It feels safe here, in the warm cocoon of soft down and blankets, high up in the ancient oak tree, far above the madness playing out in this city, in this troubled country of ours. I screw my eyes tight shut and bury my head into the crook of Walter’s neck. His scent is overwhelming. They can’t take him away from me! I won’t let them. If only I could save him from whatever the future holds.

We lie face to face. He shifts and our lips connect, his kisses filled with sadness, desolation. Then slowly I sense a change to yearning and desire. His feelings seem to mirror mine. Is this what love is? To know how the other feels, without ever having to explain? His fingers begin to wander, to explore beneath my clothes.

‘Shall I stop?’ he asks, several times, his voice low, his breath soft in my ear. ‘We shouldn’t—’

Stop. Now. Before it’s too late.

‘No, we shouldn’t.’ I’m on a precipice, teetering on the edge of cataclysm. I know I should pull back, but it’s impossible to fight. I don’t want to fight it. ‘Don’t stop,’ I murmur at last. ‘I don’t ever want you to stop.’

Whenever I imagined this moment, which was often, late at night, alone in my room, I didn’t picture it here, in a dark, draughty shack, perched halfway up a tree in my garden. It was always in a canopied bed, where I would lie on my back like a movie star with my hair spread out on the pillow, dressed in silk. He would take control, instruct me and I would comply, but I would be afraid of doing it wrong, or that he might not like me without my clothes. Afterwards, we would lie in each other’s arms, my head on his chest and we would both be smiling with love and happiness.

But this? This real-life enactment of my fantasy couldn’t be more different. A piece of me steps out, watches in amazement as I transform into someone else. Someone who doesn’t freeze with the shame of her own nakedness, whose body seems to know better than her what it is to do, who is not afraid to explore a man’s body not just with her hands but with every inch of hers; and who surrenders the most intimate parts of herself to him. Because unlike the act that took place in my imagination, this is not merely a mechanical transaction of intertwined body parts. It is so much higher and greater than the awkward tangle of limbs, the wet, the smell, the blood, the pain, the pleasure. It’s the joining together of our spirits, finally playing out our love, our desperate desire for each other which has simmered to boiling after all these months of wanting.

*

We lie, not speaking, but closer than we have ever been before. His heart beats, quick and strong, next to my ear and he runs his fingers along the line of my naked back; a feather touch, soft, tingling. I don’t want to move, to destroy this moment. I drift in and out of sleep for what seems like hours.