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 thing. 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.
He was floating off toward a blissful slumber when Lyle spoke suddenly. "Before you came, I think, deep down, I actually longed to die."
That snapped Ben fully awake again. "Don't say that. I can't stand it when you talk about dying so much. Why would you ever want that?"
"Why wouldn't I, stuck here alone? I'm sick beyond death of this place, and I ache for the ocean. Even the pool no longer brings me much joy, and I hadn't had a lover or even a passing acquaintance in years. Few people would ever stop and talk to me—everyone thought I was a freak. I half hoped tearing down that gargoyle would stir the magic of Welwyn's curse and destroy me."
"So you did do that! You lied to me, Lyle."
Lyle looked up from where he nestled his head on Ben's shoulder, wide-eyed. "I didn't have much choice at the time—either with you, or in the first instant. Some man dragged a girl here. She was much younger than him, and much smaller. He was groping her beneath the tower, and frankly, she wasn't enjoying it. She was begging him to stop. The falling gargoyle scared the living daylights out them both, but broke things up enough for her to run away."
Ben took a sharp inhale of the woodsmoke. He felt terrible for chastising Lyle. "That was very heroic of you. And in the case of the lie, you're forgiven. We'd only just met."
"Thank you." Lyle fluttered his lashes closed. "Tearing down the dragon didn't feel heroic at the time. It was all I could think of to do. I was pretty close to despair and so, so lonely. But I'm not lonely anymore, and I want to live again. Thank you, Benjamin."
"It's, um, my pleasure."
"I hope you don't mind me calling you Benjamin? It's a beautiful name."
"Er, no. Not at all."
Lyle squeezed his eyes tighter and bit his bottom lip; Ben discerned the tell-tale tremors in Lyle's body as Lyle fought back tears. Were they tears of happiness, sadness… or what? Ben didn't like to ask. A lump formed in his throat, too, as the magnitude of the situation hit him with full force.
He didn't simply have to find a way to help Lyle anymore. He was falling in love with Lyle, the crafty side of him, the adept and playful lover, and the cloying needy parts too. Lyle needed Ben. He'd never been needed like this before. And he, God save him, needed Lyle. He never wanted to let Lyle go.
Rain started to patter on the canvas above them, setting the dying embers of the fire hissing and crackling. Ben hugged Lyle tighter and distracted himself from his troubles by praying the warmer weather came early this spring. He'd a notion he'd be spending plenty of nights out here under canvas with Lyle.
*~*~*
Ben visited Lyle every evening that coming week, sleeping with him in the tent, cosied together. And then, because Kristof made slow progress with his plans for the woodland regeneration scheme, Lyle remained undisturbed by any external forces. Ben continued visiting the following week, and the next. The trees budded and pink and white blossoms appeared in the woodlands near the tower. Trailing catkins sprouted from the willows, and dawn broke earlier. Ben awoke with his toes less numb with cold than in the first few nights, and to a chorus of songbirds mingled with Lyle's gentle snores.
After popping to his parents most mornings for a quick shower and brush up, Ben worked tirelessly on his proposal for Oakey Dell—which moved slowly and involved a lot of meetings with the Residents Association, who initially opposed Ben's plans because they still hated Tessa and anybody linked with her. Charming them proved hard work, although Ben succeeded eventually by presenting them with one of his dad's best Victoria sponges.
Ben's evenings and weekends passed in homemaking with Lyle and in discovering their skills complemented each other well. Ben was naturally cautious, continually assessing for risks, not least in his decision to erect decking at the dangerous end of Lyle's pool, to prevent any future accidents.
"It'll look ridiculous!" scoffed Lyle, although he soon came around to Ben's way of thinking when he realized it was a perfect opportunity to show off his skill with woodworking. Indeed, when Ben had informed his mum that Lyle was an artist, it hadn't been far from the truth after all. Using tools borrowed from Ben's dad, Lyle cut curving boards that skirted the edges of the pool beneath the willows, so artistically wrought, Ben could picture a 1920s flapper dancing across them. Once Lyle had finished, he whittled a series of little wooden birds, animals, and dragons—his favourite creature—which he arranged along the ledge.
"Long ago, I would give toys like these to the children who visited the woods to play," he explained to Ben. "These days, they either run away, or they don't want them. They like those shiny tablet things you all fiddle with, I suppose."
Ben supposed so too. "It's probably best you don't approach kids at all," he warned Lyle. Indeed, Ben plied much thought to the matter of keeping their campsite hidden from prying eyes, wandering lovers, and dog walkers, not least so Lyle wouldn't have to tax himself with concealment magic too often. Fortunately, the explosion of spring leaves and flowers blocked all views of the tower from the nearest footpath. Ben always picked a different route through the foliage when he came home to Lyle, so as not to leave a well-worn track. Even so, scrambling to hide the camp when they heard people approach remained a regular chore.
Nevertheless, the hardest part of any day was leaving Lyle for work. During their third week together, and after a particularly dramatic morning performance of sulking and pouting, Ben gently confronted Lyle on his return that night.
"You don't have to do that every time I go, love," said Ben as he stirred a pot of mulled wine that dangled, simmering, over the fire. "I will keep coming back. I'm not Adam, but I do believe I know why he never returned to you."
"How can you say that?" snapped Lyle, jumping to his feet. "Am I so awful? You are going to desert me!"
"You know I'm not." Ben rose and reached for Lyle's hands. Lyle glared, but let Ben take them all the same. "I did a bit of research today, and I found out what happened to Adam. You see, when he returned to human society, he told his family about you and they believed he'd gone mad." Ben's research had revealed that the boy who'd disappeared into the forest and reappeared to tell tales of what the press had called a "fairy prince" had been named Adam Bannister. It couldn't be a coincidence. "They locked him up, Lyle. That's why he didn't come back to you."
Ben ran his thumb along the back of Lyle's rigid hands, soothing away the tension, and fixed deep in Lyle's troubled eyes. "Soon after that, Adam went away to fight in the Second World War. I'm afraid he was killed in a faraway land."
"Oh," said Lyle softly. He bowed his head and sniffed. Ben waited, patient. "I… I suppose I knew he was dead, anyway," said Lyle, after a while. "But… it makes me sad. I'm sorry your people were so horrid to him. I suppose it was my fault."
"It really wasn't." Ben tugged Lyle closer. "Adam should've been more careful, although he was very young." Adam had only been twenty-four when he'd been killed, in a British campaign in North Africa, and even younger when he'd been locked away. Lyle allowed himself to be pulled into Ben's arms; their foreheads touched. "I won't get myself arrested, I promise. I'm too careful for that. But we do need to think about our future, Lyle. There must be a way to get you out of here. We need to talk about the cur—"
"Not tonight," murmured Lyle. "Tonight, I just want to be with you. Adam was… well, he was very different from you, Benjamin, more like me. We didn't really, I don't know… fit together so well. We argued a lot. And after he was gone, I was so angry and upset, I never mourned him properly."
A couple of tears dripped down Lyle's nose. "It's alright, love," whispered Ben, fingertips dabbing the wetness. "I don't mind. We can think about those other things later."
He drew Lyle back to the fire, glad of the hot, spicy wine, which warmed their insides even if it didn't quite lift Lyle's spirits, or Ben's. The future was a real worry. On the other hand, life drifted on okay for now.
After their next breakfast, Lyle waved Ben goodbye with an only mildly begrudging smile, which felt like progress. By the following week, indeed, they'd fallen into a happy and secure-feeling routine. After work, Ben would drive back to the woods around six p.m. He'd park his car up a little-used lane which he figured was safer than the carpark—where one night his windscreen had been smashed—and then he'd trudge his way to the tower. Lyle would be waiting, calm and content.
They'd cook dinner on a camping stove, utilizing whatever Ben had found on discount at the Co-op store that evening, sometimes spicing up a stew or salad with some nettles or herbs Lyle had gathered in his little corner of the woods. Lyle regularly offered to conjure up food, but Ben always declined. Not only did the effort take its toll on Lyle. Ben wasn't convinced magic food had much nutritional value—after making Ben feel initially full, he seemed to get hungry again far sooner than with non-magic food.
Then they'd chat about their days. Lyle was always fascinated by Ben's work in the office, however dull it seemed to Ben.
Lyle was especially thrilled to hear about how Kristof had been thwarted: Shanty Wood, so it turned out, was home to a significant population of rare nocturnal birds called nightjars. The notion that the nightjars' nesting grounds could be disturbed by building works, even for a so-called woodland regeneration project, had put an army of local twitchers on the warpath.
"What are twitchers?" queried Lyle, sitting up by the stove on the night Ben had found out the details of Kristof's woes and broken the news. Lyle took a sip of the sparkling wine that Ben had bought to celebrate.
"Committed birdwatchers," explained Ben, savouring the taste of the prosecco nearly as much as he always enjoyed the sight of Lyle after a wearisome day in the office. For cheap plonk drunk out of a plastic tumbler, the wine didn't taste bad at all. Lyle loved the stuff, and was looking particularly sexy to boot, kitted out in a warm polar neck sweater, waterproof trainers, and figure-hugging skinny jeans that Ben had purchased for him. Lyle had cut holes at the shoulders and thighs, to accommodate his fins, and this afforded the ensemble an additional je ne sais quois.
"With any luck," continued Ben, "the whole affair will go to the dogs now, just like Kristof's plans for Warrencroft. Apart from this time he's been scuppered by rare birds, not rare flowers."
"I could've told them about the nightjars," scoffed Lyle. "Although, ironically, I wouldn't mind if those beasties shut up a bit. They make a terrible racket, clicking and screeching, when I'm trying to get to sleep."
"Yeah, I think I heard them a while back," said Ben. "But I've had no trouble getting to sleep out here the last week or so, even if the dawn chorus wakes me. Those energetic workouts before bed have put me out like a light." He drained his glass and raised an eyebrow suggestively.
Lyle unleashed his most ravishing smile. "These've been the best nights I've passed in the last one-hundred-and-seventy-five years. And they can only get better now, right? Now we're safe?"
"Yes, we're safe. I promise. I'm going to submit my final plans for Oakey Dell next week. All we need is Tessa's signoff on my work, and then the whole threat to Shanty Wood will be history."
Ben trusted his words as hard as he dared, and Lyle twisted to claim a kiss, which he eagerly reciprocated. They rose onto their knees, Lyle arched his body close, and Ben slid his hands up Lyle's sweater and into the small of his back. Lyle's fins slid under Ben's own jacket, sending sensations akin to fiery shivers racing up and down his spine. He worked the kiss energetically, and Lyle's touch remained as urgent and exploratory as the first time, which seemed so long ago now.
"Oh Ben," moaned Lyle. Ben nibbled along Lyle's jawline, pausing to suck his earlobe. "I'm so happy. I never thought I could be this happy. Spring is here and you've turned my hell into heaven."
Ben drew away to catch his breath and gather his nerves. Lyle's happiness was an awesome responsibility. Deep down, he knew this status quo couldn't last forever, whether Kristof's plans were no longer a threat, or not. Sooner or later, somebody would discover they were camping out here. Ben couldn't hide as easily as Lyle, and if Lyle had shown no signs of weakening lately, it was probably because he'd not tried any magic either, at least not to Ben's knowledge.
But, hey, so far so good, and… Nnnng! He buried his face in Lyle's neck as Lyle plunged his hands, for a change, down Ben's jeans and grasped him. Friction built as they rubbed together, sticky palms and rutting bodies devoted to each other's pleasures. All Ben's worries—and indeed any rational thought—disintegrated into a lust-pummelled mush.