To A Flame

The advert had to be a code.

A secluded wooded garden in Goxhill, a place well-known for weird goings-on where everybody has an eerie likeness to one another, and often the same name. A bright light. 30-odd fully consenting adults standing in a circle around it late into the balmy night. Excitement, expectation and a degree of fevered anticipation hung on the honeysuckle-scented breeze. Some of the more experienced men licked their lips as their eyes danced at the scene before them.

A hush as the older man, clearly the one in charge, raised his arms towards the light and then turned to the newcomer, the smallest and youngest. She reached her virginal hands towards him, blinking in the glare, her hands shaking slightly but instinctively knowing she should take it, bending forward to hear his whispered wisdom. Again and again he thrust towards her, his voice becoming hoarse, his brow occasionally knitted. She took on the urgent rhythm, and gradually assumed the confidence to slow it down, control it to her preferred speed.

She was a little disappointed to discover it wasn't a code at all. People really do hang around outside at night, trapping and identifying moths. She's hooked. She's doing it again in Dalby Forest on Saturday. Surely one of these nights she'll stumble upon some random sects.