Laura had lived in the hills all of her life. As she grew up, she had seen Campbell, the local farmer's son, turn from a serious, skinny rake of a boy into a strong, silent man, dark-haired and so gorgeous that she couldn't help herself sneaking hungry looks at him, the way his arm muscles tensed as he hauled bales, or carried sacks of grain to the barns, the defined shape of his backside through the shabby old moleskin breeches he wore in the fields.
There was no way of telling what was going on behind that stony, impassive expression. The shadow of a frown often passed over his face as he walked past the women of the village, and Laura was careful to keep her head down, not wanting to incur a hostile look thrown from his penetratingly dark eyes. Other girls giggled sometimes, deliberately tried to catch his eyes, to rile him up, but she stayed silent and unnoticed.
At night, alone in her bed, sometimes she'd imagine him kissing her, his fingers stroking her face and grasping her hair to pull her closer to him, and then pulling her down, touching her breasts, her pussy, everywhere, and she'd find some new feeling take over, her fingers were drawn to her wet, swollen cunt and she'd stroke and press herself there until a shock of feeling came over her and she could finally fall asleep.
Every day, when her work was done, she would run to the top of the hill overlooking Campbell's fields, and sit there in amongst the gorse and heather, a small lone inconspicuous figure, watching him work the land. She tried to stop, to carry on with her life without him, saddened by her certainty that he would never take anyone, let alone her, to be his lover or his wife.
His parents had both died the previous winter, a hard, cold and protracted winter that many of the older villagers had not survived. The land too had suffered and it seemed harder than ever to draw a living from it. Laura knew too, how hard life could be, the youngest daughter of a family of boys, who always seemed to get to the food before she did. She worked hard, keeping their family home and smallholding in the best condition she could, but the consoling thought that some day she might meet a husband and raise herself into a better life seemed to fade with every season.
----
The day had come. Walking to the edge of the rocks on the river bank, Laura felt a strange sense of freedom and purity, knowing that she would be gone, never having known him.
But that's where the story changes. It would have to be this evening that their lives met. She had said her final sorry and her mind was set on her chosen course of action, when she saw him on the other side of the river. But it was too late to stop now, and in a way, it just made it the easier, knowing that he had no idea why this unknown girl was falling. She stepped off the edge, into the cold dark water.
Hitting her with a blow far harder than she'd imagined, she met the surface. The shock and the cold forced the breath out of her with a gasp, and as she sank, she could feel the weight of the deep on her shift, dragging her down further. She closed her eyes. Her body struggled, even though her mind had been made up: every cell, every nerve was fighting against that decision, trying to stay alive. But it was too late – the surface was too far above her now.
----
He had been walking behind the plough on the low fields, his boots catching and sticking in the heavy soil, one damp and gunmetal-grey afternoon, when a flicker of white off to one side caught his attention. He glanced up at the threatening skyline and saw a female figure walking along the high bank of the river, between his fields and the village.
He had seen her before, Laura, the girl outlined darkly against the heavy sky, standing on the river bank. She was unlike the others of her age in the village, those silly girls who thought to exercise their power over him, and failed. Campbell knew that they laughed and blushed that way for all of the village men, and this made him turn away, despite their obvious attractions. Although admittedly, sometimes he did fall for those attractions: he remembered taking one particular dark-haired beauty round the back of the village hall, her white blouse undone and her pale, creamy breasts jolting as he thrust into her. Yet he always lost interest for those girls after such an encounter, disappointed in himself and determined once more to avoid such temporary pleasures.
Laura, unlike the other village girls, didn't often even look at him and when he did catch her eye, she would turn away quickly, busy herself with some other task. Sometimes he would wake at night, heated and confused, the dreamy feel of silky-soft skin fading from his finger tips, and wonder whether he would be secure enough, rich enough one day to be able to take a wife.
As he followed the plough, the gulls swinging and swooping in the sky above him, he recalled those dreams, with the shining gold rope of her hair and her eyes locked on his. Then, he noticed the figure on the riverbank stop still. And afterwards, his heart stopped as she plunged down into the river.
