By the middle of February, the website software that I’ve been working on for weeks is ready to be deployed. This results in a little more testing and a fair few bug-fixing sessions, but the heavy lifting work is now over and I can relax and start to make plans for our Scottish adventure.

We’re years before the advent of AirBNB, but there are plenty of booking sites and literally hundreds of properties to choose from. I’m happy to leave this to Paul, he seems to like looking through the listings. I tell him to look for somewhere in the Great Glen, possibly Fort William or somewhere nearby and leave him to it.

When he tells me that he’s found a little place just outside Fort William that not only sleeps four, but his mum really likes, we’re good to go. It is handily within our budget and I make the booking right away.

For two weeks every year, at the end of May and into June, the Isle of Man grinds to a virtual standstill as motorcycle mania takes hold. The Isle of Man Tourist Trophy (TT) races are by far the biggest, most famous and most dangerous road racing motorcycle event in the world.

Tens of thousands of visitors descend on the Island, filling hotels, campsites and pretty much anything they can rent at any price. The competitors and spectators alike ride around at impossible speeds and, inevitably, people die every year.

Thousands of residents take the opportunity to rent out their houses and get away for the duration and, for those going in the opposite direction to the visiting hordes, the prices on the ferry are very reasonable.

With races being held on public roads and the inevitable disruption that this brings, many industries take an annual holiday for one or both of the two weeks that the practice sessions and races occupy. The construction industry is one such. For Paul, working for a firm of architects and surveyors, this means that the office is closed and one of his weeks of paid leave is decided for him.

I’m less fortunate, the shop will be open, but I can’t really do much in terms of going out to clients and making deliveries for the same reasons concerning excessive traffic and road closures. I would normally help out in the shop, a frenzy of photo printing, T-shirt printing and selling pocket radios and batteries.

They, however, can do all this without me. Giving Mark plenty of notice, everything should be organised. All Paul and I have to do is see as much of each other as possible as we count down the weeks and days until our departure.

PAUL: Are we still good for this coming Sunday afternoon?

ME: I think so. I’ve got nothing planned.

PAUL: The weather is improving. Maybe a walk in one of the glens again?

ME: Oh, that’s a great idea. I’ve missed taking the camera out.

PAUL: I’ll be as early as I can after lunch then.

ME: Brilliant. I love you.

PAUL: Love you too. See you Sunday.

The weather for Sunday turns out to be wonderful, considering that we are barely in to spring. The skies are clear and there’s a little warmth to be felt from the sun that seems to climb a little higher every day.

Paul arrives just before two and we are soon on our way towards Ramsey in the car, Paul driving as always.

“Where shall we go for our walk?” I ask him as we approach the edge of town.

“Well, I’ve never been up to the Albert Tower. Can we go there?”

“Sure. I haven’t been up in a few years. It’s a nice walk. Park the car at the hairpin again, unless you want to walk up from down by the sea?”

“No, that sounds like too much of a climb!”

“Oh. Does that mean we won’t be climbing any mountains in Scotland then?”

“I don’t think so. Did you want to?”

“Not really. I have a thought in my head that I’d like to get to the top of Ben Nevis one day, but I’m not fit enough and we’d never get trained up enough now to do that this year.”

“Maybe another year? It sounds like an adventure. It would be quite an achievement!”

“Yes, maybe.”

We fall back into silence as we drive up the hill out of town and park below the quarry at the hairpin once again. We have to walk a few hundred yards up along the road before we can cross and start up the footpath to the monument.

The Albert Tower stands like a sentinel on the escarpment that marks the southern edge of Ramsey. It was built to commemorate the visit of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort to the town in the 19th century and offers spectacular views over the northern plains from where Prince Albert stood himself.

It is quite a climb, but the path slopes gently and zig-zags several times to make the walk a comfortable one. The trees are a mixture of conifers and native broad-leaf species, but the canopy is always dense, even without leaves.

“It’s beautiful,” Paul tells me as we near the top of the hill. “There’s something about the deep shade and the quietness that’s really enjoyable.”

“Yes, like the Elfin Glen around the corner, it always seems mostly deserted.”

“I guess so many people, locals I mean, just don’t think about the nature that they have so close at hand.”

“Come on, just a few more yards. There’s the tower now.” We break out into the sun, a field to our right and the slopes of North Barrule in the distance.

The tower, a castellated local stone structure thirty or so feet tall and about ten feet square sits in a small rectangular area of grass with a wall and fence to separate it from the fields to the south. To the north, the escarpment falls away and you look out over the top of the trees below.

“What’s that noise,” Paul asks as he becomes aware of the sounds of electrical fans.

“Oh, that low structure behind the wall is something to do with the mobile phone network. It’s been there for years now.”

Paul sits on the wall, it is broad and quite comfortable, and I try my best to take a few photographs. The view to the north is across the town and towards the hills of Bride in the distance. Even better, to the east the ground dips, then rises again towards Maughold head and the lighthouse at its tip. The green countryside contrasts with the light blue of the cloudless sky and the deeper blue of the Irish sea all around.

“Is there more to be seen?”, Paul asks as he draws me in to a gentle kiss. “I saw another path when we got to the summit, didn’t I?”

“Yes, I’ll show you.” I take him by the hand and he hops down from the wall to follow me along the path that follows the edge of the escarpment. I can barely hear the traffic on the main road below and behind us, but the solitude and silence envelopes us once more as we drop back down into the woods.

“Where does that gate lead?” Paul asks as we reach a fork in the path. “It looks so overgrown.”

“It’s a shortcut through a small field. I haven’t been that way since I was a teenager. Come on.”

I lead him through the gate and into what was once the narrow corner of a field, but is now overgrown with brambles and dead ferns crowding the path.

“Wow, it has changed a lot in twenty years,” I tell him as we stop and survey the dense undergrowth.

“It’s so quiet and secluded here,” Paul whispers as he pulls me in to a firm embrace for a long, slow, deep kiss. “It looks like nobody ever comes this way.”

As he slips his hand down into the waistband of my trousers, grabbing the cheek of my arse and squeezing firmly I look up in to his eyes. “Paul, not again. We can’t. We might get caught.”

“So, you don’t want to?”

“You’re so dirty. Of course, I want to.”

“What do you want Alan?” His kisses have moved to my neck and his second hand is now also inside my pants, my button somehow undone.

“God, this is so hot.” I moan. “Can you fuck me, standing up?”

“Oh fuck, yes. Lean on that tree for support.”

As we walk over towards the convenient tree, the bark smooth to the touch as I place my hand against it, I unzip my already unbuttoned pants and let them, together with my boxers, fall around my ankles. I’m so turned on that I can hardly bear the touch of my hand as I grip my throbbing, dripping shaft.

I smear a little pre-come on my finger and stroke it across my hole and I hear Paul fumbling with his fly behind me and then the gentle pressure of his finger slipping inside me. I lean forward slightly, arm bracing me against the tree as I push my hips back a little towards him.

As the tip of his cock pauses at my hole, I turn slight and moan my impatience. “Please, my love, fuck me now!”

As Paul pushes slowly into me, he feels bigger and harder than he has ever felt before, my hole stretching almost painfully as he pushes all the way in, our balls touching. “Yes…” I moan.

As Paul starts to thrust, slowly at first, but soon at an almost frenzied pace, I grab my cock and stroke away. My mind drifts to the sounds around us, the twittering of birds and the rumble of distant traffic. The distant sound of running water and the whisper of the wind in the branches above and around us.

I lose all sense of time and place, only returning to the present as I tense and shoot onto the ground at my feet and Paul pushes deep and comes inside me. He holds me tight as my knees tremble and I’m in danger of collapsing.

“I’ve heard them called knee-tremblers,” he giggles, “but I didn’t know it was literal.”

           

“Stop pissing about and put your cock away,” I manage after a few deep breaths. I pull my pants up and make myself presentable. Flushed pink, but presentable. “Paul, I love you and that was fantastic, but we’re going to get caught if we keep doing this!”           

“It’s a real turn on though, isn’t it?”

“Yes, just dangerous.” As if on cue, my words are punctuated by the sound of a dog barking on the path somewhere below us.

“Oh, Fuck. Too close again.” Paul mutters sheepishly.

“Come on, let’s get back to the car. I’m taking you back to my place for punishment for the damage you’ve done to my wholesome reputation.”

“You don’t have a reputation,” he mutters as we head back to the main path and off down the hill.

“No, maybe not. We certainly will get a reputation very quickly though, if we’re caught by someone who knows us, fucking in the woods.” Paul suddenly looks thoughtful, worried. “Hey,” I tell him. “Relax. We didn’t get caught, so there’s no harm done. I really did enjoy it, actually it was fantastic and a massive turn-on, but I do worry we’re taking too many chances sometimes. I don’t want you to be outed because we’re doing stupid things like fucking in the woods. I love you too much for that to happen. We can have all the sex we want at home where it’s safe. Not as much of a turn-on, but safe!”

“I know and I am sorry. I was just so turned on and there was this opportunity. It was really sexy. We’ll be more careful, I promise.”