They all said the same thing. “Mmmmm. It’s warm in here!”

Compared to the chilly streets of winter Canberra, it was summer in Ounce Books, and customers were inclined to linger, browsing through the books, patting Grace the cat, or just chatting about books they had read or wanted to read or might be persuaded to read.

Grace lapped up the attention while Ann sipped on her second cup of cooling coffee. She wondered who had made them. Barista Ben had never failed to charm her with a heart-shaped arrangement of powdered chocolate on the foamed surface of the coffee.

Just like these two mugs today.

But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t have taught the skinny blonde how to do it. They could have stood side by side, his hand guiding hers as he showed her his perfect heart.

Ann could do with someone standing beside her. Or walking hand in hand, sharing the back seat of a taxi coming home from dinner, looking at her over a glass of something. Anything, really.

She bent down and rubbed Grace under her glossy black chin. The small black cat closed her eyes in happiness and began a low rumbling purr. She rolled over for Ann to tickle her tummy, legs stretched out in contentment. Ann would swap places in a moment, if she possibly could.

Instead, she sighed, slipped back behind the counter and selected her “comfort music” playlist on the docked iPod. Heavy on the Grateful Dead songs of her youth, the music took her to happy times and places. Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion was first on the shuffle.

California, early Nineties, camped out on a secluded beach for a week with a floating population of fellow students. Surfboards, joints, pretzels and Anchor Steam. A big black ghetto blaster chewing up D-cell batteries and cassettes. Nights around a driftwood fire, working out how to save the world. Days in the sun, salt in the hair, clothing minimal or non-existent. Sleeping bags zipped together at night with a computer science student whose grand vision of the future had turned out to be far short of 2009’s reality.

Dawns were cramped, sticky and sandy, but oh the closeness of their embraces, the sleepy eyes and tousled hair! Morning dips in the freezing surf, breakfasts of cold pizza and instant coffee. And love, barefoot and warm in linked fingers, slow caresses and shared looks. Ann’s Grateful Dead Skeletons from the Closet tape had been their soundtrack.

Somehow they had drifted apart. Last she’d heard of him, he was married with kids in some development south of San Jose, walking his poodle on weekends and cheering the Sharks to victory from season ticket seats in The Tank.

And here she was, alone on the other side of the world. Maybe she’d see him again in October on the way to or from the BookCrossing convention in Kansas City. Maybe he’d have a friend…

The door opened and a customer entered, bringing a blast of cold air with him.

“Ahhh, warm in here!” he said, automatically seeking out the heat vent.

Two weeks ago Ann had been in Edinburgh for the annual British BookCrossing UnConvention. “Un” to mark it out from the official world convention in New Zealand. Edinburgh had been grey and delightfully mediaeval. Rain in torrents giving way to watery sunshine. But a warm escape from Canberra’s winter. She had walked down Scotland Street in the New Town, poked her nose into the miniscule front room of the Oxford Bar, renewed friendships with the cheerful British BookCrossers – and a couple of visiting Aussies – and lugged home a bag full of books scooped up from the groaning table that marked every BookCrossing gathering.

Not a great deal in the way of unattached males. Not like Christchurch in April. And Tom.

Ann’s mind wandered off again. She and Tom had found a great drift of autumn leaves in one of the city parks. They had been hiding from a criminal lawyer at the time and had contrived to submerge themselves completely under the red and gold pile until the danger had passed. For the next day they had picked fragments of leaves out of their hair, their clothing, their ears. But it had been fun…

“This one of your books?”

It was the customer, holding out a book with a picture of a countdown timer on the cover. No wedding ring on his hand, Ann noticed.

“Ah, no. That’s a free book. See, there’s a BookCrossing label on the front. You can take it away with you.”

“I saw that. I mean, is it a book that you registered?”

“You know about BookCrossing?” Ann inspected the customer with more interest. Business suit, perhaps a little more charcoal-grey and snappier than the average public service manager. Somewhere around thirty, dark hair, lean face. And a pretty good body. She straightened up and drew her shoulders back.

“This book has caused a great deal of trouble. Do you think it’s wise leaving books around where they shouldn’t be?”

Ann gasped. That was the whole point of BookCrossing. She stood up even taller. “Maybe not wise, but a whole lot of fun! They’re just books!”

“Yeah. Well, this one cost a lot of people a lot of money.”

The shop phone rang. Ann glared at the man. “Excuse me.”

An elderly voice on the phone. “Hello? May I speak to Ms Ounce, please?”

“Speaking.”

“You wrote a letter to The Canberra Times about the new Commonwealth office building.”

“About the magpies.”

“Yes. I liked the point you made. That’s why I’m calling you. There’s a group of concerned residents meeting tomorrow for a public information evening. We’ve invited someone from the government to come along and answer questions. Would that be something you might be interested in?”

Ann considered this. It wasn’t that she was having a wild night on the town. A can of diet soup in front of the box, more likely. “Yes, please.”

“Good on you. Six-thirty tomorrow at the Ainslie Football Club. Sorry about the short notice, but it’s important we get things going promptly. The room’s booked under the name of Kern, but we’ll have a sign up showing the way.”

“Thank you for the invitation. I look forward to it.”

“I’ll see you there, then. Goodbye!”

Ann put the phone down. She was becoming quite a public figure! Letters in the paper, invites to meetings. Maybe there would be a television crew in attendance, and she could tell the world about the magpies.

She looked up. The man with the BookCrossing book had gone while she was talking. But he’d left the book on the counter. Neatly ripped in half.

Copyright © 2009 Peter Mackay

Thursday morning’s run was difficult.

“Jesus H!” exclaimed Ann, as the cold bit her on the nose.

“Christ!” she said, taking a second breath.

Frost crunched on the grass, cars were ghostly shapes, their windows covered in ice, and her breath was a white flag of surrender as she turned to go back inside.

Maybe tomorrow. She didn’t have to go for a run every single day, now did she?

Grace understood. The small black cat, elegant in looks, clumsy in action, looked up at her with adoring bright copper eyes. “Early breakfast!” she seemed to say, as she tangled in Ann’s ankles.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Ann warned the little cat. “Coffee first!”

Ann’s espresso machine spluttered cheerfully as she unwrapped The Canberra Times. The dew had beaded the plastic wrapping. And then frozen solid. This didn’t happen in Sydney. Or San Francisco.

“At least you’ve got a fur coat, little one,” she told Grace, who was sitting alert beside the heating vent.

Ann added milk, stirred a teaspoon of sweetener in, and took that first wonderful sip. Nothing quite like freshly ground coffee, best thing in the morning. The day didn’t start until that caffeine hit chased away the last wisps of sleep.

“All right, little Miss Hungry!” Ann tore open a sachet of cat food, dumped it out onto a saucer, and sprinkled kibble on top. Grace sauntered between Ann’s feet, sniffed the offering, and began to eat.

Ann did the same. Half a grapefruit and a glass of tomato juice. Part of the trim-Ann-down-for-romance plan.

The Times had changed their Sudoku source. Once upon a time she could get the puzzles out in ten productive minutes, but nowadays, the difficulty ratings merely referred to the number of start digits – all but impossible to complete before the next one arrived, and then only with tiny numbers in the squares, pencilled-in guesses – crossed out, erased and rewritten – and marginal notes spreading out over the page between the comics and the crosswords.

She was still working on the puzzle four hours later and the strain was beginning to tell. She’d gone through all her usual strategies, filled in a dozen easy numbers, and it just wouldn’t go.

Sighing, she set it aside and reached for her mug. Still half full. Of cold instant coffee.

She grimaced. Not her day today. Quint, entering her shop, caught her brow wrinkling and for a moment his expression mirrored hers, though Ann didn’t have a bandaid on one cheek. Then he began unloading his suitcase onto the counter.

“Good morning, Ann,” he said. “Cold today.”

“Good to see you, William!” Ann said, brightening up. “Would you be a darling for me, please, and fetch me a coffee from Heartbake?”

She counted out the money. “Cappuccino, large, no sugar. And one for yourself, if you want to keep me company.”

Quint wouldn’t buy a drink for himself without prompting, she knew, but he liked to be thought of as social. And she could use a drink. And company.

Quint took the coins. “Here’s the list,” he said, handing over the spreadsheet printout.

Ann nodded and waved him out the door. “Quick as you can.”

Three minutes later, busy checking off Quint’s latest batch, the first of the Violet Campbell booty, the door opened and the fragrance of fresh coffee filled her nostrils.

She looked up to see two mugs of coffee, a nervous smile and a bandaid on one cheek. Not Quint. A taxidriver and occasional customer. He had an odd name, she remembered.

“Cappuccino, large, one sugar,” Harley said, setting it down on the counter. “They told me your usual.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I thought you might like to have a coffee with me while I tell you about how I started off in BookCrossing.”

“You’re a BookCrosser!” Ann reached for the mug. BookCrossers were the finest people in the world.

“I joined BookCrossing a few days ago,” he confirmed. “You got me going!”

Ann was responsible for a lot of BookCrossers. Dozens, she supposed. Some people joined the site when she told them about how much fun it was. Some people picked up a book she’d released into the wild and when they journalled it she was automatically listed as their source. Either way, it was always a buzz to have someone share in the silly thrill of it all.

“I’ve been reading some of your books from the café,” Harley said, responding to her smile with one of his own, “and just reading them and putting them back on the shelf, or forcing them on my passengers if they misbehaved.”

“Aha!” Ann twinkled. “That explains a journal entry that turned up in my email two weeks ago. The finder said they’d been given it by a stand-up cabedian. Now it makes sense!”

“Yeah, have to remember that. Anyway, I started registering my own books. Mostly thrillers and mysteries. Big hardbacks taking up too much space in my little flat. Like this one.”

Harley held out a book. 01-01-00 by R J Pineiro. It had a cover design in ominous black and red. He had attached handmade labels to the outside: “Free Book! Look Inside!”

“I didn’t have any official BookCrossing labels, not yet, anyway. So I made my own.”

“They look just fine,” Ann said. “If you want, I can give you some of mine.”

“I’d like that. Just until mine arrive.” He went on, holding the book carefully. “I left a few books around Canberra, writing down where I left them so I could make release notes on the computer later on.”

“You should do the release notes first,” Ann said, “if you have time. Otherwise someone might find a book and not know that it’s meant to be there.”

“Yeah. Well, I didn’t know that, and besides, I didn’t know where I’d leave them. I could go anywhere in Canberra. I just ducked out of the cab and left them anywhere that looked good.”

“That’s okay. Sometimes you just see a place that looks right. I left a copy of Jaws outside a dentist’s surgery once.”

Harley smiled. “Love it!”

The door behind him opened, letting in a draught of winter, another man with a bandaid on his cheek, and two more steaming mugs. With an apologetic glance at Harley, Ann quickly moved her existing mug out of sight.

Copyright © 2009 Peter Mackay

The second morning was better. And worse. Better because Ann knew that she was at the critical point. From here on, exercise would become easier until it was pleasure not pain.

Worse, because for the moment, it was pain.

She’d been here before. The aching muscles, the complaining joints, the burning lungs. All signposts on the road, and as Ann climbed the long hill up Monash Drive, she took it steadily, imagining one of those curvy athletes from the Thirties jogging along in front of her. She’d gradually catch up, lose the kilos, become the woman she’d been not too long ago.

And then, she’d be imagining one of those hard bodies from the same Olympics jogging ahead in firm masculinity. She’d catch him. And keep him.

She thought of Tom for a moment, tanned and taut and terrific. But Tom was gone and Ann was here. Maybe her clock was running out, but Ann wasn’t sure she wanted a family. Not children, anyway. Someone to share her life, her flat, her bed. Someone that wasn’t a cat.

These were good, positive, motivational thoughts, and they carried her up the hill. The current pains of her body would, in due course, give way to other sensations. Her burning thighs, for example, not to mention the tightness of her chest.

Just listen to me, she thought. She’d be reading romance novels next. Or worse, writing them.

“Softly, yet firmly, the eager lips of the Greek tycoon sought those of the bookseller. Slowly, gently, her reluctance melted. She sighed as his tongue met hers in bilingual embrace.”

Ann groaned in disgust at her thoughts. There was a certain sort of woman who bought romance novels. She had a bookcase set aside near the front door, and the old dears bought them a dozen at a time. And sold them back to her at half price. A nice little money-spinner.

The rest of her circuit was downhill or level, and she relaxed, even walking for a few hundred metres occasionally. The building site, when she turned onto Constitution Avenue, was looking even more desolate. Piles of earth were appearing as yellow-painted machines tore into the ground. The magpies were enjoying it all. For the time being.

She had given in to temptation yesterday. Sometimes it felt good to succumb. She didn’t expect a result, not today, not yet, but maybe…

Quint was again visible in his window, staring dolefully out. Again she waved, but this time he waved back, smiling at her. Good old William – he had his moments, but he was a rock, when you knew how he worked.

A final rush up the little hill, almost burning up as she reached Legacy Park, and then she was warming down, slowing up, bending to pick up The Canberra Times from the front yard, opening the door and ignoring Grace’s hungry miaows.

Shower and coffee before she dared open the paper to the Letters page. And there it was! Her impulse acknowledged, printed in black and white, just like the magpies she wrote about. Trivial, she knew, but who else would stand up for the birds?

She read it again when she arrived at it in legitimate progression. It still sounded clever and sincere – the effort of a concerned member of the community.

She lingered over breakfast. Wednesdays she opened late. It was her day for bookscouting on her own accord, and today she was on a winner. One of the suburb’s oldest residents was moving out of her house to a retirement unit and she wanted to sell her library of books. It was a familiar story: how to fit a lifetime accumulation of possessions crowding a big old family home into the small bedroom and lounge that made up a retirement flat. It couldn’t be done.

Ten o’clock, and she walked up to a split-level Sixties house in Spanish Mission trim, patches of exposed bricks, wooden beams and red tiles. Once it must have been the coolest house in Canberra, now it just looked tired.

But it had a fantastic view over the lake through mature trees. Galahs clustered around a feeding bowl, while king parrots waited their turn. And a silver-haired old lady opened the door and smiled her inside.

“Ann Ounce,” Ann said, mentally chiding her stepfather for her whimsical name for about the millionth time. “You dropped in last Thursday to make a time to view your library?”

“Of course! Violet Campbell, but you wrote my name down.”

“Any relation?”

“Robert Campbell was my great-grandfather,” Violet stated. “They say I’ve got his eyes. And some of his books.”

Campbell the suburb was named after Campbell the squatter, who had first farmed here. The military college of Duntroon was the old homestead, named after Campbell’s Scottish birthplace.

The Campbell eyes were twinkling, and Ann warmed to the old lady. It was never easy selling a lifetime collection of books. Many would be old friends, others would have memories attached, and some would be the childhood possessions of sons and daughters, far too precious to throw out.

“I’d be especially interested in the older books, Mrs Campbell. Have you done any sorting at all? You know, pulling out the ones you want to take with you?”

“They can all go. Might as well say goodbye to them now. I won’t be around forever, you know.”

Ann privately doubted this. Violet must have been well over eighty, but she seemed as trim and agile as any schoolgirl, bright and alert. So many old people lost heart, especially when their spouse died, and they just marked time until it was their turn.

“Nonsense! You’ll be getting a telegram from the Queen before you know it. I hope I’ll be as energetic as you when I’m your age!”

“Oh, I’ve got a while to go yet, dear. I’m ninety-two, would you believe it?”

Ann shook her head in disbelief. “And still living by yourself! You’re a wonder!”

“My son comes in now and then. He’s a good boy. He gives me a hand around the house.”

Any son of Violet’s would be a senior citizen in his own right, Ann thought.

“I see so many retired people,” she said, “and most of them can barely get up in the morning. Sick or crippled or bedridden…”

“Oh, I’ve been bedridden! Hundreds of times. And once in a taxi!”

“Ah,” Ann sighed. “I’d best take a look at these books.”

“Oh, they’re just through here. Would you like a cup of tea? I’ve already got the kettle on for this nice young man.”

Ann nodded. There, sitting at a heavy old table, surrounded by piles of books, was Quint. This was going to be tricky.

Copyright © 2009 Peter Mackay

Ann’s week began with a visit to the supermarket, where she bought an electric kettle and a large jar of instant coffee. Facing Ben the barista for her caffeine fix wasn’t something she relished quite so much now.

She priced the books Quint had brought her, noted the amounts on the list he had left, totaled them up, and put the money into an envelope. It would have been simpler to make a direct deposit into his bank account, but Quint didn’t work that way, and keeping him happy and productive paid dividends.

There were other bookscouts who came in with boxes of treasures, and people off the street would bring in boxes of what they hoped were treasures, but nobody had the touch for books that Quint had.

She was checking a box of so-called treasures now, in between sips of instant coffee. It wasn’t so bad, really, and she was saving four dollars with every mug. One or two reasonably good books in the box, but most of it was dross. People might pay thirty-five dollars for a hardcover copy of Dan Brown’s next thriller, but it halved in value the instant they bought it, and twenty years later it was worth nothing.

“It’s a first edition!” they would say, pointing this out, and yes, this was so, but when a first edition sold in the hundreds of thousands, it was never going to be rare and valuable. The firsts of authors who later became famous, whose first books had print runs in the hundreds, these were the ones to look out for and treasure.

As for paperback thrillers, known in the trade as airport books, the value was even less. Sure, she might have Tom Clancy or Ian Rankin lined up on her shelves, but they sold very poorly. In her back room she had a pile of these things taller than she was, from people clearing their own shelves of unwanted books. She’d pick out the few she really wanted, and then put the rest aside, to supply the box of fifty-cent specials outside her door.

Or she would register them on BookCrossing.com. In fact, she had a dozen or so that should really go on her OBCZ shelf, but she couldn’t bring herself to enter Heartbake just yet. Maybe when she finished her jar of instant coffee. It was a very big jar.

She’d tried contacting Tom. Looked for him on chat, hoping for a heart to heart that might lead into a satisfying chatsex session, but his name was greyed out.

So was Ann. She poured her heart and yearnings into a long, torrid email, poised her finger over the “Send” button for an instant and then deleted the whole thing.

If Tom had wanted to get together with her, he’d have found a way. The same could be said for herself, she supposed. Did she love Tom enough to move to New Zealand and spend her life bouncing around the ocean on tiny yachts?

Not likely, Ann considered. She liked her little bookshop, she liked Campbell with its tree-lined streets and comfortable middle-class residents, and she loved Canberra.

Nowhere else in the world was quite like Canberra. A planned city, laid out in broad avenues and calm circles, plentiful stretches of parkland with grand public buildings rising from gardens. Newcomers found it confusing, with roundabouts of all sizes, suburbs that all looked exactly the same, and amenities such as petrol stations, hotels and schools carefully hidden away out of the general gaze.

Heavy retail and light industry were tucked into districts away from residential suburbs. Fyshwick was located on the other side of the railway, and you’d find car yards, hardware shops, and brothels located in seedy harmony.

Campbell itself was a model suburb. Close to Civic, bounded by Lake Burley Griffin on one side and the bushland of Mount Ainslie on the other. The broad ceremonial axis of Anzac Parade made a clear division between Campbell and the adjoining heritage suburb of Reid.

Now, with the leaves gone from the trees, it might seem a little bleak, but it also meant that the prospects were longer. If she cared to walk along Monash Drive to the lookout at Legacy Park, she could see the suburb revealed to her gaze, looping streets and houses, tiny parks, schools and shops and flats in the centre. Beyond the lower streets the Parliamentary Triangle began, based on Constitution Avenue, the two bridges carrying Kings Avenue and Commonwealth Avenue across the lake converging on Parliament House on the summit of Capital Hill, the masts of the flagpole lifting the eye to the flag fluttering in the cold wind.

When she had first moved here, Ann had delighted in walking along the grand avenues, along the lake front, up to the War Memorial, where kangaroos grazed on the lawns.

But, like her life, she had grown too comfortable. Maybe it was time to shed a few kilos. Tight t-shirts were all very well, but to be honest, when the top came off and Ann regarded herself in a mirror, there was a lot more of her than there used to be. Bookselling wasn’t the most active occupation in the world.

Maybe it was time to take up walking after work, or before it. A couple of kilometres a day, a major cutback on the chocolates and cake. That’d do it. The cold air of morning and evening would help strip away the fat, her body burning up calories to heat the core.

On second thoughts, a gym might be better. A gym where she might see and meet men, sweat glistening their trim torsos and pumping legs.

Ann snorted to herself at the direction her thoughts were taking. She’d have to do something or surrender entirely to the triple comforts of chick-lit, Cadburys chocolate and her couch, curled up in company with her cat.

The German book of Olympic stills was close to hand on the rare and collectible shelf beside her, where she could keep a close eye on the more valuable books in the shop. She drew it out carefully, leafing through it for the images of the female athletes, comparing her own body with those on display. The athletes of the 1930s had been built along different lines. Not the super-lean bodies of today, every gram of fat stripped away. No, these were more rounded, more comfortable, more womanly shapes.

She’d begin tomorrow.

She traced the feminine contours on the images, imagining herself looking so good, looking fit and sexy, feeling someone’s fingers stroking her flanks, looking at her, loving her.

She looked up to see a man looking at her.

Copyright © 2009 Peter Mackay

Ann liked this bit. She entered the bakery and the barista – her barista! – smiled at her. “The usual, Ann?”

Her smile was joy. “Yes please, Ben! I’ll put these books on the shelf and be right back.”

The Heartbake manager had let her set up an OBCZ – an Official BookCrossing Zone – in a corner. Ann had stocked a small shelf with free books, each registered and labelled with its BookCrossing ID. A sign read “FREE BOOKS!”

The shelf had a steady turnover. Reading a free book while having coffee: a perfect match!

She arranged her latest paperbacks on the top shelf, moving older titles lower. If they staid too long on the shelf, she “wild released” them into the world somewhere. A park bench. A bus stop.

A new book caught her eye. Not one of hers. 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith. A delightful book by a favorite author, and some kind customer had donated it.

Ann glanced inside. Not registered on BookCrossing.com. Not yet.

She returned with the book. Barista Ben had her latte ready and she bent over the cake display in her Mark Twain t-shirt. A lot to be said for a tight top.

“A smiley cake today, please!”

He gave her a smile and put the cake on a plate. She paid, and made her happy way to her own shop. Definitely making headway with Ben.

Ounce Books was her little kingdom. Queendom. Princessipality. Whatever, it was all hers and she loved it.

To tell the truth, it was a fake. Campbell residents might buy a paperback novel here and there, but the big business was done online. Quality second-hand nonfiction and good first editions. More than once she’d made several hundred dollars profit from a single book.

She had a copy of Leni Reifenstahl’s Schönheit im olympischen Kampf, a classic 1937 large format book of stills from Reifenstahl’s documentary of the 1936 “Nazi” Olympics in Berlin. She’d paid two hundred dollars, but it was worth an easy six, maybe seven hundred. Postage would be a killer, though. It was heavy.

She took a bite of her cake, sipped her coffee and turned to the book she’d picked up in the cafe. On the BookCrossing.com website – permanently open on her computer – she clicked the “Register book” link, entered title and author, and the site gave her a ten digit number, which she copied onto a printed instruction label. This went inside the front cover. Outside, more stickers with the site logo of a little yellow book running away on stick legs, arms pumping as it headed for freedom.

She had attended the World BookCrossing Convention in Christchurch earlier that year. The combination of New Zealand’s spectacular fall scenery, great friends, and a lightning romance had made it a weekend to treasure. She had stayed on for a precious week with Tom, who ferried yachts about the South Pacific.

It had been pure magic, but they talked long into that final night, agreeing that their different lives ruled out anything permanent. They chatted on the internet when Tom had a break ashore, but even that contact was cooling.

Ben had possibilities. Younger than Tom, but so very handsome! A pity that his interest in books was slim. He came into the shop to collect cups, but their relationship was mostly pursued in the fragrant atmosphere of Heartbake.

Ann was ready for another whiff. She drained her latte, set it on the empty plate, picked up the freshly registered novel and went next door, smiling her way in.

Nobody on the counter, so she went to the back of the cafe and set the new book on the top shelf, glancing sideways into the kitchen, hoping for a glimpse of Ben.

There he was, and her heart skipped a happy beat before exploding. Locked in an embrace that linked bodies from toes to tongues with never a gap between, Ben and some skinny young blonde were making their own heat in the kitchen.

Ann wasn’t sure how she came to be sitting down at her own counter, alone but for an expensive old German book losing value with each teardrop.

Oh, Tom, Tom. Where was he now? Alone on some swelling ocean when he should be here, comforting her, caressing her, whispering love, telling her she was beautiful.

Just a few days, and so many happy memories. Driving down a scenic highway, snow-capped mountains to either side, golden leaves of fall in glorious splashes on the green meadows. Holding hands in the back seat. Walking in the glowing evening. Kissing beneath a smiling moon.

Tom’s smell had made her shiver as he ran his fingers through her hair, his lips soft on her cheek, her neck, her shoulders.

The first time they’d undressed each other, she had gasped at the glory of him. Tanned from ten thousand summer sea miles, trim and muscled from hauling on ropes and balancing his weight on a rolling deck.

The salty taste of his skin as she kissed his chest through a tangle of dark hair. The hardness of muscle, the blaze of his eyes, the sweet joy as his hands moved on her body.

Oh, Tom!

She opened the book, looking at pictures of Greek temples and columns. Marble athletes coming to life in Riefenstahl’s camera as naked gymnasts posed and moved and hurled the discus, the javelin. One tousled athlete was the image of a younger Tom, skin taut over perfect muscles beneath.

She stroked the page, remembering the times afterwards, hearts slowing, fingers entwining, bodies touching. Her head on his chest as he told sea stories. The light in his eyes as he looked at her telling of her own adventures in life and dreams for the future.

Oh Tom! Come to life for me, darling. Leap out of that book and hold me tight.

She looked up from the page, and saw through misty eyes a man in front of her.

Copyright © 2009 Peter Mackay