It had been Kelly’s idea to visit the fair. She’d been chasing Ben all summer and his band had got a booking to play the beer tent, doing their covers set for the drunks. She was desperate to go, having spent the summer trying to catch his eye every Friday night across the bar at the Fox, but he’d not shown more than a passing interest, no matter how overt she’d been with her flirting.

In her head, this was going to be her big moment, when he’d gaze out across the trestle tables and sea of red faces, notice her in the crowd, catch her eye from the stage, maybe dedicate a song to her and then waltz her off into the sunset in his Dad’s old pickup that he drove around the village.

Neither Charlotte nor I had wanted to go. The fair was for kids, and the beer tent would be full of the real ale crew, all woollen jumpers, beards and red cheeks. But Kelly had pressed on, desperate in her infatuation, knowing we’d all be heading back to Uni at the end of the summer, knowing her time was short. We’d given in eventually, prising the promise of taxi fare and drinks as the price for our company.

We arrived and made for the beer tent, passing the same old rides we’d all been on years before, through the smell of vinegar on chips, onions frying, electric tang from the dodgems, past parents shepherding children and the harsh appeals of the hawkers trying to draw us in. As we threaded the familiar paths, I was amazed at how small it was: how it compared with my memory of what it had been.

We found an empty trestle table in the beer tent and loaded up with drinks, double checked when Ben’s band would be on and got into a conversation about our respective University courses, the cities where we were studying, how home now felt a bit backward and rural, a topic of conversation we’d all kept coming back to across the summer.

The three of us chatted, drank, exchanged stories, just did the things we usually did at the pub. I should have felt fine, but the whole thing was irritating me. The beer didn’t taste quite right; there was a guy with a lute on stage singing folk songs in a horrible nasal voice and, worst of all, there was a little group of pot bellied men, all of them the wrong side of fifty, who kept looking at the three of us, exchanging little words amongst themselves and laughing.

“Just ignore them, they’re being dicks.”

“I know they are Charlotte; it doesn’t mean it doesn’t irritate me. I’m going for a cigarette.”

“I thought you were giving up?”

“Cutting down. I only have one when I get stressed, or drunk, or irritated.”

“So,” Charlotte looked bemused, “about twenty a day then?”

“Very funny. Back in a minute.”

I left the tent and moved towards the embankment where I could smoke in peace, wondering why I was feeling so grumpy. As I crossed the grass, I realised that the whole thing reminded me that I’d grown. The last time I’d been to the midsummer fair I’d been a kid, back before Dad left, so I must have been eight or nine. It’d been one of the last fun times we’d had as a family, before the arguments took over and filled the house with shouting or silences, with the whispered tension in the kitchen as I sat in the front room watching TV, pretending not to hear them.

I remembered the last visit as a clear sunny day that smelt of freshly cut grass and candy floss. Dad had persuaded me to try the dodgems, assuring me it was safe and we’d ripped around, colliding with everyone, each shunt making me giggle hysterically as Mum had watched from the sides with a smile I’d forgotten she could do plastered on her face. We’d eaten chips out of the wrapper as we sat on the embankment, watching the fair’s lights as the sun set, tomato ketchup under my fingernails as we all cuddled up to keep warm, and I’d felt happy and safe wedged between them.

I went back there, climbing up the small slope, sitting on the grass looking down on it all as I lit the cigarette. I surveyed the tattiness and the litter, the rusted rides, the cheap, gaudy lights of the stalls, the smells and sounds on the wind, the way it was all tired and smaller than it had been. It reminded me of when I’d found a box of my old toys up in the loft, Mister Bear, my book of Fairy Tales, a princess dress and all of the rest, their familiar sensations of cotton and velvet on my fingers, the odd smell of dust and age hanging on them a reminder of time’s passing. It made me sad, morose to see how diminished the fair had become, like Mister Bear’s glass eyes peering out of the box as I sealed the box again. Nostalgia doesn’t bear up to scrutiny.

“Hey, could I borrow a light?” a male voice off to one side down the slope, back to the light grey sky overhead, leaning in slightly with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. I blindly held out my lighter.

“Thanks,” he took the light and turned, cupping his hands around the flame, features hidden in the exhaled blue smoke.

“It’s not what it was is it?” he announced.

“Hmm?”

“This,” he extended a hand gesturing at the scene below, “the fair, looking down from here you can see it all. It’s not what it was.”

“No,” I ran my eyes across the scene, “nothing is.”

“You come often?”

“No, not really. Not been since I was a kid. You?”

“First time in a long time now. It’s a pity really. It used to be huge, went on for days. Over there, where that estate is now, they had pony races in the day. Proper races with no rules, loads of fun to watch. And then, in the evening, they’d roast a pig, dancing, beers, all the usual revels.”

“Sounds fun,” I mumbled, wondering where this was going.

He sighed and the smoke enveloped him.

“There were woods up there” he jabbed a finger out, pointing at the low hill patchworked with fields, “come the evening, they were riddled with couples overcome with the excitement of it all.”

“Before my time I’m afraid,” I said.

I watched the tension in his outstretched arm. He let it drop and exhaled as he turned towards me, his features hidden again in the smoke, like I was looking at him through net curtains.

“Before anyone’s time,” he muttered, and took another long drag on the cigarette, the red tip flaring, “Tara, isn’t it?”

I was taken aback, quite sure I didn’t know him, certain we’d not met but he knew my name. There was no hesitation or doubt in his voice.

“Yeah,” I drawled trying to put the face together through the smoke, pick out what he looked like, assemble the obscured hints of features into a picture that made sense, that struck some resonance with a memory somewhere. Nothing registered.

“Sorry, do I know you?” I asked.

“No, we’ve never met. I’m Robin, here with the fair,” he nodded his head towards the tents pitched out beyond the dodgems, “I do readings and fortunes at a reasonable price, all one hundred percent accurate and true. You find that out later when you visit.”

“It’s a trick, right? You overheard us earlier, heard Kelly shout me or something, saw me up here, decided to pretend you’d just guessed my name out of the blue?”

“Well Tara, that could be the case. I could be just another charlatan drumming up business,” he leaned in, a stronger hint of his face appearing through the smoke with mismatched eyes, one blue, one green fixed on me through the mist that wrapped around him like a hood.

“But if I was a charlatan Tara,” his voice was low now, “I wouldn’t know about what you keep in the old washbag at the back of your wardrobe would I?”

He snapped upright, back into the haze.

“I see you later. We enjoy it.”

He dropped the cigarette and walked back into the crowd. I realised I was breathing heavily, flushed at what he’d said, a feeling like looking down a long tunnel, a darkness along the periphery of my vision as I rose, angrily making my way back to the beer tent, to where Kelly and Charlotte were deep in conversation.

“Hey,” Charlotte looked up, saw the anger on my face, “what’s wrong with you?”

“Which one of you knows a guy called Robin?”

I looked intently at them both, checking for flickers of recognition, for the façade to crack as they realised their little joke had worked.

“It’s not ringing any bells, what’s he look like?”

“Kelly, stop messing about. You know him, don’t you? Told him all about me?”

“Told who?”

“Robin. You know, the guy you sent over to me to try and freak me out. Very funny Kel, very droll.”

“Tara, I don’t think I know anyone called Robin. What does he look like?”

I tried to conjure an image of him, of his face. It was like grabbing at water.

“Well he’s got different coloured eyes. One blue, one green.”

“Sounds like I’d remember that. Can’t say it’s anyone I know.”

“Me neither, what did he do?”

“Well, he knew about…” and I hesitated, checking both of their faces again, searching for a smirk or a smile in their eyes. There wasn’t one.

I tried to remember the last time either of them had been round my house, the last time either of them could have stumbled across the washbag and the vibrator it contained. Since the divorce, we’d always met at theirs or, now we were older, at the pub. Neither of them had been in my house in years. I kept them away, made sure they didn’t get to see the mess, the smell of damp, the empty lager cans and Mum asleep on the sofa in front of the telly. They couldn’t know, they couldn’t have told him because they didn’t know. I’d never told them, even when we were all drunk, even when I’d shared other secrets. The toy was a secret I’d kept to myself because it would be too embarrassing to share.

So how had he known?

“Tara are you okay? What did this bloke say?”

“He knew things.” I looked at them both, Kelly’s mouth set into a firm line so she looked like her Mum, Charlotte twirling her long hair with her fingers as she always did when she was thinking or worried. I took the pint I’d left earlier and took a long swig.

“I’m going to find him; I’ll be back in a bit,” I announced.

“Tara, you want me to come too?” Kelly asked, eyes flickering to the stage where Ben would be playing.

“No, I’ve got my phone on me. He’s part of the fair, doing fortunes someplace. I just need to find him, find out what his game is.”

“I think one of us should go with you, don’t you?”

“Charlotte, it’s the middle of the day, it’s Dorset and it’s the Midsummer Fair. I appreciate the concern, but I think I’m going to be perfectly fine on my own.” I smiled a little as I said it to reassure her, desperate for her not to accompany me. I wanted to know who this guy had been talking to, who’d told him about the special parcel I’d ordered under an assumed name. I didn’t want her finding out about it from him.

I left them, promising I’d be back for the band, threading the huddles of people, the careening pushchairs and wandering children, seeking the side of the fair he’d gestured towards, angry at his cheap tricks, examining the signs for a fortune teller.

When I found it, it was obvious amid the trailers and plastic. It was a proper old tent, canvas painted a dull purple colour, almost black, a neatly hand painted sign stood on an easel outside, proclaiming ‘Fortunes Told, Truths Revealed’ and I smiled because I knew it was a trick. I knew about cold reading and the vagaries of horoscopes, how it would only work if the subject wanted it to work, wanted to believe. I was determined not to give him that, but I also wanted to know who he’d been talking to, who’d been sneaking around my room and talking to strangers.

Inside, it smelt of joss sticks and the damp grass where he’d pitched. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom I made out the usual set up, a round table with a crystal ball, chairs either side, a string of white fairy lights hung irregularly across the walls.

“Hello? Robin? Anyone here?”

The far side of the tent flashed with a glimpse of the light world outside and I smelt cigarette smoke as he moved towards me.

“You’re early.”

“Oh, fuck off, that shit’s not gonna work on me. I only came over to find out who’s been sneaking around in my stuff.”

“A reading is twenty quid Tara; I don’t do gifts. If you want an answer you’ve got to cross my palm.”

“Bullshit, I’m not paying you a thing, I just want to know who you talked to about me, who you got this stuff from. Was it my Mum? You been drinking up at the Fox with her, is that it?”

He moved from where he’d been standing, drawing back the chair and sitting down at the table, palms open and turned up.

“No Tara,” he spoke softly now, head down as if gazing into the glass prop, the little orb where the captured lights danced like fireflies in a jar.

“Who then?”

“Why don’t you sit for a spell? It’s been a slow day, not like it used to be. The people who come here now think it’s all lies, some cheap trick. That I google them or something, raid their Facebook account for their intimate details before they sit down,” his outlined shoulders rose and fell with the sound of a sigh, a long sorrowful exhalation.

“So that’s how you do it is it, social media?”

He made a sound that might have been a chuckle and then his eyes were on me again: the green and the blue shining in the odd darkness that hung around him, that made it difficult to see him.

“You ever posted anything about your boyfriend with batteries? You ever posted anything about how you discovered yourself in the shower that time, when the water hit you in just the right spot? Have you ever posted anything, ever told anyone about the time you were walking the dogs and you let them run loose while you sat on the stile?”

I gripped the back of the chair, unable to look away from him, unable to see him, lost in the voice that danced around me, jabbing and teasing, pulling at my most intimate memories with the casual thoughtlessness of a shopper at a bargain clothes rail.

“How do you know all that? Have you been following me?”

“No Tara, I’ve not followed you. I’ve never seen or met you before today.”

“But how could you know all that, all that stuff? I’ve never told anyone.”

His outline shifted, eyes looking back down at his hands, still open, palms up on the table.

“If you want to know then you need to cross my palms with silver.”

I pulled my little Velcro wallet out, found a note, laid it on his upturned hand. He didn’t move. The money lay against his fingers like a fallen leaf.

“You may as well sit down, make yourself comfortable.”

“I think I’ll stand if it’s all the same,” I said, changing my grip on the chair so, if needed, I could lift it, use it as a barrier or weapon.

“You’ve nothing to fear Tara, I’ll not harm you. It’s nice to get someone in who wants to know about my talents rather than another request for next week’s lottery numbers. And, of course, pretty young girls with active imaginations are always welcome.”

“Hey, stop that you pervert. I paid you to tell me how you do it, not to get yourself off.”

“How? No. You wouldn’t let yourself understand.”

I snatched the money back out of his unyielding palm, scrunched it in my fist.

“You want this, you tell me how you knew all that stuff about me. ‘Secrets Revealed’ is what is says outside, well, if you want your money then I want some revelations.”

“All right,” and his upturned fingers twitched like a dying spider, “but you’ll need to sit down.”

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket, made sure I had Charlotte’s number ready just in case and pulled the empty chair out, distant from the table. Watching him all the time, I sat down, the money still clenched in my hand, measuring the gap between us, knowing it was enough that I could react if he tried anything.

“You’re frightened of me?” He asked, sarcasm in his voice.

“Fuck you, I just don’t want to come too close.”

“Very wise words. Well, let me show you how I know you.”

I was in a forest. For a second, I thought I recognised the place before the size of it all hit me. The trees were huge, broad ancient things studded with knots and burls. Dense thickets of brambles and nettles pushed between them. It was wild, the true wild woods. The air smelt clean, with hints of the sea and wild garlic. The eyes I looked from were fixed, pointed at a rough track in the forest. We waited.

The man was dark haired, olive skinned, flowers in his hair. As he approached, I felt relief and excitement. My view roamed across him and I moved forwards, relaxed, casual movements. I noticed the hair on muscled arms as I moved them, the flatness of my male chest.

The dark man lay under me in the bracken. I could feel his hardness press against my hip, the strange pulse of my own sensation as it pressed against him. I felt the arousal, the panting breath and the weird otherness, the unfamiliar length, the pleasure rippling along its length as my hips moved.

In our wild nest of flattened grass his lips were on mine. I felt him move under me, his hard length against my belly, the blind movement of my own need, the press against him and his yield, the sudden enveloping warmth as I entered him, his kiss breaking as he turned his head and moaned softly. I laughed with joy and delight as I moved inside him, the sun on my naked back.

Running. Dusk stained the sky. The rhythm of panting breath, fear as a horn sounded behind me, another answered to my right. The eyes I was using glanced towards the sound and we peeled off, leaping thick logs, the nettles whipping my thighs. Running.

Later. The moon had risen, it hung framed in a latticework of branches and twigs. Crouched and breathless in a hollow. Slow hooves, low voices and lanterns approaching along the earthen path.

I felt the cut of the ropes on my wrist. A tall woman in a long dress woven from the sky and the earth stood before me as I knelt. She spoke in a strange language and I understood as a punishment was laid on me. The view changed as if I was standing and I kissed the back of her hand as she offered it to me. I felt his fear, sadness and a strange sense of relief.

I felt the arms of the chair gripped tight in my hands and smell of joss sticks. His eyes were on me.

“What the fuck was that? How did you do that? It was like it was real.” I felt my heart thumping, overwhelmed with the sensations, uncomfortable with the warmth that flushed over me, the delicious memory of the sensation of entry.

“I told you I’d show you the truth. That was mine. Perhaps I should show you something more familiar.”

“No stop, what are you doing? I mean, that was like it was real, it felt like I had a-” I faltered, glanced down at my lap, embarrassed at how inadequate my words were about what I’d felt, the strange tight rigidity of the erection I’d had, the hot sensations that flowed along it as I’d pushed inside him.

“You want me to explain?” he asked.

“Yes. How did you do that?”

“You wouldn’t understand Tara. You wouldn’t let yourself understand. Even now you still think it a trick, maybe drugs or hypnosis. It’s none of that. It’s something much older, something that’s nearly died out now, crushed under motorways, felled with the trees. But sometimes, on special occasions, it still works if you know how.”

“You’re talking shit.”

“You still think it’s a trick. Maybe something more contemporary, more familiar will convince you.”

“How are you doing this?”

“Would you like to see another one? It’s your twenty quid after all.”

“How do you make it feel real?”

“No. I think you want something else. Tell me what do you desire? Would you like to know who desires you? For instance, Kelly. She dreams of the evening you spent camping out in the woods, how you lay together in sleeping bags, her sudden urge to wake you with kisses that night.”

“Well I know that’s bullshit for a start.”

“Really? You want proof?”

I was still sat in the wooden chair as I was there, in Kelly’s room, the lamp illuminating the familiar posters and bookshelves. I felt her hand move, reaching, her fingers touching me as they touched her. Her thoughts went elsewhere, the hot confines of a sleeping bag, a tent pitched in the forest. The night was cold, and the lantern threw off harsh yellow light. I watched from her eyes as my face leaned forward and we kissed. I felt her as she rolled onto her back in her bed dreaming of me, fingers working, and I felt her touch on me.

I watched as deep in the forest dream she fantasised of my mouth over her nipple, as I felt her eager fingers circle her clit, felt them on mine. I saw it as she imagined my tongue across her belly, my kisses slowly creeping ever down until I connected, licking along her hot eagerness as she stroked its folds, reaching her peak under the covers in her room. I felt the rush of her pleasure sweep over me, taking me as it took her.

“Like that,” he said and I was back in the hard chair, head slumped, legs twitching as her orgasm ran through me, breathing hard, sweating as my flushed and sensitive body railed against the confines of t-shirt and jeans, the harshness of cotton and denim.

“You see, my punishment was an exile, cast out for soiling her precious changeling. She left me these though, the dreams I loved to play with. And now they are my solace, my consolation, the little worlds you make for yourselves. Perhaps you’d like to see Charlotte’s?”

I wiped my stuck hair from my forehead, breathing hard to try and assert some control. I felt the damp heat under me, the sensitivity in my breasts. Across from me his outline hunched over the table like it was looking towards me, expecting an answer.

I nodded.

The familiar smell of Charlotte’s flowery perfume, her room an abundance of pink, the array of cuddly toys she collected from her holidays sat on the shelf. I relished the buzzing toy as she manoeuvred it onto my aching clit. I was there, in her thoughts, seeing the room she imagined, the naked men who approached the bed, one to each side, aroused and thick for her. She was excited by her brazen nakedness, her splayed legs, delighted with the display she made for them. She wiggled her hips, inviting the next movement, the man positioning himself on top of her.

I felt the imagined entry, the delicious depth as he thrust, the strong hands pulling her, twisting her on top and she pushed, arching, offering herself to the other. The second hardness touched at her, pressing at her willing muscle and I felt her ache, her desire for them both to be in her. I rode the vibrations of her toy on me, the push toward the inevitable climax. She realised she was close and, with a practised movement of her free hand, reached around, accurately finding both her pleasures, feeding them with deft fingers that filled her and I felt the waves of her release flood over me, the twinned grip as she drilled herself, imagining their unanimous climax.

“You see Tara, this is how I know.”

I let the leashes go and the dogs ran off. I took in the view, the grey columns of summer trees surmounted with greenness, the dancing bees, the smell of woodruff, this happy isolation. I sat down on the stile and let my mind wander. I was there, reaching for myself, knowing the story I intended to enjoy. My hand slipped inside my jeans and I was there, submissive, hands tied, his hardness in her fist as she guided it to me. I sucked on him as she licked at my nipples, her hand attending my willing ache, tracing tight circles of pleasure. He moved from me, withdrawing from my mouth, sliding deep inside me while her mouth pulled at my clit until I came, the old stile rattling under me as I rubbed hard, riding the sensation, ignoring the friction against my knuckles, wanting the rest of the story.

I knew she repositioned herself then while his delicious width was inside me, stretching me with his rigid desire. She placed her face over mine so I could lick my own scent from her mouth as he drove into me, and she moved as I needed, placing her heat above my face, ordering me to lick her out while he fucked me and I willingly submitted, lapping at her, matching his rhythm with my tongue, transmitting the feeling of him in me. I circled myself, rubbing, desperate to keep the momentum, feeling the damp warmth against my hand as she pushed down on my willing face, imagined his hardness in me his hips pressed against my exhausted clit that, suddenly, gave a familiar shudder and a second wave threw me down, coursed over me.

“I was exiled, stripped for taking what she promised to another.”

I heard his voice and, like a drowning wretch I pushed towards it, surfacing out of the memory, desperate for him to stop, desperate for air, for calm.

“But I can use these Tara, draw from the magic of your stories, the little worlds you conjure up, these spells you cast with busy fingers and lusting flesh. I can see them all, know you through them, these dirty little dreams.”

“Stop, please, you need to stop, I can’t breathe,” I reached out for him, fingers splayed, imploring him to give me a moment.

His darkened form relaxed, sitting back in his chair. I shuddered back into the real world, the hard seat against my sore heat, straps pressing at engorged breasts. My thighs and back were sore from the undulations, from the repeated waves that had pounded me. I sagged, hands gripping the chair arms, legs parted, my hair falling over my face as I drew in deep breaths, trying to calm myself down, regain some composure, exert some control back over muscles that still twitched and spasmed.

“You still think it’s just a trick? That I got all of that from Facebook?”

I stood on shaking legs, reaching out my hand across the distance between us, dropping the notes onto the table. I took a deep breath as if I was about to say something and I just ran, ran as fast as I possibly could, punching the canvas flap out of the way, stumbling out into the daylight and the crowds, the fair, the real world I’d stepped out of only a few minutes earlier.

“Do come again!” I heard his mocking voice in my ear as if he were next to me. I looked around, terrified he’d followed me, stepped back blindly away from the voice: there was no-one there.

I walked quickly, nervously checking around me, back towards the sound of the band, back towards Kelly and Charlotte, back to safety, back to normality, uncomfortable at the dampness in my jeans, the sensitivity of my skin.

They were still at the table, watching Ben’s band up on stage. I recognised the song, the old Stones one they always opened with because it got the Dad dancing crowd going at the Fox.

When we retraced my steps, the tent had gone. Somehow, I’d known it wouldn’t be there. I didn’t tell either of them what had happened, that I’d been them, seen their innermost intimacies, felt their touch on me, their secret pleasures. I couldn’t understand it, couldn’t explain it. I knew it would sound mad. I elected to keep it to myself.

It’s been years since it happened. I live in the city now, three hour’s drive from Dorset, me, my husband, the kids: but each summer, I make sure we go back home for the fair and I have a little wander around on my own, just to check if he’s back.