MORNING SERIAL

OH, Sally, I love you, he thought. You are the only one I shall ever love. You are my girl, my sweetheart. I will do anything for you. Anything.

Then he felt abashed. Foolish. He was seventeen, and dared to think of love.

A boy and a girl together in the darkness. Romance in a country lane.

What was this feeling for her that consumed him? He wanted to hold her tightly to him.

To kiss her. To feel his body at one with hers.

There was a throbbing in his veins. A hard rock in his throat.

He wanted to cry. To laugh. And as he looked at her standing there before him a great wave of pity and love overwhelmed him.

“Sally!” He embraced her with all his strength. He pressed her backwards against the gate. He felt her trembling under him.

“Ieuan!” she breathed. “Oh, Ieuan!” A couple passed by. He heard a familiar voice, but he did not try to recall where he had heard it before. His thoughts were of Sally alone.

Her knees were tight against his. He could hear her heart beating. The thin silk fabric of her blouse clung to his fingers and crackled in the dark.

Then a sudden intensity of passion seized him as her young body burned beneath his touch.

He felt the blood rush maddeningly in a flood through his veins, and he trembled.

He pressed his mouth to hers in a long kiss that drained all strength from his body.

She relaxed, limp in his arms, her head thrown back. He kissed her cheeks, her hair, her throat. He whispered her name, joyfully, then fiercely.

Suddenly she threw her arms around his waist and drew him wildly towards her. She pressed her body into his. Her fingers dug into his flesh. Their thighs mingled.

She kissed him passionately, a long-drawn- out sigh from her lips passing through his whole body, making him shiver with ecstasy.

And he held her tightly, pressing her to him with all the fervour he was capable of.

Then, with the sudden slamming of a gate in the distance, came an awareness, a realization of what they had done.