Jenny was about to take Pete's cock into her mouth when he said: ‘I need to tell you about Zoo.’

Or, rather, he nearly said it. He tested variations of those words inside his head. But though his mouth was open, words didn’t come out.

Instead he lay back, rested his chin on his chest, and watched Jenny continue to draw the valley of her tongue up the length of his dick.

He felt relief: he was getting hard. Maybe he didn’t need to say anything about Zoo after all.

*

Pete had seen Zoo that lunchtime at the restaurant near the top of the mountain. As he'd stomped his ski boots against the decking of the terrace outside, he’d looked back in the direction of the run he’d completed and watched another skier’s graceful progress along the same route towards the restaurant. It was only when she’d stopped, clipped off her skis in two swift movements, and lifted her helmet that he realised who it was. Zoo.

‘Jesus,’ he said, aloud.

She headed in his direction. Pete gulped and pulled his hat lower.

‘Pete?’ No mistaking her voice, rich as syrup. Zoo clunked next to him. ‘My God!’ They both reddened. Stared at each other for long seconds.

‘It’s – been a while,’ he said.

‘A while,’ Zoo repeated, slowly. She pulled off her sunglasses, and studied his eyes. ‘Are you here alone?’

‘No, I –’ Pete said. ‘I’m with a friend.’

‘Oh. I see.’ Zoo continued to look at him for a little while, then turned, twisting on the tip of a ski boot, and headed for the restaurant door. She looked back and it appeared to Pete as though she was about to say something. But she turned again and went inside. Pete stayed on the terrace until the sweat left his forehead. 

Pete hadn’t thought about Zoo for ages. They’d met years ago at a university party: he’d passed her in a corridor, she’d been leaning against a door frame, her legs crossed like toothbrushes in a cup. He was drunk and had lost his friends, and she was alone. So he came back to talk to her.

He remembered that clearly. But nothing about the following hours: he’d been surprised, waking in bed in the middle of the night, by Zoo’s fingers gripping his arm. She lay naked next to him, sleeping furiously, hot as a radiator, her teeth grinding. Her eyelids were scrunched shut like tiny wrung-out towels. 

Pete had shifted himself up and looked around. A table lamp was still on. A tea-stained travel mug on its side by his mattress smelled of whisky and there was lipstick under its rim. A pair of silk panties lay underneath. He followed, with a wondering finger, the tracks of scratches on his chest. He ached. 

He looked down at Zoo. Her dark hair – he wasn’t sure then if it was brown or black – was tucked behind her ears. Her other hand lay on the pillow; the tip of her thumb at her lips. Pete peeled the duvet down. Zoo was on her back, one leg drawn up to the side. Her naked body, firm and athletic, excited him afresh. Her skin glowed dully. Her breasts were small. Still. Odd that their dark nipples didn’t stick out – they seemed to sink back into her body. Curious, he touched one.

Zoo stirred. Her eyes widened then focused on him in the soft light. She withdrew her thumb from her mouth and without adjusting her gaze, found his half-masted cock with her hand. Pete shifted up onto his knees, becoming fully erect and proud of it. Zoo twisted onto her tummy and then drew herself up on her elbows and knees. She pressed back against him; somehow she made his cock find its place naturally; first nuzzled into the crack of her backside, then, as Zoo rocked forward, it slid until the tip touched the folds of her pussy.

She pushed back again and her warmth flooded his every nerve. Pete thrust against her and raw enthusiasm led him to take such deep strokes that he came out and entered her afresh every time. Sometimes he missed and he laughed, but each time she helped him back in. Zoo sighed and bucked. Her spine twisted and caught the lamp-light. As Pete kept going, Zoo's knees slid apart on the mattress until she was almost flat on it. He was above her, his tender skin sliding over her back, his chin kneading her shoulder, until at the last moment he drew his hips back and came somewhere.

Pete fell next to Zoo, gasping. She stroked the sinews of his neck. He wanted her to say it had been wonderful.

‘You’re the second person I’ve slept with,’ she said. 

That was Zoo.

*

Pete saw Jenny as soon as he entered the restaurant. She was squeezed into a table seat by a window; the winter sun that came through it gave her a halo. When he sat down Jenny leaned across and kissed him. She had a beer ready.

‘Isn’t it amazing, Pete?' She gestured out the window. 'A winter wonderland.’

Pete nodded. It had been his idea to do this before their wedding. Up here, in the thin air, you couldn’t think of anything else; only how your skis cut the snow, the click of chairlifts warmed by the sun, one more run, one more run. Verbier isn’t just a place, he’d said when he booked it. It’s an atmosphere.

Jenny couldn’t ski. She’d learn, though. With lessons in the morning they could ski together in the afternoon. That sounded fine to Pete.

And now they were finally here, Jenny was still smiling. ‘Want to hear about my lesson? You might never marry me if I tell you. I’ll add it the list of things I can’t do: Baking. Being On Time. Now Skiing. I’m going to sit a Master’s in hopelessness.’

He should have mentioned Zoo while she was happy like this. Jenny would have been curious, never jealous. He finished his beer, listening to her. Jenny offered to go for another. ‘It might slow you down this afternoon,’ she said.

Pete watched her weave towards the bar. When she was out of sight he looked around.

He couldn’t see Zoo. But that had always been the problem: even immediately following that very first encounter between them, Zoo had confused him. Waking again the morning after, he’d stumbled into his en-suite and Zoo was there, on the toilet, his toothbrush in her mouth, a trickle of toothpaste crawling down her chin.

Zoo had stayed that day, neither of them dressing at first. When he finally pulled on his boxers – out of sheepishness more than anything – she wrestled them back off in a way that excited him. In the middle of his room, she sucked him off with his underwear helpless at his ankles. The little come he had left fizzed between her teeth and she held out her tongue to show him. He slumped to the floor and clung to her. In the space of hours his whole world had been reduced to her and he wanted to tell her. But Zoo had turned solemn. She placed a finger to his lips. Without a word, she dressed, slowly, and went to the door. She turned and told him her name. Zoo.

Jenny was grinning when she returned with the beer. ‘You look pensive,’ she said. ‘Having second thoughts?’

Pete looked up. ‘Second thoughts about what?’

‘Skiing with me.’

‘Just thinking,’ he said. Thinking about how after Zoo had left he hadn’t seen her for weeks. He couldn’t contact her: fruitless to look her up online. So he’d milled around campus and into town and found her eventually: in a bar where she was with some other guy. At first she’d looked at Pete as if she was struggling to place him, but he was able to draw her aside, and she was encouraging enough. He got her number and later texted her asking her out. She said yes, of course, but didn’t appear. She messaged an apology. He arranged drinks. She called off. But every so often she’d turn up at his door and say hello in that low voice and she’d fuck him in her wild, sensual way. Sometimes she stayed the night, folded into him and he couldn’t picture her anywhere else. The next day: gone. He had other girlfriends, but only briefly. None compared to Zoo because there was so little to compare: so much was unknowable.

Jenny compared, of course. Pete stood. ‘Let’s ski. Let’s concentrate on the snow.’

‘Sure?’

‘Sure. I’ll catch you up. Just let me pee first.’

Pete was careful not to slip on the tiled floor as he pressed through to the public toilets at the back of the restaurant. After pushing open the first double door, he held it open for the person behind.

The person behind was Zoo. She followed him in. 

Pete’s eyes darted around. The toilets were empty.  ‘Zoo,’ he said, his voice echoing, ‘You can’t come in here.’

‘Are you married, Pete?’

Pete cleared his throat. ‘Engaged. Why?’

The outer toilet door rattled then, warning of an approach. Pete backed into a cubicle, and Zoo squeezed in with him. As she closed its door, a man’s ski-booted footsteps passed, heading for the urinal. He whistled.

‘Don’t let me stop you,’ Zoo whispered in Pete’s ear. ‘I’ve seen it before.’

Pete turned away from her. He thought of stalling, but was conscious of Jenny waiting and he desperately needed to go; he shouldn't have had those beers. Reluctantly, he pulled down the zipper of his ski pants. Behind him, he heard Zoo slot the lock of the cubicle. It was as if a moth was fluttering inside him. He let himself go.

Outside, the hand-drier roared. Footsteps grew louder and then dulled as the other man passed on his way out. Then silence, other than the raucous stream of his pee into the toilet bowl.

‘How did you know?’ he said, looking at the tiles above the cistern.

‘It’s a big ring.’ Zoo pressed up behind him. Her hand looped around him and came to rest on the fingers holding his cock steady. ‘You should have told me.’

‘Don’t,’ he said. But he did not brush her away and after a moment he dropped his hand, leaving her to hold him as he urinated. Zoo began to stroke him quickly with two fingers. His cock turned thick with hardness; his pee was going everywhere: over the cistern, up the wall tiles, over her hand. She drew his foreskin back tightly until the last dribble came out and she slid her fingers over the head.

‘Please,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to get back. Jenny – my fiancé – is waiting. I’ve got to ski.’

Zoo twisted him around then squatted in front of him, ready to press his cock between her teeth, into her mouth.

Pete closed his eyes and pressed his hands against the walls either side of him. Zoo held him at her lips, masturbating the base of his erection between forefinger and thumb. Then a tighter grip, adding another finger, then her whole fist working him. Then into her mouth.

Jesus. She knew him.

At one point his cock wobbled and popped out and skidded up her cheek as far as her ear. Zoo grabbed it again and masturbated it and his dick looked obscene lolling like that outside his ski pants. Zoo thrust it back into her mouth. It poked out her cheek then touched the roof of her mouth, surrounded always by her tongue. 

This was crazy, but it was too late to think. He held himself still as he came in sharp pulses.

Zoo rolled back on her heels, against the tiles. Her brown eyes looked up at him. Some of his come was on her lips and she licked it in an absent way.

‘I told you I missed you,’ she said.

*

Jenny and Pete completed a single run that afternoon. Jenny was all ungainly turns; on her back more often than not, skis crossed, but she kept going. Pete helped her up each time, told her she was improving.

At the bottom of the slope he suggested they went up again. But it had started snowing. A chattering of schoolchildren pushed past them heading for the queue. It was enough for Jenny.

‘Fuck it,’ she said. ‘Let’s go back. Let’s make love, Pete.’

*

At the chalet, Jenny clawed herself out of her ski suit and, in her underwear, poured them wine. Watching her do this was painful: it magnified her innocence, multiplied his guilt. She sipped her drink and looked at him with those deep blue eyes of hers. Her hair spilled over her shoulders like a snowdrift. He found himself counting what he loved about her physically: her wonderful big breasts. Those legs. And, mostly hidden by her panties, her beautiful straw-coloured pubes.

She came over, began to undress him. I ought to shower first, he said, quickly. But Jenny wanted to make love now. Please. It’s what this holiday is about. Us.

They fell onto their bed. She nuzzled his neck and stroked him and kissed down his body until she reached his soft cock. He thought quickly: would Jenny taste Zoo? Was there lipstick left there, or come? Would he be able to get hard again?

That’s when he thought he should tell her about Zoo. Not the truth, but something close. But words would not form.

But he did get hard and when his cock slumped out of Jenny’s mouth, she slid up his body and kissed him. He knew what she would do. When they made love, Jenny wanted their skin to touch at all times. It was his warmth, she said. She liked to be on her back on top of him and look down and see his cock enter her, and pull her legs wide. Like giving myself, she once said. I want to give myself to you.

They did it like that, Pete thrusting from below, Jenny’s hands tucked under her knees, pulling herself open. He focused on the physical act, because if he thought of how much he cared for Jenny, he’d soften with guilt. He concentrated on her white skin and the gasps she smothered by putting her mouth to his neck. He listened to the wet smack of each thrust. He grasped at her breasts shifting up and down on her body, enjoying her nipples hard in his hands. And yet, in the rising moment when he came, it was the recollection of Zoo’s small, blind breasts and the slick bareness between her legs that forced itself into his mind.

After, Jenny and Pete lay together. He’d always liked these moments. When he’d met Jenny – a couple of years after Zoo – it was this shared intimacy he appreciated most. Like Zoo, Jenny had stayed overnight the first time. But Jenny had showered with him the next morning and given him her number and called later to ask, should we do lunch or something? Pete had known then that she had to be the one.

Even then, Zoo had briefly interfered. Maybe a week after he and Jenny had started dating he was alone in the flat he’d just moved into when the doorbell buzzed. When he answered, Zoo sidled into his living room and sat on his sofa, first dangling her legs over the end, then folding them under her. ‘You’ve stopped calling.’

Pete sat at a table, across from her. ‘Why do you care?’

Zoo rose and went into his tiny kitchen. ‘I’ll make tea,’ she said. She remembered to hold down the kettle’s button; it wouldn’t boil otherwise.

Zoo laid his mug by his elbow on the table. Behind him, her fingers pecked at him, adjusting his collar, stroking his hair this way and that.

‘I miss you,’ she said, her voice heavy and sweet, her breath oven-hot behind his ear.

His erection made him shift.

‘I love your dick. I love you,’ Zoo said.

Instinct drew his arm back to scoop Zoo forward, bending her over the table until her upper body lay flat on its surface, her hips nudging the tea which lapped over the table. Pete lifted her jumper and tugged her leggings down. Her panties were baby blue with an intricate arabesque waistband, but not new.

‘This what you want,' Pete said. ‘Isn’t it, Zoo?’

He tried to grip her but there was no hold. His hands slid into helpless claws that could only pull her panties aside. He was inside her in a moment, and she was already wet so their fucking made a raw, sucking sound that aroused him even more. 

Zoo looked back at him and reached to pull her thigh up on the table. But he did not last. Two or three thrusts and he pulled out and worked his foreskin forward and back. A watery burst shot out of him into the folds of her jumper.

Pete rested his hands on her cheeks. ‘Zoo,’ he said. ‘We can’t keep doing this. I’m seeing someone. I really like her.’

*

The skies were azure every day of their skiing holiday. Even on the last morning, on the last run before lunch, the sun’s rays were so sharp that shadows striped the piste. Pete wasn’t thinking of anything other than the weather when he roared around the bend before the restaurant. But there Zoo was, at the side, her skis and poles planted into the snow, waiting. He skidded to a stop just past her.

‘Would you meet me tonight?’ Zoo asked. ‘By the hermitage? It won’t take long.’

*

That evening he looked out the chalet window. He could see the hermitage from there, so he could make out Zoo too. She lay a little distance from it, outstretched on a snow bank, in front of a copse of pine trees. She wore pale pink jeans and a black Puffa.

Initially, he had no intention of coming out, but when Jenny went into the bathroom, he shouted that he was just popping out for some wine, and within seconds he was sitting on the snow next to Zoo. Out here, the air was so full you could bring it into your lungs and taste the woods behind and the snow below and the chocolate and diesel drifting from God knows where. Above them, dense stars lay uncountable; the moon sharpened to a blade.

‘A winter wonderland,’ Zoo said. ‘The best part of living here.’

Pete wasn’t sure if she was joking. ‘I haven’t got long,’ he said. ‘Jenny’s showering.’

‘I’m a chalet girl, Pete. I needed time to think about everything.’ Zoo’s words came out of her mouth in misty puffs.

‘That’s what you had to tell me?’

Zoo shook her head. ‘I wanted to ask if you still cared for me.’

‘Why?’

Zoo cleared her throat. ‘Because I wanted to ask you to marry me.’

She sat up and hugged her knees. In front of her, the snow twinkled as if reflecting the sky. Her gaze lay on the ragged band of mountains across the valley, bleak and dark and barely visible. 

‘That’s crazy. You always ran away, Zoo. Always someone better.’

She made a noise; a sigh or a short laugh. She was still looking at the mountains and now he did too. He stared for so long he began to spy lonely gleams of light where people must be alive. 

‘It wasn’t about someone better,’ she said. ‘I just find it hard.’

A snow machine passed on the road in front of them. Zoo started to claw snow into balls either side of her. When it was quiet again, she said, ‘Did I ever tell you about the time I packed a suitcase when my dad left? I was eight. They found me at the train station.’

‘No,’ Pete said.

‘Two years later, my mum sat on my bed and told me my uncle had kissed her. That time I ran for days. And when my first boyfriend –’

Zoo stopped. Her head wilted. ‘I was too young.’

Peter’s fingertips skated over the snow to touch the back of her hand.

‘What are you saying, Zoo?’

Zoo’s looked at Pete’s mouth. ‘I’m saying this.’

She leaned in to kiss him. Everything was familiar about it. Its flavour, her tongue dragging along his teeth and outside over his lips and down to his neck. No-one could kiss like her. They were still kissing as he began to unbuckle himself and pull Zoo, stumbling, into the shelter of the pines.

There they faced each other. Their breathing formed wordless clouds between them.

He unzipped her jacket. Underneath she wore a plain t-shirt. She undid her own jeans, lowering them, with her panties, below her knees.

She looked fragile. Her body was gently yellowed by distant streetlights, but the exposed part of her was explicitly framed: her legs and her pussy, sharp as a paper-cut. They kissed again, mouths open, clacking teeth. Their breathing through their noses sounded like steam escaping.

Three of Pete’s fingers ploughed the length of Zoo’s slit, the middle one slipping inside. But there wasn’t time enough. He turned her and pushed her down onto hands and knees and then fumbled with his buttons. He stared at her backside; the dark crevice dividing her cheeks, definite as an axe-cut. That view had haunted him. Behind her, he levered out his cock and pressed himself inside her and now everything was a feeling that was more than physical; it was an urge to know, to understand, to keep himself inside her.

He built up a rhythm against her that sounded like twigs snapping. Zoo gripped the flaking soft bark at the base of a tree just in front of her head. Pete smacked harder, coming out and going in again until they tumbled sideways and righted themselves, back on their knees, with his cock still in her and Zoo was moaning as if grieving. He shoved her t-shirt beyond her shoulder blades. Her spine formed a concave bowl that gathered a couple of pine needles in its hollow. Her skin shone as if the winter air was condensing on it. More whimpering gasps from Zoo. Pete tried to hold her hips, but it was the same as always: she was so slick he had to keep adjusting his grip until he was clinging to the rubbery cheeks of her bottom with his fingernails.

Pete pulled out and rested for a moment on his haunches. His cock glistened.

‘I care, Zoo,’ he gasped.

Zoo looked at him over her shoulders and reached back and placed her hands where Pete’s fingernails had already left an impression. She opened her cheeks. When he saw this, Pete put his hand to his mouth and drooled over his fingers and smeared his cock until it was dripping. He leaned forward, held himself to Zoo’s asshole and pressed. At first nothing and then his cock was throttled by her tightness and Zoo was pushed forward, head against the ground. 

He couldn’t last. This whole thing couldn’t. He wondered what it would be like to come inside her again, to come inside her asshole, and the act overtook the thought and he was releasing himself in constricted, glorious bursts. He held himself against her; he loved her smell, but she was so cold it made him shiver.

It was silent after. Pete popped out of her, reared back and zipped himself up. Zoo lay as she was, on her knees, her body still tense and presented to him. He saw his come seeping out of her backside; it was obscene. She was so still he was about to ask if she was okay when she rolled onto her side and then sat up. Up came her panties and her jeans. 

‘I have to hurry,’ Pete said. ‘She’ll be out.’ He brushed needles and snow off his jacket and examined his jeans with precise care. ‘I mean – I can’t just – we can’t. Can we?’

No answer. He turned to her. Zoo was gone.

*

Next morning, on the bus on the way to the airport, Pete gazed through the slush-spattered window, towards the other side of the valley. It was bathed in a weak sun and he could make out clusters of houses, more than he’d counted last night.

Jenny tugged at him. ‘Hey dreamy, don’t look sad. What are you thinking?’

‘Just wondering,’ Pete said.

‘Wondering what?’

‘About those people on that mountain, isolated. How can they live up there?’

‘Who knows?’ Jenny rested her head on Pete’s shoulder. ‘But that’s why I love you, Pete. You’re always thinking about others.’