The Carhullan Army

start with, but not any more.’ She paused. Her dark eyes looked almost apologetic. ‘It’s strange maybe. But up here it’s difficult. You think you might be programmed a certain way but you soon find out you aren’t. You just make do. And yeah, of course Calum likes it. I would too.’
    She let go of my arm. We were quiet for a moment and I could hear muffled noises coming from the croft opposite. I did not know which of the women had gone into that building, but her voice was high and abandoned. Then I heard the man climaxing. The situation was still uncomfortable, but my body responded and I felt a bloom of heat between my legs. I pictured the occupants together, two faceless forms, moving steadily against each other, moving in a local and exaggerated way. I saw the man pulling out, hard and glistening, and imagined the soft slippery space in her closing again.
    A sensation of breathlessness came over me. I had not felt anything like passion for months. Since the incident in the cruiser I had not wanted to. If Andrew had recognised the trauma in me he did not broach it. He left me to myself. We had not slept together for months and if he had made arrangements with anyone else I had neither known about it nor cared. The women at Carhullan knew more about me than he did. Maybe it was the clear air, the days of physical exertion, or the sense of freedom and exchange between the residents, but here I suddenly felt ready for this part of myself to be opened again.
    Shruti sat quietly, not saying anything, staring straight ahead. She was resting cross-legged on the wall, holding the chipped cup in her hand. I glanced over. Her dark hair was tucked in loose curls behind her ears. The patch of flesh on her neck looked shiny and faintly raised in the outside light. She was slight, fine-boned, but curved. If she had not been there with me I might have walked away, alone, back across the pass to the farm, leaving the women to their pleasures. But she was next to me. There was a peaceful containment to her, as always. I wondered what she was thinking, whether she was moved too.
    Something about the tiny hamlet seemed rationally sordid, oppressive, and melancholy. It was unlike anywhere I had known. And I did not understand what had stirred in me, or why the proximity of others coupling had excited me in this environment. All I could think of was the movement of those within, the cries I had heard. I was no different from them.
    I began to see images of Shruti in my mind. I imagined reaching over to her and unzipping her coat, lifting up the layers she was wearing and touching her nipples, taking them into my mouth, feeling the shape of them against my tongue. The dull ache in me intensified. It was gently painful. I set the cup of hot water down and stood up, looking into the valley below, and I took a few deep breaths.
    The sky was darkening, but a band of pearly light edged the horizon. A low winter moon hung in the sky above it, shining with minor luminescence. It looked stranded and frail. The wind was cold against my face and neck, taking little bites and nips at my ears. I thought about how it would feel on my skin if I had stripped inside the croft, if I had lain down, naked and exposed in the draughts in the unwalled alcoves, and I imagined how a warm body would have felt covering mine. I was thirty-one years old. I was standing in a place that had taken millennia to grow. I knew it would cast me off without registering my existence. Suddenly I wanted to matter more than I did.
    I turned and looked at Shruti. Her face was unreadable, her eyes drawn back. I did not know what it was that had overcome me. All I knew was what was impossible to return to, what my body felt, and what I wanted then.
    She saw it in me. She stood up and gently pulled me a few paces back towards her, into the shelter of the cottage. Her arms dropped to her sides and she waited. I looked at her mouth, at the small, bowed shape of it, and then I leant towards her.
    She broke away and led us round the corner of the building, so that we would not be seen by the others coming out. We kissed again, pushed against each other, and unfastened and lowered our trousers to our knees. When I touched her she was as wet as I was. Then our mouths were quick and gentle, our tongues copying whatever our fingers did. She broke off only once, to bend and push my jeans down further so she could open my legs, and bring more moisture out. The air blew around