They met on the factory floor when they were fourteen though it was years before they “hooked-up,” as a great-niece would later put it. Slowly they had become friends while working together before becoming best friends for four years and beating around the bush for months until they finally kissed gladly behind the factory bike shed.
After that it was more clandestine: weekends away together cycling out of town and camping, normally in the deserted parts of the countryside they had discovered together that afternoon. Or in bed on the rare occasions when one family home or the other was empty for long enough.
They liked it in nature, their surroundings the very opposite of civilisation’s prison: a place where anything went and naked skin rubbed gratefully and with relief against the soft grass.
Yet they liked it in bed too: the (false) feeling that naught was hidden causing them to dream of a time when they could be alone and bring those outside times inside. And so they stayed true to themselves, avoiding marriage and staying at home until one was inherited and they set-up home together: outwardly as two unsuccessful bachelors and companions, inwardly as a couple.
No visitor ever went upstairs in that two-up, two-down. None would wonder who had the double and who the single or why all their clothes were in one room.
And together they grew old, continuing to enjoy their two environments by watching sunsets together, both over hills and over the city.
After that it was more clandestine: weekends away together cycling out of town and camping, normally in the deserted parts of the countryside they had discovered together that afternoon. Or in bed on the rare occasions when one family home or the other was empty for long enough.
They liked it in nature, their surroundings the very opposite of civilisation’s prison: a place where anything went and naked skin rubbed gratefully and with relief against the soft grass.
Yet they liked it in bed too: the (false) feeling that naught was hidden causing them to dream of a time when they could be alone and bring those outside times inside. And so they stayed true to themselves, avoiding marriage and staying at home until one was inherited and they set-up home together: outwardly as two unsuccessful bachelors and companions, inwardly as a couple.
No visitor ever went upstairs in that two-up, two-down. None would wonder who had the double and who the single or why all their clothes were in one room.
And together they grew old, continuing to enjoy their two environments by watching sunsets together, both over hills and over the city.
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