Slipping the card into his emptied rucksack and shouldering that over his jacket, Ben checked he had everything then pushed his bike back out onto the pavement before locking up the flat. He had a plan to retrace the route they’d taken that morning, through the Jesmond streets and then along the Dene, down towards his old flat. He pedalled slowly, looking at the pedestrians he passed, trying to be careful so as to ameliorate his fear of passing her without noticing. When he got to the head of the steps that they’d taken that morning to climb out of the small steep green valley of the Dene, he got off his bike to bounce it down, but risked riding it again once he’d reached the bottom, swerving around the few pedestrians who were still about.

When the old Armstrong Bridge came into view, he thought he recognised a tiny figure who stood on it, peering over the iron balustrade and looking his way. His heart leapt as the figure stretched up an arm to give an exaggerated slow wave, and he realised that it was indeed Marcie, and that she’d seen him. He stopped to give a huge wave in response, then saw her gesture with both arms towards one end of the bridge. He realised that she was signalling that she planned to move towards the steps that they’d taken earlier that morning, and he tried to give her a thumbs up, though he wasn’t sure she could see it. As she moved off in the direction she’d indicated, he started pedalling again, eager to rendezvous with her as quickly as possible, whatever mood she was in.

He dismounted when he got to the bottom of the shallow steps to begin steadily pushing the bike up the slope, trying to avoid making a nuisance of himself to the few other pedestrians. He’d not got very far though when he saw Marcie appear around the slight bend on the tree-lined path, coming down the steps at a run. He saw her powerful legs taking the steps in a loping stride, her head turned down to look at where she placed her feet, her breast’s bouncing beneath her loose blouse. But he knew she’d already seen him as she’d glanced up and caught his eye, so he stopped, leaning his bike against the path’s railing.

Ben wasn’t sure how she’d greet him, but it turned out that she was hardly slowing at all as she ran straight towards him. Anticipating her intent, he held his arms open for her, just in time to catch her as she collided with him. In that instant, she wrapped her own arms around him hard, even as he staggered backwards, having barely braced himself sufficiently for the impact of her body against his.

“Oh Ben!” she wailed, pressing her face into the crook of his neck, “I’m so sorry! I was all bothered, and I just lashed out at you with my tongue, even though you’re the one who’s lost so much.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Ben replied in a low voice, feeling some relief that Marcie clearly wasn’t bearing a grudge for his previous behaviour, “I was being selfish, and careless with my phone, and then I shot my mouth off too. I’m really sorry about that. You were right to be angry with me. I’d made a mistake with my phone, and I should have thought you might get in touch. And you really did not need my surly backchat. I was rude, and you deserve better.”

“Don’t say that,” Marcie said, earnestly looking up into his eyes. Ben had thought that he’d felt some dampness on her cheek when she’d pressed herself to his skin, and now he saw her eyes and nose were red too, as if she’d been crying. She pleaded with him again, “Oh Ben, can you forgive me? I was just so worried. I thought perhaps you had collapsed again, and then if you had, I thought maybe another woman had found you and taken you to hospital, so you’d be falling in love with her now and you’d have forgotten about me. I’m so selfish and possessive and jealous, and I hate that neediness in me, but I just want you to be mine! I want to be the one who’s caring for you, trapping you in my cave. I want to tie myself to you and not let you out of my sight. After this morning, I felt so sorry for you it was almost as if a part of my own body had been burnt, making a great weeping sore. I couldn’t concentrate at all at work, and when I mentioned what had happened to the duty supervisor, he said I shouldn’t have even thought of coming into work. He told me to go home and look after you, but then I couldn’t even do that because I couldn’t contact you! I was in such a state!”

“It’s okay,” Ben said as her confession wound down, still holding her close as they stood on the edge of the path beside his bike, her standing a step higher than him. He tried to reassure her as she buried her head against his shoulder again, “I want to be tied to you. I want your home to be our shared home. I don’t want to be left alone, wandering the streets. I should have thought, and I’ll check my phone when I’m on my own, next time. Also, what you say, it’s like the things I put in this card. I bought it to say sorry, really.”

Ben released Marcie, and she dropped her arms, looking up at him inquisitively as he shucked his rucksack off to fish out the envelope that he’d addressed to her. She seemed curious, but her thoughts were obviously on what he’d said as she remarked, “Oh, our stupid mobiles. We wouldn’t have assumed we could be in direct contact with anyone wherever they were before, would we? And then I didn’t want to use mine to ring you once I’d set off on this foolish walk, after we’d had our little row, because I was worried you’d think I was being a shrew, pestering you and using the call as a test or a stick to beat you, after I’d criticised you for not picking up earlier. Oh, thank you,” Marcie interrupted her own reflections as she took Ben’s card, suggesting, “Shall we get off this path where we can have a bit more space to ourselves before I open it?”

“Aye,” Ben agreed, then tried to explain his own thoughts as he turned the bike around so they could make their way down, “And I didn’t want to ring you, kind of for the same reason. I didn’t want to presume, like I expected you to pick up when I hadn’t. But I wanted to know where you were, if I could speak to you, face to face, to apologise. And I wanted to know if you were okay, if we were still okay too. I’d hate myself, it would be worse than the fire, if my thoughtless mistake, my rudeness too, especially, had damaged our relationship.”

“Oh, it’s all such a silly waste, isn’t it? You didn’t really need to apologise for anything when I was the one who’d flown off the handle. I’d said I’d go on this stupid solitary walk in the heat of the moment, but I was already cooling off and regretting it by the time I’d parked up. I still went ahead and set off though, because I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to hang around and get all weepy when you turned up because that would have been like I was still just crowding you. I set off walking to your old flat because that was on my mind, but even before I’d got to the bridge I realised just how thoughtless that was. I remembered your reaction when you first saw it, and your quiet sadness when we bought our lame breakfast from the tragic little stalls that they set up here every Saturday morning, but it all just felt even more lonely now they’re gone. I was stuck, I’d painted myself into a corner. But then I saw you pedalling into view and my heart soared. So thank you for coming to find me.”

“I’m glad I did,” Ben admitted as they drifted towards the same bench that they’d had that breakfast on, “But shall we make a deal? If we want to talk, we just try ringing each other. Maybe we’ll find the other’s a bit cross, but we can just check in, then wrap it up quickly. And if I don’t pick up, I’ll still check my phone for missed calls. It’s easy enough, right? And remember you’ve got nothing to apologise for. I was selfish, I regret that, and then I was rude, and that card is like me saying sorry.”

“Thank you, Ben,” Marcie said with a sad smile, as if acquiescing to his apology. Now they’d sat down together, she opened the card. As she saw the picture, she exclaimed with surprise, “Where did you find this? It’s a vixen with stolen egg, isn’t it? Is she going to take it back to her musky den to crush it in her hot maw then lick up the intense yolk, do you think?” Ben chuckled along with her at her suggestive thoughts, feeling relieved that her playful sexy mood seemed to be returning, then he waited patiently while she read what he’d written.

Ben heard her make a bubbling sniff as she finished and closed the card, looking at the picture again briefly before twisting around to wrap herself around him. With her head buried against his chest, he heard her muffled voice plead in a broken way, “Oh Ben,” before he felt her shake in his arms, as he realised she was sobbing.

He held her to him, feeling the warmth of her body as well as the dampness of her tears or possibly her nose seeping through his t-shirt, inhaling the fragrance of her tightly pinned hair as he bowed his head towards her crown. He tried to find comforting words, “I meant it, you know. I feel we are two become one, though it’s a cliche. It is your strength that supports me. I feel positive, because of you, even though my old trunk has been cut away. You’re my rock, I hope that’s okay, and my Pole Star, the fixed point in the heavens, which I can set a new course by.”

“Thank you, Ben,” he heard her muffled voice choke as her sobs subsided. She still held him, speaking with her warm wet cheek still pressed to his chest, “It is okay. I want to help if I can, but isn’t it all too much for you really?” She pulled back briefly to look with pleading into his eyes, her own eyes red beneath her crooked glasses, her mole-dappled cheeks glistening. She explained, “It’s a bit like that detective suspected. I promise you, I didn’t burn down your flat, but maybe I have trapped you in some way. I was clinging to your hand when you collapsed, when you were a stranger, and I’ve not really let go since then. I still have you gripped tight, but now perhaps you don’t have any alternative, any escape route if you needed it. You said we’d lit a fire, and maybe I’ve done that deliberately and sneakily by teasing you, by somehow enticing and charming you with my feminine charms, as laughable as that might seem. My Nanna lit her candle, you ate at my table, I plied you with wine, I tickled your Roddie, and all that helped kindle some kind of conflagration inside you. And now I’ve trapped you in that primal fire, like those femme fatales of myths and legend, and your old self is burning away, until you become nothing but a charcoal skeleton, a shadow of your former self, a smudge of soot that’s a mere echo of who you were, haunting my witch queen’s lair. It’s your egg that I’ve stolen, crushing the embryo of your future self in my jaws, and now you’ll never grow into the beautiful great eagle that you might have been.”

“That’s nonsense,” Ben said categorically, holding her to him, “I’m not trapped. We’ve spoken about this, and I’m not Lucy, you’re not the faun, remember? If anything, I’m the phoenix. You’ve saved my egg from the ashes, not stolen it. The fire is our love, right? That’s what you told me to keep in mind, when we were talking after lunch. I didn’t keep it in mind that well, though, I admit it. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, but just running helped, letting my legs move, working up a sweat, without thinking at all. But our new fire still lights me up. It helps me to soar. I’m reborn, bursting into the open skies above your secret world.”

“Yes,” Marcie agreed, cuddling up against him again, seemingly content and calm now, “The fire in our hearts and our loins, I think I said after lunch. Well, you know my real Vixen now, and her heat. She’ll keep your glossy red phoenix egg cosily tucked away nice and warm, ready for those firework bursts of yours, just as often as possible.”

“Thank you,” Ben said, feeling warmed already by her suggestive allusion, but admitting, “I thought I’d fucked that up, to be blunt, that my stupid behaviour meant you’d change your mind, that I’d never make love to you again.”

“Hey, it was just a couple’s tiff, right?” Marcie reassured him with a light laugh and sad smile, “It not such a big deal if we take a step back, and it had to happen sooner or later. It’s been about as stressful a day as anyone could imagine, but we’ve got through it with very few cross words really, and we’ve bounced back now to be comfortable in each other’s arms again. So long as you’re sure I’m not trapping you in a witch’s burning oven, if that’s what you’d call it, we can go home together now. And I don’t know about you, but I’m starving, so I think the first thing we’ll need to do when we get back is eat.”

“Aye,” Ben agreed, realising now that everything was calming down just how true that was, “I need food too, after my exercise, and everything else. What did you want? We could get a takeaway. That might be quickest.”

As Ben stood up on his weary legs, following Marcie’s lead, she remarked that the takeaway options near her flat weren’t great, but she knew there was somewhere that did both pizza and curry not far from the end of Armstrong Bridge. Ben wasn’t sure they’d make it home with the food still hot, so as they started walking, with him pushing his bike, he suggested they just get a couple of pizzas from the supermarket on Acorn Road instead. However Marcie reminded him, looping her arm through his as they walked, that they’d had pizza only two days ago. She suggested perhaps a quick oven-ready lasagne might be better, assuming Ben wanted something meaty and comforting. That prompted Ben to suggest sausage and mash, which he explained was comfort food to him, as it wouldn’t take much longer to prepare. She reminded him that they needed to get on top of eating healthily too as they looked to the future, so they agreed to have it with peas and carrots, just like a regular children’s meal.

They’d automatically started retracing their steps through the Dene once again, but Ben asked if would be quicker to cut back to through the streets of Jesmond. Marcie suggested they keep to the path up the green narrow valley though, to enjoy the late afternoon light on their meandering stroll to the supermarket, even if their stomachs were rumbling.

When Ben remarked on that, Marcie reminded him, “Anticipation of pleasure can be a pleasure itself.” Ben wondered if she might have been thinking of the pleasure of fulfilling appetites other than their hunger for food as she’d said this, but he decided not to push her by enquiring about possible other desires they might share. He felt that he didn’t want to probe, perhaps because of some vague thought about keeping things polite, as if their shared domestic life were a little fragile at the moment and should be kept separate from the fires of their undeniable passion for now.

Then Marcie seemed to become more serious as they walked on, asking Ben for the details of his actual workout. He felt relieved to talk about it, even if it did remind him of his tired muscles and deep fatigue. By her wanting to discuss the gym, he realised that he needn’t feel so guilty about what happened there now, despite his error with his phone. It felt as if Marcie had helped to clear the air, with her stormy reaction to her justified concerns for his safety merely retreating into memory now.

Whilst he kept stoically pushing his bike, he carefully explained that his breathing had been absolutely fine with a much-extended jog. He said that he’d thought this had actually brought him a trance-like calm, helping him to find a way to escape his unhelpful recurring thoughts, with their pointless cycles of worry, sorry at his losses and uncertainty about the future.

Marcie seemed to genuinely sympathise as she said that sounded positive, squeezing his arm as if in consolation. But Ben went on to explain that he’d not felt like doing his circuits of weights at all, as if he couldn’t see the point in maintaining muscles that wouldn’t be used to swing chainsaws and trees’ limbs anymore. A thought occurred to him at that moment though, which he voiced by anxiously asking if those muscles were an important part of why Marcie felt attraction toward him. If she might go off him were he to let them shrink, then he’d definitely do everything he could to keep their bulk.

Marcie scoffed at the suggestion though, reassuring him that though they might have caught her eye initially, along with his cute blonde curls and his imposing, reassuringly masculine height, she loved him for who he was inside now. Ben felt embarrassed as she described him as a kind, thoughtful, funny, positive and profoundly satisfying companion. She added that she hoped his attraction to her wasn’t so shallow that it started and ended with the womanly curves and bumps of her dumpy figure.

Ben was sincere as he promised her that he felt something much deeper than that, and that she wasn’t dumpy anyway. He reassured her that she had the figure of perfect femininity, and he reminded her that when he’d first seen her naked, he’d thought she embodied those highly honoured classical statues of women, the artists’ eternal muse. She scoffed again, saying she was hardly Venus or Aphrodite, rising from the sea’s foam, but Ben reminded her that his point hadn’t been about her beautiful body anyway. He tried to explain that even though they’d already agreed she was the living avatar of those goddesses, what he felt for her now went far beyond physical attraction.

“It’s like I wrote in the card,” he said, “I feel you’re my soul partner. I’m a different person, now I’m with you, and a part of my new self, well, it’s like it’s inside you. And I don’t just mean that in a smutty, suggestive way, though I like that with you too. I like that very much. But I am Marcie Tabone’s lover now, before anything else. It feels like we’re a real couple, so different from girlfriends before. I was a kid mucking about with girls. But now this feels different. It’s just falling in love, I guess, like you said, but it’s the kind of love that’s changing my life, that’s transforming me, into a grown-up maybe. It’s still a new fresh green shoot, a sapling I suppose, but it feels like it will just keep growing, taller, deeper, thicker, stronger, into a mighty oak.”

“Hmm, Ben,” Marcie said, pulling him to a stop at the foot of the steps which led out of the Dene. Ben realised what she wanted, and leant his bike against his thigh as he opened his arms to her again. She immediately wrapped herself around him, holding him close as her own arms tightly gripped him, simply pressing her cheek against his chest. He cradled her head in his hands, bending down to kiss the top of her head, deeply breathing in the scent of her ticklish hair. He’d expected that she might say something in response to his admission about how he saw their love, which he felt was getting very close to saying that he thought Marcie would become his life partner, perhaps his wife. He found it very easy to imagine them sharing that long journey into the future, far beyond the immediate horizon and on into the rest of their adult lives, until they grew old together. He suspected that she might be beginning to feel the same way, but she remained silent, perhaps as scared as he was about putting such things into words, as if they’d jinx it. So they just stood there, embracing in the early evening light for a timeless moment. Ben guessed that for now, Marcie was as content as he was to simply be together, in shared love, heedless of all else.

But then his hollow stomach gave a long grumbling rumble, making Marcie laugh as she stepped back and looked up at him with twinkling eyes. “Come on, my hungry lion,” she said, “Let’s get you something to gratify your vast appetite. And let me push your bike for a bit. No, I insist! I want you to save your strength, just while we get up this steep bit.”

They became quieter as they pushed their way up out of the Dene and then along the rising residential street towards their local supermarket, Ben taking over with the bike as the slope levelled out, despite his tired legs. He locked the bike to a railing outside the shop before they went in together, Ben picking up a little wire basket to carry around as Marcie found everything they needed. They paused at the wine, trying to remember how much they had left in the bottle in the fridge back at the flat. Ben talked about not wanting to drink too much tonight in case it made him feel low, but Marcie argued it was better to have another bottle on standby just in case. She also said that she didn’t want to worry about her units after such a strange day, and that they could find a new normal for the two of them next week. When it came to paying for everything, she shooed away Ben’s offered cash too. He packed the shopping in his rucksack, but Marcie insisted on carrying it as he unlocked his bike, before they wearily made the last few steps of their journey home.

Once she’d let them into the flat and slipped shoes off, Marcie said she needed to wee and wash her face as she carried the bag to kitchen. Ben was slower, awkwardly parking his bike in the hallway before taking his own shoes off, then putting his jacket in the spare room, while his mind was on the sad thought of the dried tears on Marcie’s cheeks. When he reached the kitchen, he saw she’d left his full rucksack on the top next to her discarded jacket, though she’d already taken his card out to stand it up by the kettle. As he unpacked the shopping, he heard the pattering flow of her urine and then the louder torrent of the running tap around the bathroom door that she’d left ajar. He called out to ask she was ready for him to start making tea now, and she agreed over the sound of splashing water, so he emptied the potatoes into the sink to begin peeling them, running the tap for a kettle full of water too.

He looked up from the sink to smile at Marcie as she emerged from the bathroom a moment later. She returned his smile warmly, and he noticed her face seemed to have a rosy pink glow now, perhaps as she’d rubbed it firmly with her little wash. He also could not help himself from noticing the swaying movement of her breasts beneath her blouse as she twisted around the bathroom door, then away to toward the living room to toss her jacket onto the sofa, before turning back to the oven, bending down a little to put it on, evidently planning to bake the sausages. He wondered why he’d not noticed their lose movement beneath her thin silky blouse before, nor realised just how low they seemed to hang. In becoming acutely aware of them now though, he recognised that her body did indeed have a magically direct influence on him, as he felt the initial stirrings of a soft arousal under his jeans.

Perhaps she saw something of this lustful interest in his face as she glanced towards him, because she grabbed the tea-towel and shoved it towards him, saying, “Come on, stop that a moment and dry your hands so that you can give me a proper squeeze!”

She’d put her hands on his hips as he quickly complied, looking up at him with a smirking smile as he briskly rubbed his hands before casting the cloth aside. Then she pressed her belly and soft chest against him as he wrapped his own arms around her, burying her face between his neck and shoulder, holding her close, murmuring, “We’re home, we’re safe.” He felt the warmth of her skin through their thin clothes as he held her, and it seemed to carry an oozing emotional warmth too, her intimate presence bringing him a profoundly comforting reassurance as well as the more visceral pleasure of the physical contact.

He stooped down, trying to bring his face to hers, to find the soft skin of her brow, her cheeks, her nose and her lips with his mouth. As he wriggled against her, stealing only briefly brushing pecked kisses, she squirmed against him in response, shifting teasingly in his arms. She was pushing herself against him in one moment and then leaning back in another, twisting her hips and shoulders sinuously against him, all the while holding him in a tight embrace, her arms gripped firmly around him as she ran her hands and fingertips vigorously across his back and shoulders.

He found himself struggling for balance, then sinking heavily to one and then both knees on the kitchen floor. Marcie’s hands were cradling his head as she stooped down herself now to plant those pecked kisses on his lips. Then, as he gripped her hips and buttocks firmly through her thick trousers, she stretched upright, pulling her neck back and arching her spine, pulling his face to her proud chest with an exaggerated sigh as she did so. Ben gladly buried his nose against the line of buttons down the front of her blouse, feeling the solid nugget of his hammer pendant resting against her sternum under there. But in his growing arousal, he was more aware of her breasts, so close to his dry mouth, unfocused eyes and flared nostrils.

He bowed his head and rubbed his face against her, feeling the soft warm mound of her right breast against his cheek. He inhaled deeply, catching the unmistakable dusty scent of her body odour under the more polite fragrances of clean washing and her citrus blossom perfume. He wondered at this even as he relished being tucked up against the honest humanity of her sweating body, thinking of all the walking that Marcie had done that day, and the stressed anxiety that she’d mentioned feeling. He felt a profound tenderness towards her as he rested the weight of his head against the yielding cushion of her breast, yet his lustful passion also drove him to move his hand to her other breast, which hung heavily beneath her thin blouse before his eyes.

As he brushed its lower curve reverentially with the tip of his fingers, he was surprised to clearly feel what could only have been the textured bump of her nipple through the thin silky fabric. The visceral sense of his close intimacy with Marcie suddenly struck him far more strongly, and his body responded by making his hidden erection surge to an aching stiffness. He brushed his fingertips back and forth as gently as possible, delighted in the wonder of how clearly he felt the sensitive skin of her divinely feminine nipple through her clothes. As he did, he heard Marcie draw a sharp breath through her teeth above him.

“Oh Ben,” she whispered, “You noticed, didn’t you? I took it off when I went to the bathroom, then buttoned myself back up. After a tense day, it feels as if I’m letting myself out of a tight harness, like a tired old mare that’s let back into the pasture again after a long day being bound up with a saddle and bridle. I hope you don’t mind, that you don’t think I’m letting myself go?”

Ben immediately realised what she meant, that she had taken her bra off. The revelation explained why he’d suddenly started noticing the loose movement of her low breasts beneath her blouse. Yet he resolved once more to do his best to keep their domestic evening on a restrained, calm and well-mannered course. He still thought that better for their long-term commitment, demonstrating that they were an adult couple who shared their lives, rather than risking their future by burning themselves up in the fiery passion of the moment, as it seemed Marcie had been worrying about.

So despite his pressing arousal, he deliberately pulled his hand back from her chest, lifting it to reach for hers, then gripping it to rise to his feet. He felt a little dizzy even as he relieved the painful pressure on his knees, finding himself gratefully slipping his other hand into hers too as she dropped it from his scalp to slide it over his chest. He leant down to peck her lips again as they stood facing each other once more, in that narrow kitchen, holding hands, moving tenderly and slowly now.

Realising he’d not answered her question, he hesitantly tried to allay her fears, “No, I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all. And it’s not my business anyway. You must always feel comfortable, well, at least know that I’d always want you to be comfortable, especially in your own home. Erm, in our home.” He felt himself getting tangled around his stumbling words, so he concluded by briskly remarking that they’d better get on with things, noting her oven was up to temperature already.