The Beach House

'It's beautiful,' she said at last. 'Just like our cottage. Who will you bring here, when its finished, Michael?'

I thought about it. The truth was that the Beach House had come to mean something special -- its psyche irreversibly locked into the girl sitting beside me. When we'd started the project I'd thought she was a slut but now I realised I'd been wrong. It was difficult to reconcile what I'd seen with the person that I'd got to know, and I found myself wondering how her time with Lucy had happened. Perhaps it had been just that once -- some sort of aberration, a little experiment.

And in that moment I realised that my feelings for her had changed. I guess I'd built up a dream where she and I would live here together, shut away from the rest of the world -- just her and me. It was stupid, I know: first the sexual obsession and now something much deeper -- the need to be with her, to share more than just a few hours each day. It was an impossible dream, I knew, but I couldn't help myself even though she hadn't shown the slightest interest in me beyond a sibling friendship.

I felt her eyes on my face, waiting for my answer. 'I don't know, Sarah...I hadn't thought of it.' I said. I glanced at her, at those beautiful grey eyes. 'But I think it would be you.'

'Me? Surely you have other friends -- it will be...well, a quiet place. You'll not be disturbed here.' I could see she was picking her words, but the meaning was clear. You can bring your friends here to fuck, and I'll bring mine. If only she knew.

'I think it's a special place...you know, our place. Yours and mine.' I explained. 'We've made it special, Sarah, and we've put a bunch of memories into it.' I looked at her. She was still regarding me, the sun on her face and her lips soft and wet. Sarah -- my Sarah. How the hell had I never realised how amazing she was -- how beautiful and talented, how funny and hard working. If only she was mine! I had a sudden vision of her kneeling naked on the rough stone floor with the dark haired woman, and I found my scorn had transcended to jealousy.

'I think we should be very careful not to invite anyone who might threaten that,' I continued.

'Well, who's an old romantic!' She squeezed my hand. 'We'll keep it for special people, then. Now, we need to start again, lazybones.'

She went to release my hand and get up but I held her fingers to stop her going. 'Do you have anyone special, Sarah?'

Her eyes were suddenly watchful. 'Maybe,' she said carefully.

'Well -- do you or don't you?'

'Maybe. I'm just not sure if -' she broke off and shook her head, her eyes on my face. 'Why do you want to know?'

'Just asking. You've never told me.'

'Why should I, Michael?' she asked gently. 'Can't I have secrets too?' She released her fingers from mine and stood up, balancing on the wall and looking down at me. 'We've been close these last few weeks,' she said, 'and I love that. But we are each our own person too. I have my secrets and you have yours, and it's best we don't go there.'

She climbed down the ladder and I watched her go, picking through the rubble below to finish the task I'd set her. Her hair shone in the morning sun and she was beautiful, and I thought my heart would break.

*

Three weeks later we finished the roof and Sarah and I had a little celebration, just the two of us. Nothing much -- a bottle of champagne and some chicken and salad. She'd cleared a little area to the front of the house and she called me to join her. She was sitting on a rug with her legs folded underneath her in that amazing double-jointed way that women have, looking back at the cottage as I approached.

I sat down and she passed me a drink, lifting her glass to mine. 'To us,' she said simply. 'And what we've achieved.'

We sat and sipped our drinks and looked at the cottage. The new roof was pitched steeper than the old one and it had given it a completely new character. I saw that the shape and balance was right, and its colour too. What had been a derelict wreck was suddenly an inviting dwelling, even though the windows and doors weren't fitted yet. It would be amazing when it was done.

'So what's next' Sarah asked.

'Doors and windows, then repoint the mortar. Then we can start on the inside.'

'How long before it's finished, do you think?'

'If you continue to work like you have been, perhaps three months.' I didn't want this to end.

'Then we can really celebrate.'

I nodded. 'I've been thinking about that, Sarah. Why don't you and I be the first visitors? Just us -- no one else. We'll come over on the Friday and spend the weekend together, or longer, if you like.'

She nodded. 'Sounds great to me.'

'And we should work to a deadline now,' I continued. 'Aim to have it finished by your birthday.'

'Right.' She picked up a chicken leg and nibbled at it, her little white teeth tearing at the flesh. 'I need to speak to you about having a break, though. I'm going away for a few days.'

I stared at her, my heart sinking. I suddenly knew where she was going. 'Going away?'

She nodded, her eyes on my face. 'I need a break, Michael. I've got a...friend, and she's invited me to stay for a couple of days -- well, a week actually. It's only a week.'

'When?'

'Tomorrow.'

'But I was going to do the windows next week. I need you here to help with that.'

She shook her head. 'They can wait a few days, and I'll help when I get back. A few days won't matter.' She regarded me. 'I have to go.'

I remembered the dark haired woman and the way she moved, and I remembered Sarah's hand sliding into the secret cavity of her body. Lucy. I imagined them together again and what they would do to each other, their pale bodies entwined and their lips slick from eating each other. My Sarah. It should be with me, not her.

'Is she more important than me, then?' The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, my voice harsh. 'Aren't I special too? I thought you cared about this -' I waved my hand at the cottage. 'And about me.'

Sarah stared at me in surprise. I could see a smear of grease on her lips from the chicken and it reinforced the image of her face painted with Lucy's juices. I could see the colour rising in her cheeks, too.

'Of course I care, Michael!' she said. 'I care about this and about you -- but I have to go.' She put her hand on my arm. 'Don't make it more difficult...I have to go,' she repeated.

'So what's so urgent?'

She shook her head. 'I can't tell you that. Believe me, Michael, I wouldn't go if I didn't have to.'

'You could have given me a little more notice.'

'She only called me last night.'

'So it's a woman!'

Sarah stared at me. 'What do you mean by that?'

'Nothing.'

'Yes you do. Tell me!'

I felt the anger leech out of me. 'Nothing...I meant nothing, Sarah.' I could see her eyes on my face. 'I just don't want to lose you, just as we were getting on so well.'

'You won't lose me,' she said. 'This isn't some sort of contest, right? I've just got to go and sort out a few things and then I'll be back.'

'Where will you be?'

She glared at me. 'I told you -- with her. Where she lives is none of your business.'

'It is whilst I'm running this project!'

Sarah laughed. She didn't get upset often but I could see a burning anger in her eyes. 'Fuck that!' she said. 'I don't mind you telling me what to do when were working, Michael, but you don't own me.' She leaned forward, her face close to mine. 'Get this, buster -- I'm heading off for a few days and you can't stop me. I'll help when I get back, if I feel like it. And I'll go away again if I feel like it. And stop being so damned possessive!' She tipped the rest of her drink on the ground and stood up, looking down at me. 'And I'm heading home right now so you'd better get moving if you don't want to be stuck here without the boat for a week!'

We headed back in silence, Sarah sitting in the bow with her back to me stiff with anger and disapproval. Her hair was blowing in the wind and I could see the glossy skin at the nape of her neck and the curve of her shoulder. I tried to speak to her but she remained staring out over the bay until we arrived at the little harbour when she skipped ashore and strutted off, leaving me to carry everything back home.

The next morning she was gone. I'd half expected her to leave a note or something, but there was nothing and so our argument stayed like a cancer between us, thick and dark and malignant. I moped around the house for a few days trying to keep busy, trying not to think of her and what she was doing. It was better during the day but in the long dark nights my mind was filled with her -- Sarah laughing, her teeth white in a sun-browned face and her eyes sparkling; Sarah smiling, pleased with something she'd just finished; and then Sarah in wild orgasm with her face screwed up in a rictus of pleasure and Lucy's tongue inside her. Perhaps they talked together afterwards, Sarah whispering about her besotted brother and how he wanted her, and they would laugh together at how stupid men were and they would turn to each other again with hungry eyes.

I couldn't get the thought out of my mind and I tossed and turned in my tangled sheets half out of my mind with jealousy. I went over our argument in my mind a million times, wishing I'd handled it better, wishing I'd somehow persuaded her to stay -- and then with a sudden slide of despair I'd realise that there was nothing I could have done to keep her, that she was her own person and that my dreams were nothing more than wild imaginings with no hope of ever coming true.

That night I dreamed of Sarah again.

I was on a rocky shore and the stones around me were black, shining wet under a malignant grey sky; and the sea was decked with a silver cloak of spume. And as I watched she appeared before me, walking on the water in a lustrous gown of shimmering white, and her hair streamed behind her like a golden banner in the spiteful little wind.

And behind her I beheld a tempest, tearing the water to a frothing inferno as wild as the mind of a madman, and I knew that she was in mortal danger.

'Sarah!' I screamed, and my voice was flung away like a speck of dirt into the darkening sky. 'Sarah, my love! To me! Come to me!'

But she could not hear me for she was deaf to all but one, and her eyes were blinded by the love of another. And as I screamed her name the water reached up and took her like a hungry shark, and there was only a single scream of terror and then nothing but the empty, churning sea on that desolate, windswept shore.

*

On the fifth day I went out to the Beach House. The good weather of the last few days had gone and a spiteful little wind swept over the bay, bending the trees on the foreshore and whipping up little whitecaps on the long easterly swell. It was well past noon by the time I arrived and I walked up the path to the house with none of the enthusiasm or interest I usually had. The house looked forlorn too, almost as if it understood it had been abandoned. Its empty window sockets stared at the troubled sea with a blind man's gaze and the wind had plucked at the leaves and litter of the foreshore and piled them against its old stained walls like flotsam on a beach.

It was quite dark inside and I reached up to the little shelf above the empty hearth to where Sarah had put candles and matches in case we were ever caught out. The shelf was empty, and so I found the flashlight in my toolbox and used that instead. I shone the beam around the room and saw the candles in little saucers on the floor and on the windowsill. Their wicks were blackened and they had wept pale translucent pools of wax onto the dusty stone, and beside them were empty wine glasses and a cigarette butt. Someone had been here. I stooped and picked up the butt and I saw the crimson smear of lipstick on it, and I knew. Sarah and Lucy. I imagined them stealing up to the cottage holding hands and their giggles and kisses and their soft whispers of love and seduction. In my mind's eye I saw them lying there on the little blanket, their pale naked bodies entwined and their mouths joined. It should have been me. The longing was palpable, a gut-wrenching desire to possess her -- to dare to dream that she would choose me rather than her. I imagined the expression she would have had in her clear grey eyes as she reached up to pull me down beside her, and the soft sigh of love and fulfillment as I penetrated the heat of her tight little body.

I don't know how long I stood there, my eyes on the clues of her betrayal. I recall trying to work out when she'd been there but there was no way to know. Perhaps they had been there every day: a pilgrimage to this quiet, secluded place where they could satisfy their basic urges without fear of discovery. And gradually the pain and disappointment was replaced by a growing sense of anger -- that she could prefer her whore over me, and that she should bring her to our special place in spite of the promise she had made.

At length I headed back to the boat and turned towards home, my sense of anger and outrage growing by the minute. God knows, I wasn't thinking straight. In truth Sarah was her own woman and she owed me nothing, but my disappointment and outrage coloured my reason and it somehow became her fault, and I was the victim.

The house was empty when I got home, and I dropped my things off in the garage and made my way to her room. The curtains were drawn and I turned on the table lamp and sat on the bed and looked around. The pillows were pink with frilly edges and on impulse I pressed my face to them, breathing deeply to detect her essence. It was there: the fragrance of her perfume and her hair and her skin, lingering like a distant memory in the weave of the fabric. Her nightie was there too and I pressed it to my face, imagining how it looked on her, imagining the plasticity of her body inside it with its warm curves and secret valleys, and my anger and sense of betrayal grew sharper in my mind.

The drawer to her desk was locked and I picked it with a paperclip and I lifted her journal out and opened it, my eyes flicking over the lines that filled every page with her neat, sloping writing. Thoughts of school, of her friends, of things she had done. Some of them were childish, girly thoughts, but there were insights too -- of hopes and dreams, of plans for the future and schemes to move herself forward. Her intellect and capacity for thought shone through and I found myself immersed in the daily business of her life and the vision for where she wanted it to go. There were no references to Lucy -- or any other sexual partner, for that matter. She mentioned names of other girls who 'were doing it' and how she didn't want to be like them, and she talked of who her closest friends were...but nothing about sex.

And then on a day in April Lucy came into her life. It was innocent enough to begin with -- she recounted how she'd seen her in a café and started chatting, how friendly she seemed. Almost immediately afterwards she'd gone to Torbess with her and the pages were suddenly filled with Lucy's name: how beautiful she was, and how clever, and how Sarah wished she could be like her.

And as I read the pages I began to understand her confusion and her anguish, and the picture of what had happened became clear, and I for the first time I knew what I was up against.

Twelve Months Earlier - Lucy

Lucille Carter-Bayliss, thirty five years old and a predatory lesbian, sat in the little café on the main street of Thruxton and waited. Her real name was Fran Bayliss, born to a working class couple in Basingstoke, and she found early in life that what you couldn't buy you took and what you didn't know you made up. She'd added Carter to her surname to give a sense of class and invested in a wardrobe of expensive clothes, and lies lay thick and easy upon her heart.

Despite her looks and her self assurance she probably wouldn't have got far but at eighteen she became the beneficiary of a generous endowment from an aunt and that, together with a cover job as a freelance writer for a gay women's magazine, gave her enough to successfully forage for new girls to share her bed. The old bedstead she used at home had dozens of notches carved in a discrete place, testament to her success: but there were always new conquests to be had, and Lucy was voracious.

For weeks she had been watching the high school girls coming out of school, noting who was collected by their parents and who made their own way home, narrowing her field down to five or six. Unsurprisingly they all looked similar -- young, of course, and mostly slim, with open faces of guileless innocence that she found highly provocative. She followed each one home, checking on their movements, watching who they met and the way they moved and spoke and acted; and by the middle of April she'd settled on two likely targets.

There was one in particular who interested her -- a fair haired girl of about eighteen who lived in Croxton Street and who walked home each day. Lucy had seen her meet her friends in the local café from time to time and so she sat there every day for a week, waiting for her chance.

It was a Thursday afternoon when she finally spotted the girl entering the café. It was a cold day and she saw the colour in the girl's cheeks and the brightness of her eyes. She'd pulled her hair back in a pony tail and Lucy observed the way she held her head and the long, graceful column of her neck. She wore no make up or jewelry, for that was against school rules, but her natural beauty shone through and Lucy felt a tightening of her gut as she regarded the girl. God, she's gorgeous, she thought. Let her be the one.

The girl sat down and fiddled with her phone for a few moments. Lucy watched her, delighting in her innocence and beauty. She saw how she held herself, erect and confident, and the sense of awareness she had of herself and what was happening around her. She watched the dexterity of the girl's long, slim fingers as they moved over the phone, her nails pale pink and polished and the gold wristwatch on her slender wrist, and she watched her face: the brightness of her grey eyes and the curve of her full, pink lips. It was evident that she was waiting for someone.

Lucy waited until the girl finished fiddling with her phone, and then she leaned forward and spoke to her.

'Excuse me...would you have the time, please?'

The girl glanced up. She had seen the woman waiting there, but hadn't taken much notice. 'Um, twenty past four.'

'Thank you.' She smiled at the girl. 'Were you waiting for someone?'

'Yes.'

'And they're late?'

'Not really. It's only Sharon, and she'll come when she's ready.'

Lucy nodded in understanding. 'Well, perhaps you could help me while you're waiting. You see, I'm new here and I'm looking for a real estate agent in the village. I was going to ask the café owner but you might be able to help.'

The girl shook her head. 'There isn't one here. You'd have to go to Torbess. They cover this area.' She regarded the woman with interest. 'Would you be looking to buy, or just rent?'

Lucy smiled again. 'Just rent, to begin with. I work in London usually, but I'm on assignment here, looking around.' She rose quickly and crossed to the girl's table, holding out her hand. 'Lucille Carter-Bayliss.'

The girl took her hand, her fingers warm in the other's grip. 'Sarah Ryan.'

Lucy sat in the vacant chair opposite Sarah. 'So I'd have to go to Torbess?'

Sarah shrugged. 'That's probably best. They have listings of all properties around here.'

'Would there be somewhere to stay here overnight? I really don't have time to drive anywhere tonight.'