Hylas

Content Note: Sexual imagery and a whole fucking bunch of bad language.


I met the Nymph for the first time when I was twelve. We were visiting Thirlmere (not Thirlmere Lake, you big twat, it's a mere already and you don't need to stick a cocking 'lake' on the end of it) in the second week of a walking holiday that had drowned out our enthusiasm with a solid wave of rain that started on day two and hadn't really stopped.

The day of the Thirlmere walk was just a little soggy, only a little light drizzle, so we pulled on our dayglo cagoules and headed out for a long drive and a quick walk. My brother and sister and I sang along to old 70's hits on the way there, as was our habit, and in another habit as soon as we'd started on the walk I was left alone.

Not quite entirely alone, I suppose, but certainly on my own. My mum walked slowly, and my sister was not a fan of the outdoors in the way that fourteen-year-olds are not really a fan of anything, so they'd hang back under an umbrella chatting between themselves in a meandering conversation I could never quite follow. My enthusiastic little brother and dad would stride out forwards, hitting rocks with big sticks and cataloguing the birds and plants respectively. Walking with them was halfway between an engaging lecture and a rough and tumble. I enjoyed it but I worried that they walked too fast, so I ended up hanging back to make sure that my mum and my sister were walking the same way we did; as the walk stretched on I started to pull further back, the only person who could see both pairs, until in my effort to maintain a connection between them I ended up not being able to see anyone at all. I don't think it's ever a massive surprise to anyone that I was a middle child.

As a result of my walking habits, I had a lot of time for quiet contemplation of the countryside, by which of course I mean drastic and brutal imagination games in which half the bracken in Cumbria was set alight by the Scourge of the Grey Caves. I can't remember if I was the scourge or I was fighting the scourge these days but it was fun none the less. The other thing I spent time doing was whistling. I whistle rather well, even now whenever I get the chance, and on that day I was rounding out the bottom of my range whistling 'Me And Mrs Jones' as low as I could make it go when I hit a curve in the path that went right to the water's edge. That's where I heard her voice.

"Oh no!" she squealed, sweet and delicate. She sounded on the verge of tears; I got the feeling this was not the first 'oh no', but the sixth or seventh, now more a sad mantra than an exclamation of irritation.

"I can't believe this silly thing is stuck!" she said, and this time I heard something strange in the voice- she'd spoken under her breath, but I could hear her loud and clear. It was as though she'd somehow shouted a whisper. The voice had clearly come from just off the path, in the long reeds that surrounded the edge of the lake. I got as close as I dared to the water before replying.

"Hello?" I tried to shout, but it came out as more of a squeak. My voice was a long way from dropping.

"Hang on a pissing minute," came the voice again, and this time all the sweetness had been gone from it. "How old are you?"

I backed away from the water as soon as she swore, looking back up the path and wondering just how far back my mum was.

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," I said, and as soon as I said it I realised how daft it sounded. Kids always say that on tv just before they inevitably talk to a really dangerous stranger. I was about to run back up the path when she emerged from the reeds, as plump and naked as a seal. I sort of lost my train of thought after that.

"Fuck, you really are young. You've got to watch it with that come-spank-me whistle of yours, boyo. That's a man's whistle, that is."

She grinned at me then, and all her teeth were sharp. That relaxed me a little, because it meant she was a monster. Monsters had rules.

"Can you leave the lake?" I asked, and she grinned again.

"It's not a fucking lake, boy, but no I can't. And I don't have to answer your pindick questions, so either grow some manners or go piss in someone else's house."

"Sorry! Sorry. I was just wondering why you weren't trying to eat me."

"Of all the stupid arsehole questions- come on, whistler. You've not got a single curly hair on your prick yet, have you? You've not got anything I want."

This, of course, started me blushing even more furiously. The Nymph's nakedness was already having the most embarrassing effect on my young body I could imagine, and when she looked down at my trousers and raised an eyebrow at me I thought I'd die of shame. I sat down quickly, the damp moss of the pathside soaking through my jeans in seconds, and the Nymph giggled.

"I've got something you want though, haven't I? Even if you haven't exactly got the tools to handle it yet and I'm still working out how to do this whole fucking buxom thing." She winked at me. "You should have seen me before they put the dam in. I had a waist, back then. A proper hands-around-me, hold-on-tight waist. At least my tits are bigger now, though. They always used to piss me off."

She pushed her enormous breasts together, flicking at the dark nipples with the tips of her chubby fingers. I blushed harder and the nymph smiled wider. Her mouth was too big now for her to look human, too full of Cheshire-Cat teeth.

"I tell you what, little boy. You come back when you've grown big and thick and you dream about me, and then I'll eat you right up. Eventually. But I promise you before I do I'll fuck you good and proper and let you leave. You'll always come back, you see? You'll follow your cock like my cunt's the north star. 'Cause there's always a chance I'll let you leave afterwards and that would mean you could come back again." She turned ,slowly, running her hands down over her smooth belly. "Remember, though. Big and thick. I want you grown all the way up, whistler."

She knelt and slid into the water, silent as a ghost. I waited until I was sure she was gone, and then ran after my brother and my dad in a half-crouch.

I didn't visit Thirlmere again until I was nineteen, and when I was twenty-three I started telling myself this visit would be the last one. That was twelve years ago, and four years ago I sat myself down and seriously asked if I was happy and if I was, what made me happy. I'm not, not really, but she came top of a short list.

She always asks, after we finish, about the men and women I know. She says she needs to hear that I want her more than I've ever wanted them. It's true and I don't mind telling her so; it makes her smile.

She hasn't eaten me yet. I'm not sure she ever will.