Each footstep sank into the dank boggy ground of the islands peat with a wet squelch, followed by a soft sucking sound as it clung determinedly to the now escaping and retreating boot. The bog would attack again at his next step. It never gave up.
It neither distinguished between King nor peasant, Viking or Celt, all were the same. Its inexorable pull dragged the toughest and the finest to its depths eventually. Their strength no match for its primordial grasp. There it held them for eternity. Only rarely did it gave back what it had taken, revealing to awed, barely comprehending eyes, the fate of those that had lived, had died, in this forbidding place. Those many forgotten souls the ancient bog had ensnared, had taken to its cold depths, eons before.
To him, she was impossibly young. And, at this moment, this fleeting moment, he possessed her completely. He savoured this time with her as if it were his last meal, allowing his senses to gorge upon her body, fully and without restraint. She was his.
But his for how long? That jarring thought, that rude, insistent, infuriating thought, was never, ever, going to be far away. It lived with him. And he also knew, no matter how he denied it to himself, the painful answer to that terrible and insistent question.
The small room was filled with heavy darkness and deep shadows. Shapes were tantalisingly revealed, shadows momentarily banished when Moonlight seeped into the darkness. Cold and pale, the light of the night fell through the open window, spreading its ethereal glow over her glistening and naked body, unashamedly exploring her contours with its feeble intensity. The cool light flickered and lay upon her, camouflaging the burning heat of her body. The net curtains of the open windows strove and flapped, but failed to protect her modesty, to deny the Moon's lascivious caresses.
The very air of the night enthusiastically joined in this orgiastic exploration of her body, sweeping past the prim and protesting curtains as it reached out its cooling fingers and caressed her in its own way. The cool dampness of the air washed over her nakedness, flowing over her skin lightly, teasingly, her reaction to its touch evidenced by a long sensuous shiver as a rash of goose pimples swept over her in a tide.
He drank in the erotic sight below him, her shape and form highlighted and accentuated by the low angle of the weak light, the valleys and hills of her body undulating invitingly beneath him. His fingers traced the contours of her face, lightly drawing over their symmetrical, angular, yet soft, feminine features. Her dark shoulder length hair framed her head on the pillow. He touched her lips, full and gentle. That such beauty could hide deceit and avarice was absurd to him. Her firm breasts, the strength of youth within them, held their shape impossibly, refusing the pull of gravity, almost challenging him. He watched the nipples hardening once again from the cold air, or perhaps from the touch of his fingers as they drew ever nearer to them, he was unsure. Nevertheless, he watched intently as they stiffened, then lowered his lips to them. Abigale felt the warmth of his breath upon her breast as he drew close, and let slip a long sigh.
David trudged on, each step he made was harder than the last and, although he was aware he was tiring, his gaze was steady. Ahead of him the mist was beginning to come in over the Sound of Sleat, arriving as swirling wraiths upon the western shores of the Isle of Skye. Across the Sound, the mountains of the Highlands hunched themselves against the approaching darkness, releasing the last of the day's weak sunlight grudgingly from their snow covered tops. The last dark red glow of sunlight then inevitably vanished from the Earth, escaping its enfolding confines. David watched as the glow left the Earth and became as one with the mist. The glow took ephemeral form and came towards him. David never broke step. The shoreline he was seeking was now close. The ancient peat bogg redoubled its effort to slow his progress, holding each step that fraction longer, draining his strength. It knew, it sensed, the failing resolve, it would always win in the end.
The hard erect nipple touched his lips. It demanded access to his mouth. How could he refuse? Opening his lips slightly, he lowered them over the hard nub, then help it tightly between them, testing its hardness, but holding back the lash of his rough tongue from its sensitive tip. She arched her back, pushing her breast against his face, eager for him to take her deep within his mouth. But he would not. He felt her wriggle and squirm deliciously underneath him as he moved to her other breast, repeating his gentle torture.
In response, her hand snaked down, traced over his chest, past his stomach, reaching down, finding his hardness. She wrapped her small hand around the erect shaft she found, testing its hardness with a firm pressure. She sighed her delight at the clear evidence of his desire. Grasping him tighter, she attempted to pull him up and towards her, wanting him now inside her. But he resisted, retreated, sliding down and infuriatingly away from her. He heard her moan a deep throaty sound of complaint as he slid away, down, and out of her grasp, his hardness finally slipping reluctantly from her desperately restraining grasp.
Tracing his tongue down along her skin, from between her breasts, he found the well of her belly button, delving his tongue briefly into it, making her squirm, before continuing his way further down, down to the seat of her desire. Now it was her turn to resist as she tried to pull him up, to stop him. But he would not be denied.
"No, no…I want you inside of me…" She told him without real conviction, whining plaintively, ineffectually, desperate now to be filled by that hardness she had only just released from her hand.
But he was too strong. Realising at last that he would have his way, that she could not prevent him, she fell back onto the bed, abandoning herself to his exploration of her body with his lips and tongue. She closed her eyes, shuddering slightly as she felt her legs lifted, pushed back and up, as he spread her wide to his hungry gaze, his delicate intentions. "David, that was brilliant!" His manager told him with a satisfied smile. "This will give you a four figure bonus on your plate at Christmas!"
David shrugged with apparent modesty. "Thank you, Sir, I try to do my best"
The proffered hearty congratulations, David knew, were only partly aimed at him. He studied the delighted man in front of him as though for the first time. His manager was a large man of substantial girth and personality. The general demeanour of the man, his apparent open bonhomie, coupled with his great size and weight, somehow reinforced an immediate and positive impression upon strangers. People needed to know him for more than a day or two to realise that this was in fact a completely false assumption. He was very clever though, and rarely gave people that much time to discover his true worth.
In reality, he was nothing more than a snake salesman, serpentine in his unscrupulous dealings, slithering from one crooked deal to the next. His total disregard for the greater well being of his customers became clear only upon further inspection, whereupon the ugly nature of the man was visible beneath the glossy veneer. That is, if you cared to look. Most people did not care to look that carefully. And he relied upon that, that all to human failing. The man's only thought, his only desire, was the pursuit of his own aggrandisement, with the consequent manipulation of those around him, in order to further that very base ambition.
David despised him. But he despised himself even more for his active collusion through all these years. He castigated himself for embracing those same corrupt ambitions for his own benefit. Was he any different? The empty rationality of his life was laid harshly bare before him. And where had it got him? It had got him nothing more than modest wealth and a broken family. He had been so blind, but now his newfound insight was of little use.
"I tell you, Dave" His manager continued, blissfully unaware of the deep change within David,
"I will make damn sure you get rewarded for what you have accomplished today, that contract you negotiated will save the bank millions! I can see great things for you here, David, great things!"
He steered David by the shoulders as he showed him from the office, patting him on the back physically and symbolically. "Bigger and better, Dave, bigger and better, you have everything you need for the Mugabe file?"
"Yes, Sir, I have" David told him, a slight tremor in his voice betraying the bitter bile he now felt within.
His manager though, still consumed with glee over his own increased bonus through David's efforts, appeared not to notice.
