few minutes, or we could easily get a taxi home if he decided he’d had enough.

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He thought about it, then shook his head. “I want to go back to that jewellery shop to buy something for Ailsa. Were the things there all right, do you think?” The shop that had caught his eye sold things within the price range he could afford without asking me for money, but it was a shop using hefty silver settings rather than paperthin gold ones to provide a range of good quality jewellery at an affordable price. “They were fine,” I reassured him. So we went back to the shop, and he picked out a contemporary design brooch set with blue cubic zirconia. Nothing archaic about Ailsa’s tastes, which didn’t surprise me; she was very much a twenty-first-century woman even if she was a mythological being. It was moderately expensive, but not more expensive than was sensible for a young man buying a gift for his sister. “She’ll like that,” he said as it was gift-wrapped for him. “It’s a pretty thing.” There were a couple of pieces of men’s jewellery that I would have liked to buy for Niall, but it didn’t seem right, somehow. Not yet. And there was a more practical item I had in mind to buy him. I took him to the nearest mobile phone shop and bought a cheap pay-as-you-go phone. I deliberately picked a cheap one so that he wouldn’t attract the attention of muggers. He still wasn’t happy when I paid for it, but said nothing until we were out of the shop. “I should be paying my own way.” “That phone is for my piece of mind. I want to be certain that if you get lost, you can phone me.” I’d already made certain that he had the address and phone number of the flat on a piece of paper tucked into his inside pocket, along with enough money for a taxi. And a pocket map. Now I programmed Niall’s new phone with the numbers for the flat, my mobile, and Jock’s phone. He stared around at the bustling crowd as I did so. When I handed him the phone, he said, “Thanks. I’m not sure I could find my way back to the flat on my own. It’s all a bit much.” He took hold of my hand, as if afraid I’d vanish on the spot. “It’s all right with you. I know I’m safe when you’re with me.” He looked very tired and wan all of a sudden. Excitement had kept him going, but now he was a scared village boy faced with the big city and finding it just a little too much to handle. Walking home didn’t seem a good idea, and even the bus might be more than he could cope with at the moment. I kept hold of his hand as I went to the edge of the pavement to look out for a taxi, scared myself now that he might be swept away from me by the crowd. Eventually I’d find him or he’d find his way home, but he might be very scared and disorientated by the end of it. A taxi came by within a minute or two, and I bundled him into it. It was a relief to close the door behind me and shut out the sound of the street. Niall relaxed back onto the seat, the strain draining away from his face, and I knew I’d done the right thing in calling it a day.

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He collapsed on the sofa as soon as we got home, and I busied myself making a mug of tea. “Sorry,” I said as I handed him his mug. “I should have realised how tired you were getting.” “I didn’t realise myself.” He smiled in reminiscence. “But I did enjoy it.” “Good.” I kissed him, then went to order dinner. I didn’t feel like cooking, and I was sure Niall wouldn’t feel like going out to eat, so a takeaway delivered to the door seemed like the perfect meal. He was still tired the next day, and opted to stay at home while I went to meetings. When I got home I found that he’d ventured out as far as the small supermarket down the road and had bought the makings of dinner. It was only a short walk along the same route we’d taken to get the Chinese takeaway on the first night, but I was pleased to see that he’d had the confidence to start exploring the immediate neighbourhood on his own. On the third day, he asked to be taken to see the sea. I took him to Queensferry, where we could admire the Forth Bridges, road and rail. It was something to take his mind off the ever-present problem of his skin, and it worked. We spent a little time walking along the seafront, with him looking at the water. Looking for seals, I thought. Then he was distracted by the rail bridge, that magnificent piece of Victorian engineering. He stared at it for a while. “How old is it?” he eventually asked. “The stonework looks old.” “It was built in the 1880s.” “How on earth did they build that without modern technology?” Truly a child of the modern world, even if his people came out of legend. The past was another country, and it started not long before he was born. “It was built with modern technology,” I reminded him. “It was built in the early years of the modern age.” He looked from the rail bridge to the modern road bridge, and said, “I think perhaps I’d like to be an engineer.” Not just a child’s dream, I thought. The bridges had seized his imagination. “It’ll be hard work. But it’s not impossible.” “If I can’t be who I was -- there are other things I can be.” He stared hungrily at the rail bridge for a little while longer. A train clacked its way over the bridge, the sound travelling over the water to us, and he watched it until it went out of sight. Then he turned and walked back to the car. We spent the day after that back in the city centre, exploring museums and walking along the Royal Mile. It was all just a quick survey, a chance for him to see things he might like to do in more detail on a later trip, but he enjoyed himself immensely, and I enjoyed sharing my world with him. He was enthralled by the big city, if overwhelmed. The next

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morning, as we loaded the car, he said, “I’m glad to be going home. But I’m glad to have seen it. Thank you for showing it to me, Richard.” “You’ll see it again. I promise.”

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Chapter Fourteen And so we returned to the village, the bright lights of the city put aside for now but not forgotten. We didn’t go to diving school after all, though I hadn’t forgotten about it, only put it off until after the winter. Niall worked on the boats, and I worked on my book. As far as recreation went, we divided our time between the pub, the coast, and our snug cottage. It would have been a pleasant enough life, if not for the problem of Niall’s skin. William had only grown sourer with the passing of the weeks. A few of the silkies had come back to the village, but they pointedly avoided him, sticking tight to their closest human friends. I saw little of them, even if I now recognised the ones I saw for what they were. And Ailsa did not come into the village at all, although I knew she saw Niall when he was working at sea. Not until one night a good few weeks after I’d met Niall, and even then she didn’t come into the village itself, only to the beach where I’d first seen Niall. It was Niall told me that I’d be wanted, though Jock reinforced it. “Ailsa wants to talk to William. And she wants you there.” I’d seen Ailsa once or twice when I’d gone out in the boat, but I’d not had much chance to talk with her. “Why me?” “You’re my partner,” Niall said. “And you offered her a home, as well, if need be.” I could see the shape this was talking. Confront William with reality, make him see once and for all the futility of his actions. So I went with them to the beach that night, with Niall and our friends. William was already there; not with many of his friends, I was glad to see. Only the one or two that knew about silkies, I suspected. Whatever his faults, he was still keeping the secret. “Oh, a nice family gathering,” William said when he saw us. “What did you expect, boy?” Jock said. “That we’d leave Ailsa on her own in this?”

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“Where is she? You said she wanted to talk to me.” He was venomous, and yet there was something in his tone that said how very much he ached to see her. He’d punished himself along with Niall, for he’d gone from seeing little of Ailsa to seeing nothing at all. And then I saw the seal head in the water close to the beach. Ailsa checking the lie of the land. I said nothing, giving her time to pull herself up on the sand. William was too focused on us to notice, and I looked straight at him to keep his attention. Besides, I’d no wish to have my eyeballs turned inside out by looking at her transformation this close up. “Did you lie to me?” William demanded of Niall. “No, he did not,” Ailsa said coldly as she strode up from the water’s edge towards us. She stopped in front of me ... and handed me her skin. “Hold this for me if you will, Richard.” None of them had expected that, to judge by the sharp intake of breath all around me. None of them except perhaps Niall. And William least of all, as his expression clearly showed. She walked over to William, standing right in front of him. She was tall indeed, almost a match for him in height. Then she spoke, loud enough for all on the beach to hear. “I could give you my skin in exchange for my brother’s, William. And it will do you no good at all. I will not eat of your salt; I will not sleep under your roof. Ever. You may take both our skins, and it will still do you no good. For we have other salt to eat, and other roofs to sleep under, and we will never have any need of yours at all.” She turned and pointed at me. “That man offered Niall salt and roof, and for nothing more in exchange than the pleasure of hearing our stories -- and even that he said Niall could refuse him. He offered the same for me, if I needed it, and you know as well as anyone that Richard has no interest in having what you want from me. You think, knowing what my brother has found, that I’d accept a thief and a bully?” She came back to me and took back her skin, lifting it from my open hands. “This is what a real man is, William. He holds by love, not by force. You could have been a real man, William. There was the seed of that man in you once. For the sake of that man, and the old friendship you have betrayed, and the secret you have never betrayed, we will do nothing to you for this. And you shall have nothing -- for this.” She strode back to the water’s edge, flipped the skin over herself, and was a seal swimming away to the deep water where none of us could follow. “Ailsa!” William’s howl of grief rang out over the sand, but she never paused nor looked back. In that moment I felt nothing but pity for him. I could see now for myself what I’d only known from what others had said. William loved her, loved her so desperately that he had done the unthinkable. And even then he had not used physical violence, but resorted to something out of legend.

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“Come away,” Jock said very quietly. “There’s no need to make it worse for him.” Too late. He’d given up staring after her and swung around to stare at us before I could control my expression. He saw my pity and did not want it. “I might not have her, but you’ll have no skin,” he snarled at Niall as he shoved past us. “Think on that when you’re tucked up in bed with him tonight.” Niall was chalk-white. I asked quietly, “Did you know she was going to do that?” afraid that he’d had no inkling that she would condemn him to the land. “Aye. Not exactly what she was going to say, but that she was going to make it clear to him that she’d never be his.” He was shivering, and I put my arm around him. He went on, “I’m happy with you. If one of us is to be trapped on land, better me with you than her with him. And he wouldn’t have given my skin back until after he had hers safely hidden, maybe not even then.” “Your people won’t punish him, then.” Niall had been afraid for William, but it seemed as if that was one thing he need not worry about any longer. He shook his head wearily. “No. Not unless he destroys my skin.” William’s friends trailed after him, as shocked as the rest of us. Whatever they had expected, it was not this. Then our friends left, one or two at a time. No one spoke as they left, though some laid a comforting hand on Niall's shoulder as they passed. Then only Jock was standing with us, for a moment as silent as the others. “Take him home, Richard,” Jock finally said. “Take him home, where he knows he’s safe.” “You knew, didn’t you?” I asked. “You knew what she was going to do.” “The outline, if not the details,” Jock said. “We talked about it a day or two ago. Though I never dreamed she’d hand you her skin like that. An outsider, even if her brother’s lover.” Niall pulled himself upright. “It made her point.” “It did that, all right.” Jock stared up the path where William had fled. “I wish it hadn’t come to this.” “He had his chance,” Niall said bleakly. “Come home, love,” I said. “It’s cold out here.” He came home with me, and we went to bed early that night. He wept in my arms, as he had done the first night and never since. Not just for the loss of his skin, I was certain. For the loss of a friend. Ailsa had loved William once. And so had Niall. I could not add to that pain. If by some miracle we found the skin, or persuaded William to return it, I would not stand in Niall’s way. I would not try to hold him by my side, no matter what it might cost me to let him go.

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Chapter Fifteen A few weeks later, Niall came to me with a question that tested my resolve in a way I had never expected. “Will you let me go to the dance, Richard?” There was no dance in the village that I knew of. But memory stirred in me of early conversations, of things alluded to but not spoken out loud. This was something to do with the silkies. “What is the dance, Niall?” He looked away from me and fiddled nervously with a pen he’d picked up from my desk. “It’s something I must do. I owe them a duty, even if they would not try to bind me to it.” “Niall.” I took the pen away from him and set it down out of his reach. “Is it so hard to tell me what it is you want?” “The dance ... I’ve chosen you, now. But it doesn’t count for the dance; you’re not one of us, and you’re a man, besides.” It was the first I’d heard of any objection the silkies might have to Niall taking up with a man rather than a woman. And finally I put together the date with things that had been said, and my own knowledge of old rituals. Adam saying to me, weeks ago, ‘He’ll always be a silkie. His people are here, and he has obligations.’ I would never have believed it, once, but three months ago I would never have believed in silkies. “It’s the winter solstice. You’re wanted at a fertility festival. Aren’t you?” “I’m sorry, Richard. But I couldn’t lie to you about it. I couldn’t just sneak off without asking.” “Why? Why you?” I remembered what he’d said about the dance. “There was never anyone for you; that’s what you said.”

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He took himself away to sit in the armchair, shoulders hunched in misery. “No men at all, and no one for more than the night, no one who wanted more than to try her luck at getting a healthy child.” He looked up again. “We have to, Richard. There aren’t many of us, and not all of those who love one another can have children together. The magic slips away, and our children are not born at all, or cannot change.” Inbreeding, multiplied by a problem no land village ever had to face. He was a silkie, even if he could no longer change, and his people needed him. Needed the genetic diversity even one more man gave them. “I won’t go if you don’t want me to, Richard. They won’t hold it against you; you’re an incomer, and they wouldn’t expect you to understand. You didn’t grow up knowing this. But I had to ask; can you see that?” I’ve always been monogamous. If a partner had wanted a bit on the side, a bit of excitement, it might have been the breaking point of a relationship. But this was different. And he’d asked me, expecting that I’d say no. I went to him and put my arm around him. “Will they let me be there? I don’t think I could bear sitting at home waiting, wondering.” He clutched at me. “Come with me. If they turn you away, they turn me away, as well.” It was a long walk, to an isolated beach. Isolated and guarded. Two of the silkie men blocked the path through the dunes. “He’s not one of us.” How they knew, I wasn’t sure; they were strangers to me. Perhaps there were so few of them that they all knew one another by sight. Niall stared at the man. “He’s my partner.” “He’s a Land man.” I could hear the capital L. “After what they’ve done ...” “One of them. And this one took me in without asking anything in return. He’s my partner, I said.” Another man, much older than the two men standing guard, came over to us. He looked me up and down. Him I did recognise as someone I’d seen in the village. “What are you doing here, incomer?” He did not seem hostile, just concerned. “Niall’s my partner. I asked to come.” “You know what he’s here for? You weren’t born here; nobody expects you to watch even if you’ll tolerate it.” “I don’t like it. But I understand why he must do it. And it would be even harder at home waiting for him.” The older silkie nodded. “No one will think the worse of you if you can’t deal with it. But if you can, you’re welcome, Richard Dunn.”

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“No!” one of the guards protested, but the older man quieted him with a glare and a snapped “He’s earned the right, and he’s Niall’s chosen partner.” He turned and walked away, and Niall and I followed him onto the beach. There were perhaps a hundred people there, many of them already dancing to the tune of a pipe. I had not expected so many, and wondered how many of these gatherings there might be up and down the coast. I could see small dark patches clustered together along the sand, with several people watching over them. Silkie skins, under guard lest any more be stolen. It underlined the hostility of the two men guarding the path, the emphasis that both Niall and the senior silkie had put on the fact that Niall had chosen me as a partner, had not been coerced by me. Niall steered me away from the skins and to a spot where people were sitting. He took off his coat and left it next to me. “I must go to the dance. Wait for me.” He kissed me, then left me there. I sat down on the sand, uncomfortably aware of the curious glances of the silkies sitting nearby. I watched as Niall went to join a group of men waiting for partners. He waited as first one man and then another was chosen -- and finally a woman came to him and offered him her hand. She drew him into the thick of the dancing, and I looked away, for I knew where they would go after this measure was ended. Into the dunes where others had already gone for a little privacy. One of the silkie women came and knelt in front of me. “Would you dance with me?” She was beautiful, and more than that, she was silkie, and there was a little of the magic out on this night. I could want her, as I wanted very few women. But I had no business letting her assume I could give her what Niall could. “I’m not one of your people, my lady. I’m sorry.” “You’re that Niall’s incomer, aren’t you?” she asked. “I didn’t think I recognised you. Why are you here, if not for the dance?” “For him,” I said. “So that he knows that I know, and don’t begrudge him.” Another silkie sat down beside me. “You’ve courage, Richard,” Ailsa said. “Walking into all this when you knew nothing of us a quarter-year ago. Leave him be, you lot. He doesn’t need you gossiping about him in front of his face.” The woman and her friends scrambled back, though not far. “They weren’t really bothering me, Ailsa.” She grinned at me. “Not yet. And thank you for warning them that they might do better looking elsewhere for a partner. It’s not that your people are out of the question, but you wouldn’t be first choice.” “What happens to the children with mixed parentage, Ailsa? Are they silkies?” She picked up a handful of sand, let it trickle through her fingers. “Almost never, now. But at least they’re never only seals.” She threw the last of the handful away. “We should

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have done this a long time ago. All of us find ways to live on the land, have birth certificates, the papers that say we’re people. Hide in plain sight, and have our own scientists, who could find the answers for us without demanding a price we will not pay.” I thought about what she was saying, and in spite of my thick coat I was chilled to the bone. The magic slips away, and children are born who cannot change. And even if the silkies would be believed, seeking help could condemn them just as surely as waiting for their race to die. Niall danced now to buy his people a little more time, joining the search for the right combination that would allow the resulting child to use what little magic was left. “Jock said you wanted to go to university, that you had a specific career in mind. It wouldn’t be reproductive biology, by any chance?” “It was Jock’s idea. Not that, specifically, but that we should find ourselves an alternative before none of the children could change. Grandad agreed with him. They were pushing the idea before we were born, but too many couldn’t see that the world was changing.” She brushed the last of the sand from her hands. “I’m sorry. I wanted to distract you, but I didn’t mean to depress you.” “Thanks for the thought.” I looked over to the dancers. The music had stopped for a moment, and there were people moving away. Mostly couples, some bigger groups. Some had gone to the dunes, others only to a quiet part of the main beach. Niall was no longer in sight. Others moved in to replace those who’d gone. “It will go on all night,” Ailsa said. “And maybe some will find people to have children with, and if they’re single and lucky, it will be someone that they can be partners with.” “And then you go back to your partners, for another three months?” Niall had said I was his partner. He would come back to me. I held on to that thought. “If you have them. Tell me about Edinburgh, Richard. Niall told me, but there was too much for him; he couldn’t keep it all straight.” So I told her about Edinburgh. About taking Niall on a brief tour of the city centre, just enough of a taste so that he could think about what he’d want to see the next time. About taking him around the National Gallery, where he hadn’t understood half of what he was looking at but had been enchanted by some of the things he’d seen. About the shops, especially the shop where he’d bought her a piece of jewellery. She was wearing the brooch tonight, pinned to her jumper. It glittered oddly in the colourless moonlight. She distracted me quite successfully. And I think I distracted her from her own unwanted thoughts. So much so that we were laughing together when Niall suddenly sat down beside us. “I’ve done my duty,” he said with a rather odd expression. “Help?” Ailsa looked at him, and looked up behind us, and nearly fell over with laughing. I turned around. There were two silkie women and a man trying to nonchalantly walk very fast in our direction. Niall jumped on top of me, pushing me to lie back in the sand, and kissing me.

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It was very nice indeed, and I wasn’t entirely grateful when Ailsa said, “It’s all right; they’ve got the message.” Niall kept kissing me for a few more seconds, long enough that by the time he slid off to lie beside me, I knew he had it in him for at least one more round of duty tonight. “Why am I suddenly fighting off suitors now that I no longer want them?” he asked plaintively. “You’ve been forced to take a human lover. You’ve sacrificed yourself for me.” Ailsa sniggered in a most unladylike fashion. “It’s terribly romantic.” “Oh, god.” Niall flung his arm over his face. “I didn’t bloody sacrifice myself. I didn’t trust William to return my skin for yours any more than you did. And it’s hardly a sacrifice to be having the best damned sex I’ve ever had.” “Yes, there’s probably an element of ‘what’s he got that I haven’t?’ in it as well,” Ailsa said. I thought it was time to interrupt this conversation, especially as I quite liked the sound of that ‘best damned sex’. “I suppose we could always show them how much we enjoy each other’s company.” “That is an excellent idea,” Niall said. Then he cursed. “Damn! No condoms. Tonight’s one night I couldn’t wear them. I didn’t think ...” Ailsa was chewing her lip. “Neither did I. Sorry, Niall.” I wasn’t sure if I had any with me, but I wasn’t waiting until we got home. It was a long walk, and I wanted him now. “Doesn’t matter. It’s cold, and I can do without sand in interesting places anyway, and there are other things we can do.” In spite of what I’d said about showing the others, I didn’t care for an audience, so I scrambled to my feet and held a hand out to him. He pulled himself up with my help, and we went hand-in-hand to the dunes. We didn’t go far, just enough to indicate that we wanted a little privacy. Then he pulled me down to the sand, kissing me and running his hands over me. That wasn’t enough, not through the coat I was wearing against the cold. We were sheltered by the dune, so I hastily undid my coat. Niall had left his on the beach, so I spread mine on the sand as a blanket of sorts. We lay down on my coat, eager for each other, able to feel each other properly now. I had one arm around him, holding him close, the other hand working at his fly. This would have to be quick -- it was far too cold for anything else -- but I managed to get my hand inside his trousers and on his cock. Then he had hold of mine, his hand warm against my skin. I pumped my hand along his cock, luxuriating in the feel of it filling my hand, knowing that it was mine and that I had only lent it out for a little while this night. He matched my rhythm, stroke for stroke, bringing me close to the edge. Too close, if I wanted him to come with me. He’d already had one tonight; he was slower off the mark even if he’d been hard before we’d left the beach. I slowed down a little and he followed my lead, keeping a hard grip on my cock but dropping his pace.

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That was better; I could concentrate on how it felt to hold him, the sharpness of the cold air as it trickled past his hand to my cock. Even here behind the dune, I could hear the merry tune of the pipe, the laughter of the remaining dancers, and under that the sound of the sea against the sand. Here I was in his environment, his culture, with him my protective barrier as I had been his in Edinburgh. “I want you, Richard.” His hand sped up again, and I followed, dragged in his wake. Then he kissed me fiercely, and I was gone, gasping into his mouth and pouring come into his hand. I must have squeezed reflexively, for he jerked and came. We didn’t let go of each other until it was quite over. Then we fell apart, panting for breath. After a while he turned over and smeared his hand through the sand by the coat, scraping it as clean as he could. “I’ve gotten used to the amenities,” he said matter-of-factly. “I should have thought to bring something.” I did the same. Then I fished in my pocket for a tissue, but it was sadly in need of repair by the time we’d both cleaned up. At least it meant that my coat wasn’t in too bad a shape. A little crumpled, and the sand would need to be shaken out, but that was all. I stood up and put it on. “We’d better get your coat. You’ll get cold.” “I’ll be all right.” But he followed me back onto the beach and put his coat on. Then we sat down for a little while to watch the dance. I could watch it now, appreciate it for what it was rather than thinking about what it was the prelude to. The dancers were merry, celebrating. Niall shifted to sit behind me, wrapping his arms around me. I leaned back against him, enjoying the support, the comfort of his strength shielding me. Was this how he felt with me? That it didn’t matter, being adrift in an alien culture, so long as there was someone to walk with me? “We can go home now, if you want,” he said quietly. “You don’t want to stay with your people a little while longer?” It was his chance to be with them again, meet them on an equal basis, for a little while at least. He laughed softly. “They have other things on their minds than talking to me.” “Where’s Ailsa?” I didn’t like to leave her, not without telling her we were going. “In the dance. Look.” He pointed, and I saw her with a small group, dancing amongst themselves. “They’ve opted out,” he said. “They won’t take partners for tonight.” “Could you have opted out?” “I could have. But if I had, it might have meant opting out for good.” He nuzzled at my neck. “If I stay with you, and you could not do this, they’ve lost any children from me forever. They’re only opting out for a season, for whatever reason.”

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“I won’t have children. I won’t marry for convenience, and being no more than a sperm donor wouldn’t work for me. But I won’t deny you your chance.” He hugged me tightly. “It’s different for us. The father is still the father, even if he’s not the mother’s partner.” “I got that impression, from what Ailsa said. At least I might be an uncle to your children.” “You don’t mind?” I thought about it. He needed an honest answer. “No. Not for this. As long as I can be with you.” “Let’s go home, Richard. I’ve done my duty, and I want to go home.” So we went, waving to Ailsa as we walked past her little group. The silkie who’d bid the guards let me pass joined us on the path. “Will you be here again?” “Both of us,” Niall said. “Both or none.” “As it should be, Niall. I’m glad you’ve found someone.” He turned and walked away, back to the beach. And we walked on home. Home for both of us, now.

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Chapter Sixteen We stayed home for Christmas and New Year. My own family were away themselves, so it was easy enough to put them off with the explanation that I didn’t want to disrupt Niall’s life too much when he was still recovering from his accident. They didn’t ask exactly what status Niall held in my life, merely accepted that I had taken responsibility for him and reassured themselves that we wouldn’t be lonely. No need to be lonely, when we had invitations to cover the whole week. We hosted a dinner ourselves, and there were presents aplenty under our tree. Then the party season was over, and it was back to work. The days were still short and cold even after the turning of the year, and it was easy to stay tucked up in the cottage. But work went on, and I needed to see to the flat in the city, and to go in to see people in person. So I arranged for meetings, with agent, with editor, with research facilities. One slight problem, of course. “You’ll be on your own most of the time if you come with me, Niall. I’ll be working; I won’t have time to take you around. And it’s a miserable time of the year if the weather’s bad.” He shrugged. “It’s your job. I’ve got you to myself most of the time. I can’t complain if you need to be away for a few days. You don’t complain if I’m out on the boat for a couple of days at a time. If the weather’s good, I’ll come with you, and we can stay a day or two extra. Otherwise I’ll stop here.” And it pleased me greatly to hear him decide what he wanted, rather than try to do what he thought I wanted. He was my partner, not my dependent. So when the day dawned wet and cold and miserable, I went by myself, and missed him while I was gone. It turned out that a second trip would be needed within two weeks, to my great disgust. I consoled myself with the thought that the weather might be better, and Niall and I could spend some time exploring the city when it was relatively free of tourists.

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It was so good to get home, and find him waiting for me. The kettle was on and the crumpets were toasting a minute or two after I walked through the door, but best of all was that those things had to wait a minute or two while Niall hugged me and kissed me and told me he’d missed me. “I missed you, too, love. I wish I hadn’t put you off coming with me. But you’d have been bored; the weather was vile, and it wouldn’t have been much fun for you. Not when most of the people I know work nine-to-five jobs.” “I was probably better off here; at least it’s only a step down the road to see my friends. And Ailsa came round. She says she wants to go with us next time if you’ve room in the car and flat.” “Tell her better to wait until we’ve got a chance to do it for fun rather than work. But soon, I promise.” I was tired from the hours of driving, so I went straight to sleep when we went to bed. But the next morning I proved how much I’d missed him. I’d missed waking up in the morning with that warm presence in the bed next to me, I’d missed being brought a cup of tea if he was the first one awake, and I’d missed being able to roll on top of him and feel his morning erection against mine. He looked up at me, still sleepy. “You don’t want a nice cup of tea first?” “No.” “Good.” He wrapped one arm around me and used his other hand to pull my head down so he could kiss me. I never tired of this, of having the affection and lust together. I was still kissing him when I groped for the condoms on the bedside table, although I had to stop long enough to tear the packet open and get the condom out. One more kiss, and then I sat up to put it on. I had it on my cock in one easy motion, what with plenty of practice over the last few weeks, but he still grabbed my cock in his fist and smoothed the condom right the way down for me. Then he grabbed the lube, took a handful, and rubbed it all over my cock. I was desperate to be in him by the time he’d finished, but he took his time. Deliberately, judging by the glint in his eye. Stroking and squeezing, making sure every last square millimetre was covered. Finally he was done. I grabbed a pillow and shoved it under him as he lifted his hips. He’d got a lot better at face-to-face positions with practice, but a little extra support never hurt. And then I could enter him, enjoy the tightness of his body around me, the expression on his face as he gasped in pleasure. I loved this position. The difference between us in height made it awkward to kiss him when it was this way around, but it was still good to feel his arms around me as I fucked him. Good to see his face, too, to know with each stroke into him how much he was enjoying it.

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We were both desperate for release now, faster than usual, but we’d been apart for longer than we ever had been before. I wanted him so badly, wanted us to come together, and knew we weren’t quite going to manage it. He’d had too much fun lubing me, and I was on the brink already. And then as I plunged into him for what I knew would be the final stroke, he squeezed hard around me. I came suddenly, gripped by his body, thinking of nothing but how good it was to be here with him, in him. Not quite together, but almost. Before I’d even finished, he came, as well. We held each other tightly, unable to move until it was all over. Then I relaxed, content to be cradled on his chest for a little while. “I did miss you,” he said after a while. “I missed you quite a lot.” “I thought as much.” I slid off him but left one arm draped across his chest, wanting the contact. “It doesn’t bother you too much, being left here on your own?” He took hold of my hand in his. “I knew it was only for a little while, that you’d come back to me when you’d done what you must do.” He turned his head to look at me. “Maybe if this was still just where you came to get away from the city for a bit of peace. Then I’d worry that one day you’d leave here and not come straight back as soon as you’d finished doing whatever needed your attention there. But this is your home now, isn’t it? Just as much as the city is.” “Even before I met you, it was.” I might still have left, driven by the need for more than just friendship from someone. But not now, not when I’d had the answer to my desire blown in from the sea on a harsh wind. I held him close for a little while, before we finally roused ourselves for breakfast. William had been left alone since the confrontation with Ailsa. Nobody had sought him out to ask for or to demand the return of Niall’s skin. There was no point. There was no point in antagonising him still further, and as one or two people said, there was no point in rubbing salt in the man’s wounds. But we all still lived in the same village, and so it was that we found ourselves in the same place as him from time to time. Shop, pub, street. Mostly everyone got out of each other’s way, and if it was me I tried to hide my mixture of anger and pity. Niall and I were having a last drink with our friends before I went back to Edinburgh for the next round of meetings and on-the-spot research in the library. There was some good-natured chaffing from across the room about whether it was better to leave Niall behind, that I might have a nice warm bed when I got back, or take him with me that I might have a nice warm bed while I was away. Normally we were discreet in public, but Niall reacted to the teasing by grabbing me and kissing me thoroughly. There was a rousing cheer, and calls of “Young love’s so sweet” and similar pleasantries.

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Then the noise died away. I looked up. William had walked into the pub and was staring at us, his face ashen. His gaze focused on me specifically, and I was afraid as I had never been afraid of him before. He hated what he was seeing, and it was nothing to do with his homophobia. He turned on his heel and walked out without saying a word. “Fuck,” Dougal said into the silence. “Leave it,” Keith said from behind the bar. “There’s nothing to be done about it now.” But I noticed that his arm moved slightly, as it might do if he was just checking that a certain lump of firewood was in its accustomed place out of sight under the bar. The conversation slowly started again as everyone pretended it hadn’t happened. But Keith kept an eye on the door, and he wasn’t the only one doing it. I took heed of that and my own instincts and shifted around so that I wasn’t sitting with my back half-turned to the door. But we all started to relax as nothing happened. The minutes went by, and it became clear that William had not gone to fetch his friends. He’d gone to fetch something far more dangerous. It was an hour or more before William stalked back into the pub, straight over to our table, and slammed a parcel down in front of Niall. “Take back your skin, you bastard, and take yourself back to the sea where you belong.” He looked straight at me, jealous hate naked on his face. “If I can’t have her, why should you have him?” He’d loved them both once, in different ways, and it had twisted him up inside to see his plan to use one against the other go so awry. And now I paid the price, as Niall’s freedom sat in front of him, and I knew I wanted him free even more than I wanted him with me. “William ...” Niall said, his voice catching, and held out a hand to him, but William turned and fled. He hadn’t quite muffled a sob. We all stared at the time bomb in the middle of the table. “Get that out of here before he changes his mind and comes back for it!” Keith snapped, and our friends roused from their shock. Dougal picked up the skin and thrust it into Niall’s hands, and then they dragged us out of our seats and away out of the pub. We were surrounded by the whole pack of them all the way home, though most of them peeled off once we were safely through our front door. Only the three musketeers followed us in. They sat us down in the living room, one in the armchair, one on the couch, and left us staring at each other in shock while they busied themselves making tea and toast. Adam slapped a plate in front of me. “Get that down you; you need to eat something.” Dougal did the same for Niall. Niall disentangled one hand from his bundled skin, though he kept tight hold of it with the other. He reached for the toast and ate mechanically, eating because it was in front of him.

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“It’s not the end of the world, boys,” Jock said. “It’s not as if everything you’ve got between you will fall apart now that Niall doesn’t have to stay here.” But Niall would go back to the sea. They always did, when they were free of the coercion, even if it was with the words “You were a good man to me.” And I could not take his skin away from him again, because then it would all have been a lie, all have been based on me being no better than William in the end. “Don’t interfere, Jock,” Adam said. “I know what you wanted for Niall, but you’re asking a lot of Richard. You know Niall won’t leave the dance, and it’s different when he has the choice now, when he can go back to them for good.” Adam had always been worried about what it would do to me, having to deal with the realities of a silkie as my partner. Now he dragged Jock out, and Dougal followed them. He stopped long enough to say, “I hope you can sort things out, boys.” We looked at one another, and I saw the same fear in him as I felt. Was it over before it was properly begun? “I won’t leave you, Richard. I won’t.” But the silkie women of legend had left their husbands, had left even their children, when they no longer had to stay. Even when they’d grown to love the man, the pull of the sea and their own people was too strong. “I know you live half your life in the village anyway. But you don’t have to live it all here now.” I could hear the pain in my own voice. “You can swim with your people again; you don’t have to wait for the dance to see them. And you can find a wife at the dance now, without worrying if you can be a good silkie husband when you’re trapped on land.” He came over to me and put his arms around me. “You go to Edinburgh, Richard, because you must and because you miss it. But you come back to me, don’t you?” I wanted to believe it. And because I wanted so very badly to believe it, I couldn’t. He’d go back to the sea, because he must, because he ached for it even when I held him and loved him. And maybe he’d come back to me and maybe he wouldn’t, and even if he did, it would never be the same again. He’d always be wanting the sea. He’d always wanted it in the entire time I’d known him, and it would win in the end. I loved the sea, but it was an alien environment for me, and for him it was home. Where his family was. The shore was where he visited the friends who couldn’t follow him there. The friends and the lovers. There’d been willing lovers for me in Edinburgh, but I would have had to be in Edinburgh; they would not follow me here for more than a brief excursion. They would not have lived with me, as Niall had lived with me. And now Niall would be a visitor, our cottage somewhere where he stayed when he was visiting the village. “I’m going to Edinburgh in the morning,” I said. “I’m sorry, Niall, but I can’t be there when you go back. I can’t. Please don’t ask it of me.” “Richard ...”

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“And I’ve got to be there for the meeting. I can’t put it off at this short notice.” “It would be hard to explain, wouldn’t it?” He hugged me hard. “I’ll be here when you get back. I promise. You’ll be away three days, and that’ll be enough for me to visit people, see them again.” I believed him. But it still hurt. We didn’t make love that night. We held each other, and I tried to forget the skin he’d put away neatly folded in the cupboard. It was an act of trust, that, a greater one than Ailsa’s. He was still at the cottage when I left the next morning. I glanced in the mirror as I turned the corner, and he was still standing at our gate, intent on catching the last glimpse of the car. The meetings were good for me. They gave me something to focus on, something else to think about, although once or twice I had to be nudged and reminded of what had just been said. “Penny for your thoughts,” people said, and I smiled at them, knowing that if I’d told them my thoughts, they’d have assumed I was trying out ideas for the next book. The research session in the library was harder, but I ploughed on. I ended up leaving the city later than I’d intended, which was a mistake. Leaving at all might have been a mistake, or so I concluded when the snow hit. The driving conditions were foul, and though it was possible to drive safely, it wasn’t possible to do so quickly. When it had taken me an hour to drive twenty miles, I realised that the only sane thing to do was to stop at the next hotel that was still open. At this rate I’d not be home until the wee small hours, and the longer I had to drive, the more tired I got, and the more dangerous it became to drive in these conditions. I knew I’d made the right decision when I saw a ‘Vacancies’ sign, and felt nothing but relief. I wanted to be home, but not so badly that I’d risk never getting there at all. It was less of a relief to find that the phone lines were down, and my mobile couldn’t reliably find a signal through the foul weather. The signal strength was so appalling that the call kept dropping out even when I finally did get through. I tried my own number, then my friends, but nobody was home, and I started to despair of finding anyone to tell where I was. Finally Jock answered when I tried my own number again. “I’m all right, but I’m staying in a hotel. I’ll be home when the weather’s cleared” was all I managed to get through before the call dropped altogether. He’d said something about “We’re all fine,” so I didn’t try to call back. He knew I was all right, and I knew they were all right, and I’d just hope that meant that Niall’s reunion with his skin had been successful. I didn’t sleep well that night, and in the morning I wished that I had tried to call back, to find out where Niall was. But I’d slept late enough that the weather had cleared, and the snow ploughs had been out, and the road was passable with care. I negotiated my way out of the snow and down to the coast road where the snow had not fallen or had melted away. It

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was a long drive still, but a more pleasant one than it would have been last night, and I didn’t regret having played it safe. It was a long enough drive that it was lunchtime before I drove into the village. I stopped at the garage to fill up and grab a snack from the stand of unappealing candidates for the microwave oven. Not what I wanted, but I couldn’t assume there’d be a meal waiting for me when I got in, not this trip. I’d paid and was on my way back to the car when I heard Jock’s voice. “What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded. “Where’ve you been?” “Didn’t you hear what I said on the phone? I was trapped in the storm; I’ve only just got in.” “Aye, and why are you messing about here instead of getting on home? If I’d a wife waiting for me, I’d be straight on home, phone call or no phone call.” It all rose up inside me then. “I have no wife, Jock,” I said bitterly. “I will not replay old legends, and I will not hold him against his will. The women always went back to the sea when they found their stolen skins, and I don’t suppose the men are any different.” Jock stared at me for a moment. Then he said, “Oh, Richard, Richard, did ye think only of those tales?” “I’ve just had four months of William trying to bloody re-enact them. It’s hard not to think of them!” He took hold of my arm and pulled me over to my car. He looked around, then said, “I can see why those ones would be on your mind, but they’re not the only stories that are told. Didn’t you know that there were others who came from the sea willingly, when they were asked rather than forced?” “Aye, the silkie men who were lovers for a night or a week or even a year, before they went back to their own people. That’s not what I want, Jock, and you know it.” “And then there were the women who fell in love, and moved to the land to be with their chosen man, and went back and forth between land and sea as they pleased.” He shook me. “Listen, Richard. He’ll go back to the sea, but only for a little while. He wants the sea, and he wants you, and you’ve never made him choose. You’ve never even made him choose between you and the dance, and there’s some in the village that couldn’t be said of. There’s more than one marriage broken up over that. And if the pair of you can deal with what the outside world thinks of you being two men, you can deal with both of you wanting to live in two worlds.” I stared at him as what he said sank in. I’d known there were other relationships across the divide, and I’d known they couldn’t be forced ones, not after the way everyone on both sides of the divide had reacted to William. But I hadn’t applied that to Niall and me, because the only other relationship I knew was the twisted, unhappy mess William had made of his friendship with Ailsa.

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He was waiting for me. He was at home waiting for me, wondering where I was, and I was standing here gawping at Jock. I scrambled into the car, and the last thing I heard from Jock was, “Now don’t be having an accident in the last mile!” He was waiting for me. He was out of the door and holding me before I was halfway down the path, holding me as if he’d never let me go. “I’m sorry I’m late,” I said. “It’s all right. You called, and Jock more or less heard what you said, so we knew you were safe.” And he took me inside, and held me and kissed me and told me how much he’d missed me, before putting on the kettle. It was comforting ritual, and the only way in which it had changed was him saying, “I’ve left my skin in the bedroom cupboard. I think it’ll be safe enough there. But I want to get a fireproof box to keep it in, just to be on the safe side.” “We’ll get one the next time we go to Edinburgh,” I said, and knew that we would go to Edinburgh again. We’d go together many, many times.

Jules Jones Jules Jones is a materials scientist, whose publishing credentials include such gems as European Union research reports. Thrilling though these might be to at least three readers, Jules believes that variety is the spice of life. Writing erotic sf provides an adequate amount of variety. Recent publications include The Syndicate series (with writing partner Alex Woolgrave), published by Loose Id, and short stories in Fishnet Magazine and the 2005 Ultimate Gay Erotica anthology. Jules can be found on the Web at www.julesjones.com.

***** Read on for a tantalizing glimpse of

Jumping the Fence by Stephanie Vaughan Available Now from Loose Id

Jumping the Fence Kevin's eyes came open at the sound of the voice, and he realized he'd dreamed the whole thing. The weak winter sun shone on his back, and he knew he must have fallen asleep. The best blowjob of his life, and it was all a fantasy. He didn't know whether to sigh with relief or cry in frustration. As intense as the whole thing had been, he should probably be thankful it hadn't been a wet dream. “Hey, Beltrán -- you coming?” The door leading out to the patio off the lunchroom stood open, and the new guy, Durrance, leaned his head and shoulders out. “We've got a one o'clock meeting.” “Yeah. I'll be there.” Shit. Kevin tossed the remains of his lunch in the trash and wondered how long Durrance been standing there. How much had he seen?

***** Slipping in through the conference room's back door, Kevin tried for unobtrusive, a tough pull at six-foot-one. Still, the meeting was a big one and there were probably fifteen people gathered around the room's big oak table. No time to hunt for a seat, Kevin grabbed the first available -- next to Durrance, naturally. The pre-meeting banter was just beginning to die down as he dropped into the vacant chair. “Thanks for making time, y'all. I know everybody's super busy, but I'd like to get an update from everyone on where y'all stand with the transition. Margaret, could we start with you?” Still unsettled by his dream, Kevin only glanced briefly at Helen at the head of the table before allowing his gaze to focus on the notebook he'd brought with him, and his thoughts to wander. It would take a good twenty minutes for Helen, the project's lead, to work her way around the table to him. That meant he had eighteen minutes to ruminate on what the hell was wrong with him. It wasn't like he was gay, or anything. Fuck, no. As much as they drove him crazy, he'd always done fine with women. Kevin knew he was okay-looking. He was no Brad Pitt, but wasn't a troll, either. Women liked him fine. But, Jesus, lately they were driving him over the edge. They wanted it. They didn't want it. They didn't do it on the first date. Didn't give head. Could they just kiss? Not with the lights on. It made his head want to implode just thinking about it. Whatever they possessed that passed for a thought process was totally alien to him. Maybe that was why, more and more lately, Kevin found himself thinking about other guys. Not like in a gay way, or anything. But just about meeting up with another guy. Maybe

Jumping the Fence

stroking each other's tools. Checking it out. He'd like to give a hand job. Or a b.j. God. Just thinking about it got him hard. The chair next to him creaked as Durrance chose that moment to shift in his seat. Kevin's eyes flicked automatically to the new guy's crotch. An image of what the other man might have hidden there flashed into Kevin's mind. In an instant, he pictured himself running his fingers down the sides of it. Feeling the fully engorged shape of it. Comparing it to his own. Would it be short and thick? Long and curved? What about the color? And the taste? He imagined taking it into his mouth ... Christ! He yanked his thoughts back to the meeting. Rodriguez from Marketing was droning on, as usual. Kevin hoped what he'd been thinking didn't show on his face, and glanced over at Durrance. The other man was looking back at him. Oh, shit . He couldn't help himself. Kevin looked back. And felt his cock, already half hard from his fantasizing, swell even more. Durrance's gaze dipped for the briefest splitsecond to Kevin's lap, where, Kevin knew, his baggy chinos couldn't entirely hide what was happening to him. The expression on the other man's face didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes, and Kevin knew that he knew. Shit, shit, shit. Kevin closed his eyes and looked away just as Bhapodra from Finance, sitting next to him, began his report. Shit, shit, shit.

***** What people are saying about

Jumping the Fence All the emotions conveyed in the story seemed not only real, but vivid and unique to each character... I'll definitely be going back to Jumping the Fence for a few peeks. -- Dani Jacquel, Just Erotic Romance Reviews This book is a truly enjoyable read that invites you to see things from a different angle. The characters are true to life, their personalities remarkably well portrayed. -- Karin, Mon Boudoir