The Lonely Merman

by Kay Berrisford

  "Deal," said Ben. At least he'd bought some time. He pretended to read an email. In truth, he couldn't concentrate on anything other than how to stop Kristof. An idea he'd been mulling over for some time—but that he'd never quite got around to pitching to his colleagues—came to his aid.

  "Kristof, before you go racing ahead, I think we should at least consider moving the regeneration project to Oakey Dell Wood instead. Its right by the infant school"—the school Ben had attended, in fact—"but the paths are so muddy most of the year that the kids and their parents have to walk miles around it, along busy roads, rather than cutting straight through. We could put some decking down for them. Plus, it would be the perfect place for a family nature centre."

  Kristof didn't look up or even stop typing. "I prefer Shanty Wood. It's a lot bigger—"

  "But farther out of town," interjected Ben. "Oakey Dell is accessible to everyone, even people who don't have a car. It's ideal."

  "Pitch it to Tessa then." Kristof typed ever more furiously, pausing only to wink at Ben. "You'll need a miracle to convince her, though. The Oakey Dell Residents Association is still on her hate list after they dashed her dreams of putting the high-speed rail link through there a few years ago. I doubt she'll go for it."

  Ben had to try, all the same. He scanned through his inbox, seeking recent complaints about the muddy paths across Oakey Dell that might help his cause.

  "Look at us two saddo singletons sitting here at work on a Sunday morning." Kristof's jovial remark sliced through Ben's concentration.

  "Yeah," replied Ben, though a small smug part of him mused, Not that there's anything wrong with being single, but I made love to an amazing guy last night, and now I know what warm fuzzy feelings are.

  He couldn't revel in it for long. If he didn't act fast, Kristof's plans would destroy Lyle's home. And, very possibly, destroy Lyle.

  *~*~*

  The instant Ben let himself into his parents' thatched cottage, the welcoming scent of roast dinner set his mouth watering and his stomach rumbling.

  "Ben, is that you?" Ben's dad called from the kitchen, his habitual spot at this time—just past noon on a Sunday—as he lovingly prepared the beef, veg, and Yorkshire pud. Simultaneously, Ben's mum descended the creaky old stairs, her hair still in rollers but her make-up perfect, which alarmed Ben slightly.

  If his mum had been dolling herself up, it meant they were expecting company for lunch. Ben wasn't sure he could face that. He really just wanted to get back to Lyle, but also needed to check in with his family. He might be thirty-years-old, but he knew the enigmatic text messages he'd sent his mother the previous night wouldn't have been enough to allay her concern, and certainly not her curiosity.

  "Ben, where were you?" asked his mum.

  "I drank a bit too much and stayed over with a friend, that's all." He chewed his lip, feeling like a coy teenager, and then grinned. "It's all fine, mum. Nothing to worry about."

  "I know you're more than old enough to look after yourself." His mum took his jacket after he slipped it off. She brushed off the dirt and twigs with a click of her tongue. "I still worry, you know? I've been watching this documentary on depression and suicide among young men, and too much alcohol is one of the early signs. You do spend a lot of time in the pub and—"

  "Mum, seriously, I'm fine."

  "Leave the lad alone." Ben's dad appeared in the kitchen doorway, an oven glove with cats on it draped over his arm. "Of course, he's fine. He's just being a chap, doing what chaps do at the weekend. Did you have a good time, Ben?"

  Ben grinned. His stress over Kristof's plans hadn't destroyed that dreamy happiness, deep within. "Yeah, thanks. I did. I, uh, I met somebody new."

  "Indeed?" Ben's dad raised his bushy brows. "Do tell more! Oh, damn, that's the buzzer. I've got to turn over the spuds and get the Yorkshires in."

  Ben followed his dad into the kitchen, his mother on his tail. "Can I help with the sprouts or something?"

  "You're not getting away with it that easily," said his dad, turning off the buzzer. "Come on, tell us about him. What's his name?"

  "Lyle," said Ben, wandering toward the hob, where the carrots and sprouts were simmering.

  "That's an unusual name," said his Mum. "What does he do, Ben?"

  Oh bugger. Ben was going to have to lie to his mum again. "He's, uh… an artist." Yeah, that fitted. He couldn't picture Lyle working in an office.

  "How lovely," said his mum. "Is he a sculptor or a painter? Oh, I hope he's not one those awful performance artists you see everywhere these days. I don't quite see the talent in painting your face silver and standing around shouting at people, I really don't."

  "He's not a performance artist," mumbled Ben, grateful to find a pan of sauce that needed stirring. "He paints, uh, watercolours of forest scenes."

  His mother appeased, she disappeared upstairs to finish getting ready for, horror of horrors, the vicar and his wife, who she'd invited over for the meal.

  "Do you mind if I skip off straight after dessert?" asked Ben quietly, after his mum had left.

  "Not at all." Ben's dad took the meat out of the oven, filling the kitchen with the succulent scents of beef, rosemary, and thyme. He turned to Ben and chuckled. "I wish I could escape with you, lad, rather than listen to your mother and the vicar for hours, but I don't suspect you'll want my company. Are you meeting Lyle?"

  Ben couldn't contain another grin. "Yeah, I hope so."

  "Serious, eh?"

  His dad put the meat down on their large kitchen table, already lain with cutlery and napkins, and turned back to finish the veggies. Ben mulled the question over in his mind. "Yes," he answered. "It's early days, but I think so. He… he's very different from me, but I think you'd like him. Mum might take some getting used to him, but… "

  Ben stilled his flapping tongue. What was he thinking? He could never bring Lyle home to meet his parents. Even if Lyle hadn't been bound to Shanty Wood by some strange curse, Lyle had fins! Ben simply dragged himself deeper and deeper into a quagmire of lies that ought to make him feel shit about himself.

  "But what, Ben?"

  "Oh, nothing. As I said, it's early days. I don't want to be hasty, you know how it is. I don't want to tell everyone and jinx things."

  "Wise man," agreed his dad. For once, the ding-dong of the doorbell announcing their guests' arrival—and the panicked cry from his mother from upstairs—relieved Ben mightily. His mum would chatter on about choir rehearsals for the next hour, which meant a reprieve from any grilling over Lyle, and then… Oh God, how was he going to tell Lyle about Kristof's plans?

  *~*~*

  Given how delicious his Sunday dinner was, Ben picked lightly at it. To his mother's chagrin, he even skipped dessert. He took a quick shower, squirted himself with his best aftershave, and grabbed some supplies from town. He then headed off in his convertible, sunroof down, toward Shanty Wood.

  Lyle was waiting for him, sitting this time at the base of the tower. Ben waved as he saw him, a spring in his step. He halted in his tracks when he noted that Lyle's beguiling smile defied the return of a worryingly ghost-like complexion. In front of Lyle, a medium-sized feast had been laid out on a blanket.

  "What's all this?" asked Ben.

  "It's a picnic," said Lyle. "You humans are obsessed with food, and I didn't want you to run away so quickly this time."

  "But where did it come from?" asked Ben, settling down beside Lyle, nerves jangling for several reasons. He wanted to greet Lyle with a kiss. After all, they'd spent the night together, but his habitual reserve prevented him. To make matters worse, as he scanned the spread before him—cucumber sandwiches, bries and camemberts, pork pies, ginger beer, carrot cake and more—he had to admit he didn't feel that hungry, despite not stuffing his dad's dinner as much as usual.

  "I conjured it up," said Lyle, proudly. Guilt swung a hammer blow into Ben's guts. Judging from the way Lyle slumped against the wall, the effort of creating the picnic with magic had been a great
one. "I made everything apart from the bottles and blanket, which are old ones scrubbed up, and those funny things over there." He pointed to an opened pack of twiglets. "Some slovenly child dropped those nearby. They smell awful, but there's no accounting for taste. I thought you might like them."

  "I do like twiglets," admitted Ben, "but I think I'll pass on somebody else's discarded packet, especially when there's so much else here. It's amazing, Lyle, thank you."

  He leaned forward to peck Lyle on the cheek, an act that all of a sudden felt right. Lyle turned, sneaky and swift, so Ben caught his lips instead. They kissed with a dreamy intimacy that only a lazy kiss on a Sunday afternoon could bring. Lyle's mouth tasted better than any feast, and every hard part of him melted and softened into Ben as they embraced.

  "That was a very pleasant thank you," said Lyle, when they finally broke apart. "And it'll do, for now. Now, eat, enjoy! I'll expect you to thank me more thoroughly later."

  Ben didn't have the heart to tell Lyle he'd already eaten. He tried his utmost to do justice to the picnic, grateful when Lyle sampled the delicacies too, including the twiglets. Lyle tossed them aside with disgust, declaring, "They taste even worse than they smell, worse than octopus bladder. Though I don't mind the saltiness. I suppose I can forgive anything that reminds me of the sea."

  But the picnic was fun. Way too much fun, eating and sipping ginger beer out in the woods with somebody who made him laugh and persistently—not to mention, flatteringly—flirted with him. When Ben told Lyle he'd looked up the date of the wreck of the Jubliana, Lyle thanked him with ginger-beer-soaked kisses. Lyle sobered up fast, however, when Ben told him that the Jubliana had been wrecked off the Isle of Wight in 1842.

  "1842! What year is it now?" asked Lyle, settling back against the tower after the kiss.

  "2017," admitted Ben. "How old were you when you were sent here?"

  "Seventeen." Lyle wrinkled his nose. "Do you fancy me any the less now you know I'm… er, how much older than you am I?"

  "One-hundred-and-sixty-two years." Ben whistled. "It's quite an age gap. But I think it's workable."

  "Me too." Lyle licked kiss-drenched lips, savouring the taste in such a playful way that Ben found it hard to believe Lyle wasn't the same age as, if not a little younger than, him. Lyle was so… unworldly. But then, so would most folk be if imprisoned in the same place since the age of seventeen. He couldn't have had many life experiences.

  "I've been here one-hundred-and-seventy-five years," said Lyle. "And I've only had…" He frowned, counting on the fingers of both hands then muttering some arithmetic. "Forty-one lovers," he announced at length. "Or maybe a few more. Like the years, you lose count in the end."

  Ben froze, midway into a bite of a pork pie, his scant appetite fleeing. Okay, maybe Lyle wasn't so unworldly. That prodigious number of affairs put Ben's modest love life way beyond the shade and into a pitch black underworld. It also made Ben feel uneasy. Was he just another conquest?

  "Don't worry," said Lyle, as if reading Ben's mind. "Most of them stayed only one night. At least half probably settled for me after being jilted by another lover who they'd arranged to meet in the woods. Only one ever meant anything to me. He stayed a month, made all sort of promises… then he left one day and never came back."

  "I'm sorry," said Ben, torn over whether he wanted to know more. The idea that Lyle had so much experience worried him, and the notion that Lyle had once been close to somebody else upset him. Yet in such a long time, what did Ben expect? It would be unreasonable to be cross. Pushing aside his misgivings, Ben surrendered to intrigue. "What was his name?"

  "Adam," said Lyle. Then he laughed, tossed his luxuriant hair, and flipped his hand dismissively. "He was a bastard! I like you better, Benjamin. I'm sorry I mentioned the sordid topic."

  They both fell quiet. Ben nibbled the rest of his pork pie ruminatively, enjoying the sight of Lyle picking the crust off a cucumber sandwich. Only when Ben felt replete, flopped against the tower next to Lyle—who seemed to have regained his energies as Ben's sapped away—did Ben stop wondering about Lyle's lengthy years and worry again about their present troubles.

  "Lyle," he said, "I went into my office this morning, like I told you I would."

  Lyle sprawled forward onto his front and held out some cake crumbs to entice a nearby robin to come and eat from his hand. "Oh yes? And did you make sure nobody would come here again, like you said you would?"

  "Not exactly. You see—"

  "If it's bad news, I don't want to know!" Lyle tossed the crumbs away, frightening the approaching bird, and rolled to scowl at Ben. Then he evidently changed his mind, horror saturating his wide eyes. "Is it terrible? Am I doomed?"

  "No," said Ben. "It might be a little harder than I thought, but it'll be fine." Shit, was he lying to Lyle now too? "Kristof won't be coming back here to fill in your pool, I promise." Yup, he was lying and making promises he couldn't be sure to keep. Watching the lines of anxiety smooth from Lyle's brow nearly justified the evil. Nearly.

  Ben scratched his head. He should come clean, prepare Lyle for the worst. There had to be some way to get Lyle out of here, if Kristof's plans went ahead.

  "Lyle, I do think that we'd better… Shit, what's that?" Ben jumped as something tickled his overfull stomach.

  "That's me. Surprise!"

  Reclining on one arm with his hand rested against his other fist, Lyle tickled Ben's tummy—with a fin, which he had slipped up under Ben's woolly jumper. And which now slithered down into the front of Ben's pants.

  "Uh, Lyle." Ben couldn't prevent himself giggling. "What are you doing?"

  "I'm tickling you," said Lyle sweetly, curling another fin up to stroke Ben's face. "Because now I've got you, and as you tell me I'm not doomed…" He crawled closer to Ben, angling for another kiss. "I'm damned well going to enjoy life again."

  Chapter Nine

  Ben had never believed he was into kink until that moment. Because he was pretty sure this was kinky.

  Lyle lay on top and sprawled all over him. Those long fins roamed everywhere, delving into places and wrapping around parts of Ben that set him moaning with desire. Lyle seemed to have a thousand clever fingers, let alone those tentacle-like fins, and he set each one to the task of elevating Ben beyond paradise, onto a knife-edge between ecstasy and agony where frenzied sensations overwhelmed him.

  He would've cried out, screamed with pleasure, but Lyle's nimble tongue plumbed the depths of his mouth, trapping his groans of delight in his throat. All Ben could do was claw down Lyle's back and wrap his legs tight about Lyle, a vain effort to draw Lyle even closer. If Ben could, he'd have ripped every last shred of his clothes away and dragged Lyle beneath his skin. As his climax rushed toward him, Ben cried out in his mind. Lyle… Oh God, Lyle! You're beautiful… so beautiful. I think I… heavens, I adore you.

  Lyle must've sensed Ben's peak quaking through him. He pulled back a little, delicately tonguing the tip of Ben's nose then pressing his cheek to Ben's. He didn't relinquish his clinging hold about Ben's neck, nor retrieve the fin that toyed provocatively with the softening contents of Ben's trousers.

  "Now, what are you going to thank me for first?" Lyle rasped sexily in Ben's ear. "That, or the picnic."

  Still panting, Ben baulked. Did Lyle want them to have full-on sex right away? Maybe mermen could be superhuman sometimes, but Ben's stamina wasn't. "I'll thank you for both soon, I promise. Just give me a moment to recover." His uncomfortably full tummy didn't help, and now the heat of the moment had passed, Lyle's weight proved too much.

  He stroked his thumb along Lyle's jawline then gently urged him off. "Not that I don't adore the feel of you on top of me," said Ben, "but your picnic was too lovely and too recent for me to be squashed for long."

  Lyle rolled off, only mildly peeved. He grabbed a half empty ginger beer bottle, took a swig, and offered it to Ben. Ben declined, glancing around, his apprehension mounting. Making love last night under the cover of darkness was one thin
g. Few folks, except other lovers seeking nooky or the odd bird or badger fanatic, came to Shanty Wood at night. But he should never have risked doing what they'd just done in broad daylight—and wouldn't have, if he'd been able to think straight beyond the moment Lyle jumped his bones.

  "Are you cross with me?" asked Lyle.

  "No, I'm not. But that was risky. If we got caught, we… well, I, at least, could've been reported to the police or something. If I got arrested, I could lose my job, and then I wouldn't be able to protect this place." Or you, Lyle.

  "Oh." Lyle looked disquieted. "I could conceal us with magic. It might be difficult, but if you put in a bit more effort next time we make love—"

  "No," said Ben. Lyle's obvious hurt set Ben scrambling to explain himself. "I don't mean I don't want to have sex with you. I mean, magic obviously takes it out of you. I'm suggesting we wait until tonight, that's all. I think I'd like to put a tent up. Make things a bit more comfortable, too." Rolling about on the picnic mat had been only mildly better than the ground, spread as it was with the leftovers. At one point, Ben had felt the twiglets crunching beneath his buttocks.

  "You're not going anywhere, though?" asked Lyle. Ben detected the faintest hint of a pout on Lyle's lips.

  "No, the tent is in my bag, and I have a big sleeping bag too. I bought them in an outdoor supplies shop in town this afternoon."

  Ben unpacked the snug-looking two-man tent, which fortunately, for a relative novice like him, had instructions and turned out to be simple to erect. He had checked, and camping in Shanty Wood was illegal. Nevertheless, seeing as nobody had bothered Lyle all these years, other alarm bells chimed louder in his head.

  This afternoon, Lyle had started to be… well, there was no getting away from it. Despite revealing he had a list of past lovers that rivalled Casanova's, he had become clingy, which was both adorable and a tad annoying.

  Later, however, lying with Lyle inside the sleeping bag, with a groundsheet, a wool blanket, and a fire flickering outside the tent, Ben forgot his slight irritation. He'd made love with Lyle not twice, but three times. Lyle had proved not only to be full of energy again, but adept in a wide variety of sexy positions. It'd turned out the most romantic night of Ben's life thus far.