hypatia_66

The torture was exquisite; he had never experienced torment like it; his back was a mass of cool flame. He held his breath; a film of sweat beaded his upper lip; from his tightly squeezed eyelids a salt tear emerged and slipped down his nose; he whimpered slightly and squirmed.

The torment ceased.

“Oh God, don’t stop!”

And the feather-light fingers recommenced the faint, so faint, brushing of his skin, raising goose-flesh where they touched, and sending a charge along the nerve from each vertebra, to electrify his whole body. They moved to the baby-soft skin of his flanks, to the delicate skin under the whole length of his arm down to his wrist: a maddening susurration from fingers that knew the precise level of pressure required to render him helpless; in thrall to a sensation never dreamt of in his most ardent imaginings.

“Turn over.”

Farewells

Chapter 1

“We have each other.” 

It was a standing joke between them, but in fact, they never intruded unasked, or without good reason, on each other’s privacy; their preferred social lives were different, and for the most part separate; their love lives were - at least on K’s part - discreet. His partner’s, of course, was inclined to extend beyond the private - K’s, never. The girls in his life were artists, musicians; Village people, streetwise and capable of dealing with his lack of commitment. The women in his partner’s life were quite different – Fifth Avenue, sophisticated, expensive; sometimes dangerous, and equally uninterested in commitment.

The jokey phrase, however, mattered very deeply to their professional partnership. They knew each other’s thought patterns, likely choices of action, preferred operational style. They had saved each other many times from total disaster, though not always from injury. They were like brothers; mostly fond and forgiving, sometimes hating and furious, but always there. So, the day his partner left, it was a profound and humiliating shock.

He had come in as usual; had been closeted with the Old Man for a while; had returned to the office and said, “I’m off, now. Goodbye old friend – I’m sorry.”  He had shaken his hand, tapped his cheek, and left him standing alone, stunned.

“You didn’t know?” asked his colleagues. 

“Didn’t he say anything before…?” asked the support staff.