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It's a starry, balmy night, and he's running around the block at Ned's for the fifth time because he can't sleep. His mind remembers what this seventeen year old body can do on warm nights, and remembers the warm nights when both he and she were seventeen, the wonder of discovery and the inescapable heat of being together, of coming together... It's the simpler remembrance, though, the simpler feeling, of lying back with her curled up against his shoulder and his arm around her , looking up at the sky idly counting stars, that brings his steps to a halt and catches his breath in his throat, like a low punch to the gut. He has to pause. He misses those simple touches, and now even a simple hug with his wife and son is... inappropriate.He walks back to Ned's and keeps his eyes determinedly on the pavement in front of him.~ - ~It's a starry, balmy night, and she's standing at her window looking out at the garden gradually taking shape in her backyard. She wraps her arms around herself and squeezes, resolutely telling herself that even if Mike were here, he wouldn't have his arms around her, wouldn't be holding her close. He'd have been down in front of the television, or have already sacked out after a couple beers, and she'd have been too... too... too something to let him know that she was feeling frisky and hungry and wanting.She crawls into bed, wraps the sheets loosely against her skin, stares at the ceiling and tries hard to think about any other man joining her in their bed, being affectionate, being adventurous, being playful in the darkness, with starlight and moonlight spilling in the window. She can't picture any of the other men she's tried ineffectively to date lately, but she can't let herself picture Mike, either, and she tosses herself onto her side in frustration.Eventually, her eyes slip shut and she sleeps, but she's restless, and she wakes every few hours, trying to remember a face from the wisps of her dreams that are all about the heat of skin on skin, breath mingling with breath, and the slow slide of tongues over sweat-slicked skin. She's torn between wishing she could remember the face from her dreams and wishing she could be sure that she doesn't recognize him.~ - ~The next afternoon is a bright, hot, beautiful day, and the sun is beating down relentlessly. No matter how many bags of sand and gravel he's lifting and carrying into place around the big pond liner, and no matter than he'd gone for yet another run earlier that morning, he finds that his body still has more than enough energy to burn. Every time he walks past where she's installing the electrical conduit at the edge of the deck, he reminds himself to just keep moving. She's got a smudge of dirt on her nose, and he wishes like anything that he could just take her into his arms.He hefts another bag of sand to his shoulder from the driveway, and carries it back to where her new pond is taking shape, the landscape of her imagination becoming reality.He's not sure if it's poetic or just ironic that while they are working together to build the images from her imagination, he's alone in his own unfamiliar familiar skin.~ - ~She can't help it. It's such a small thing, and she's not sure whether she didn't tighten down the sprinkler head properly, or whether he's to blame. Either way, when the timer for the new plantings next to the pond kicks in, the water pressure kicks out at a right angle to where it should be going. He's standing in just the wrong spot, which is just the right spot, and suddenly he's making this slightly indignant yelp of a sound, and then he's wet and his t-shirt is going almost transparent and holy mother of God, she has got to somehow stop perving on her son's best friend.~ - ~The water's spray is cold, a perfect counterpoint to the heat of the day, and he laughs. At first it's just the initial surprise of it, barely keeping his grip on the bag of sand he's carrying over one shoulder. Then it's out of nervousness, because he's pretty sure his manly shout of startlement wasn't supposed to come out that high-pitched even if this body is seventeen. And then it's just a soaring lift of stolen joy, because as he's turned away from the sneaky sprinkler head and toward her, he's realized that she can't seem to take her eyes off him, and that idea is delightful, even if it's for all the wrong reasons, which are the right reasons, which are the wrong reasons.So... he turns and leans back into the spray from the spurting sprinkler, walks closer to it and bends down to dump the bag of sand and then rub his hands together in the water, the coating of dirt sluicing to mud before mostly rinsing away. He brings his wet palms to his face, closing his eyes to scrub halfheartedly at the sweat and dust, then reaches to get another double-palmful of water to run through his hair. Third time's the charm, and as he straightens with his third handful of water to rinse up and over his upturned face, he shakes out his hair, and dirty droplets fly out in all directions.He's still chuckling a little when he turns to look over his shoulder. Her mouth has fallen open, and her cheeks are pink. He smiles, and she turns away, pushing herself to her feet, then busying herself with fumbling toward the shutoff valve.~ - ~She's trying to apologize, and saying something about getting him a towel, but she's not really sure she's managed to form complete sentences.He's shaking his head, cool water tricking down his back, down his chest, still smiling. He thinks he managed to say something like, "thanks" and something about "no, don't worry about it" but honestly, he's not sure he's managed to mumble out even that much.For the rest of the afternoon, as he lifts and carries and sweats and gets hotter and dirtier, his clothes drying only slightly to cling against his skin, he doesn't bother to try to make small talk, and neither does she. He barely, barely keeps himself from continually checking to see if she's checking him out.She is. Of course she is. She's only human, and she's been alone too long, and he looks exactly like her husband.~ - ~It's another starry, balmy night, and he's cleaned up and tired and alone at Ned's, and he's jerking off, because this body is seventeen, and because there's just no way a man can notice his wife looking at him like that all day and not do something about it.His hand doesn't quite feel familiar enough, and his mind wanders. He finds himself wondering how many times over the years that she might've looked at him that way without him noticing. His sure strokes falter, and he turns onto his side, wishing she were next to him, to have and to hold.~ - ~It's another starry, balmy night, and she's bringing herself off a few times, because she's cleaned up and she's tired and the kids are asleep, and because she's found herself picturing Mark standing naked in her shower, reveling in the hot pounding of water against skin, trading kisses under the spray and sliding slick soapy skin against skin. Her mind lets her follow the track of single water droplets sliding down over him, lets her taste him and tug his lower lip into her mouth, lets her feel his touch which is at once so unfamiliar and yet lingering in all the right places in just the right ways.She tells herself: damn it, there's nothing wrong with a fantasy.~ - ~