The sun streamed in through the gravid bedroom windowpane of the mountainside apartment. It was n't huge but it was big enough and the views out over the Atlantic were stunning. It triggered memories … too many really.

Sitting up in bed I brushed my helping hand back over my headway, taking my hair with them. Twisting my principal to the side I smiled down at the beautiful face next to me. short, sour gyre splayed out over the pillow, the duvet pulled down far enough to unveil her bare shoulder joint and the top of her slender back, the scrape healed but still there taunting me ... teasing me … turning me on.

She turned, her back now flat to the mattress and she smiled up at me. Reaching out with my bridge player I made as if to stroke her cheek, but all I felt was the cool cotton plant of the pillow in the evacuate space next me.

There was no one there. There never was anyone there.

She was gone.

lifetime was dissimilar now, since that day. I still had my job, my profession if not quite the same floor of income. After Red and I had returned from our time in Gran Canaria it had taken me so long to go forward in my straits, that over time I had wound down my secret practice. I now performed procedures on the NHS alone, that way I felt I was giving something back, for some ground I felt the need.

I coughed the choke away from my pharynx as once again, my cerebration trailed away, before a spark from the early good morning sun reflecting off the vindicated bluish water took me away from my daydream. Here on the mess English surrounding San Agustin was where I wanted to be, especially at this time.

My phone buzzed. I picked it up and glanced at the message. It was daughter act 2. She was getting married in a couple of months and she was double checking that I would be going, and prepared to pass her away.

"Yes, and yes, very much so on both counts, xx"I replied to the text. number 2 was still talking to me, unlike her elder sis who had battened down the hatches very much on the side of her mum after everything came out.

When I say ‘ everything'I mean that my wife knew about my relationship with a young pupil. She never asked what her name was, which was a estimable job because I didn't know, but she saw substance on my headphone. She called me sick, perverted and so many early affair … she only knew what the subject matter told her, good thing she didn't known what had really happened.

My 36-year marriage was over and maybe that's how I wanted it. The four short month that my piddling miss and I were together changed my life forever. I missed her still … I pined for her. There was no way that I could just go back to domestic harmony.

My wife found her backbone and kicked me out with immediate effect and then went to town on the divorce. She was harsh with her vitriol, and took one-half of everything I had, which I didn't fighting … I was still well enough off to know a good life.

That had all happened in the past times twelve months, to the day, since we had played out the final act, here on this very mountainside.

******

I sat gazing out to sea. The wooden tush looking out over the Ocean was baked in sunniness.

I smiled wistfully as I recalled the very day. My groin still stiffened a little at the sentiment. What a scene it had been ! And then afterwards, as we took her down from the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and rolled her torn body, wound one shot with her own innards, into the sheet. I closed my middle and shuddered as I recalled the panic that had begun to set in.

But we had pulled it off. Just like we planned. dead body into the sea to be washed away, weighted so it would sink. Naked swimming to wash away the rip and the peter we had used disposed of into the same salty grave that was taking my Little Girl to a better place.

I was too wrapped up in my married excitement upon arriving back in the UK to even suppose about the police stuff. But it turned out that the forensic enquiry at Bridewell turned up zip of note, and the cellphone soon opened again to visitor. I never went back.

"Hi mister,"I looked up and smiled. It was the first time I had seen her since we parted at Manchester Airport. We texted occasionally … she knew about my divorce … we both needed to know that the other was there. We had a bloody, bloodstained hamper to tie us together.

"Red,"I stood to recognise her."You look stunning,"and it was true, she did.

I retook my seat and, with a smile to recognize my compliment, she sat down next to me.

"You okay ?"

"Yeah, I guess,"she replied. I turned to smile a infirm smile at her, I understood her melancholy. It was a year today since we killed the slovenly woman … an unbelievable passage of time that somehow made the whole thing seem surreal. It was why Red and I needed to meet here, today … so that we could remember, together.

"How's the wife ?"She grinned.

"Still taking me to the cleaners,"I laughed.

"And so she should. You deserved it you bastard !"I turned to see her smile broaden as she said this.

We paused in comfortable silence.

"I still miss her,"Red said after a piece.

"Me too."I added.

"She was the only person I ever loved, you know, like that. She was …"

"… something else,"I finished off her condemnation, knowing that we felt exactly the same about the slut, my short Girl, Red's lover.

"There's been no one else since,"the flame-haired girl added pensively.

"There will be, in sentence,"I offered agnate words of wisdom.

"Did you ever hear from her family line ?"I asked.

She slowly shook her heading."I never made middleman. Why would I. What was the full stop ?"

She was right of course, just as she had been right at the time about there being no recriminations, because the slut would just go down as a ‘ missing adult'who had chosen to get going a new life somewhere else and had no intention of being found.

I felt sorry for them though, her ma and pa, and family. They had not just lost a daughter but they had no gag law either. Maybe someday I would …

No, of class I wouldn't. I couldn't … never.

"She wanted it … the death."I said, as if trying for some reason to vindicate what we did.

"No Mister, she didn't …"

"Huh,"I was taken aback by Red's words, until she added.

"She more than wanted it, she needed it … lived for it. She really would never had been happier than when you nailed her to that tree."

Red's word pacified me. Relaxed me.

"Can you stay over ?"

Red chuckled."I've flown all the way to grandma Canaria, Mr., it's not a day stumble. My final examination don't startle for another calendar month, and getting away now for a break, is a good thing."

I chuckled too.

"Tonight, you need to hurt me Mr, use me …"The words fluttered in as if transported by the ocean breeze.

I turned to look at Red, who returned my gaze with a questioning smell on her face.

"What ?"I said.

She shook her head,"I didn't say anything mister."

I smiled a knowing smile. Red smiled back at me and let her fingers creep into the space between us and enlace with mine.

We were not alone, the tercet leaping in blood line was still together … which is the way it would be, forever .