The Yellow Raincoat

The raincoat was bright yellow, absurdly expensive, and the first thing Callum had bought for himself after his divorce.

He had imagined wearing it on mountain tracks, beside wild rivers, somewhere with a view worth the effort. Instead he was standing under the awning of a petrol station at six in the morning, watching rain turn a gravel car park into a shallow lake.

His hiking group had cancelled. Everyone except a woman named Imogen, who arrived in an old hatchback with a thermos and a map printed on actual paper.

“You came,” she said.

“So did you.”

“That's two people making questionable decisions before breakfast.”

Imogen was forty, a landscape photographer who had spent years chasing the right light across the state. Callum knew her only from three group walks. She was funny in a dry, unsentimental way, and she never pretended a difficult climb was enjoyable while she was doing it.

“The track's probably closed,” he said.

“Then we'll find another. I didn't get up at five to admire a petrol station.”

They drove to a reserve where a short boardwalk followed the edge of a wetland. The rain had softened to a steady mist. Callum wore his yellow coat. Imogen pulled on faded green waterproofs with a repaired sleeve.

“You look like a rescue helicopter,” she said.

“Safety first.”

“Subtlety a distant second.”

They walked beneath paperbarks dripping silver water. Frogs called from the reeds. The boardwalk was empty, and the only traffic came from birds that looked deeply annoyed by the weather.

At the far lookout Imogen set up her camera. Callum stood behind her, holding the umbrella so she could change lenses.

“You don't have to do that,” she said.

“I know.”

“Most people complain when I stop.”

“Most people don't understand how long a photograph takes.”

“Do you?”

“Not remotely. But I'm learning.”

She laughed. Then she took the photograph, lowered the camera and looked at him with a curiosity that felt different from the polite interest of their previous walks.

On the way back they discovered the car park gate had been locked for a maintenance inspection. A sign directed visitors to a ranger station two kilometres away. Callum stared at it.

“That's inconvenient.”

“Very restrained language for a man who needs breakfast.”

They followed the service path. The rain returned in earnest. Water drummed on their hoods, ran down their sleeves and pooled around their boots. Imogen stepped into a puddle deep enough to soak one sock.

She stopped and closed her eyes. “I have made a terrible mistake.”

“Want to turn back?”

“To what? The locked gate?”

“Fair point.”

They found a sheltered picnic area and sat beneath its corrugated roof. Imogen poured coffee from the thermos. Callum offered a squashed muesli bar. They shared both as though it were a planned breakfast.

“Can I ask you something?” Imogen said.

“Depends whether it's about my coat.”

“Why did you start walking with the group?”

He looked out at the wet grass. “I needed somewhere to go on Sundays.”

“That's not the whole answer.”

“No.”

He told her about the separation, the empty house and the peculiar exhaustion of making decisions for one person after years of making them for two. He had joined the group because its calendar gave him something to do without requiring him to invent a new life overnight.

Imogen listened, turning the lid of her thermos between her hands.

“My last relationship ended because I was always leaving,” she said. “For work. For a photograph. For something that looked more interesting than staying home.”

“Were you?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I was just scared of being needed.”

Callum thought about that. “And now?”

“Now I know there's a difference between being needed and being trapped.”

The ranger arrived in a utility vehicle half an hour later and apologised for the gate. He drove them back through the rain, talking cheerfully about drainage and seasonal closures. Imogen's boots left muddy prints on the floor mat. Callum apologised. The ranger waved it away.

Back at the car, neither seemed ready to leave.

“There's a bakery ten minutes from here,” Imogen said. “If it hasn't floated away.”

“I'll follow you.”

At the bakery they took a table by the window. Imogen spread her damp map beside a plate of toast. Callum finally removed the yellow coat. The waitress hung it near a heater, where it glowed like a warning sign.

They talked about travel, family and the things they had stopped doing because someone else had never liked them. Callum admitted he had always wanted to learn to swim properly. Imogen said she had signed up for pottery classes and abandoned them after producing a bowl that resembled a collapsed hat.

“Did you keep it?” he asked.

“Of course. It holds keys.”

“Then it's a successful bowl.”

She looked at him over her coffee. “You have a very generous definition of success.”

“I'm trying to develop one.”

They began meeting for walks outside the group. Sometimes the weather was good. Often it wasn't. Imogen showed him how to look for changes in light. Callum taught her the names of plants he had learned from his grandfather. Their conversations became less careful. They learned when the other wanted company and when silence was enough.

One afternoon, months later, a sudden shower caught them halfway along a coastal path. Imogen had forgotten her coat. Callum took off the yellow one and held it open for her.

“We won't both fit,” she said.

“Probably not.”

They tried anyway, laughing as the sleeves twisted and the hood refused to cover two heads. At the next shelter they emerged wet and breathless.

Imogen brushed rain from his cheek. “I think I like you,” she said.

“That's fortunate. I was beginning to suspect the same thing.”

She kissed him. It was warm, brief and followed by the sort of smile that made the rain irrelevant.

Later, back at his house, Callum hung the coat by the door. It was stained at the cuff and the pocket zip had begun to catch. He considered replacing it, then decided against it. It had taken him to places he hadn't planned to go.

They talked, later that night, about things they had never done. Imogen said she had always been curious about watersports but had never trusted anyone enough to try. Callum listened, then said he had thought about it too, usually after long walks when everything was already wet. They agreed on a towel, a stop word, and that either of them could end it.

That evening, at his place, Imogen drank water until she was full. Callum spread an old towel on the bathroom floor and lay on it naked. She stood over him in the yellow coat, open, and let go. The stream hit his chest, warm, then his stomach, then his cock. He stroked himself in it, groaning. She aimed lower, then higher, and he opened his mouth for the last of it. She crouched and sank onto his cock, both of them wet. He fucked up into her while she rubbed her clit. She came fast. He came inside her. They stayed on the towel until the water cooled, then showered, the yellow coat hanging dripping on the door.

The following Sunday they walked in clear weather. Imogen carried her camera, Callum carried breakfast, and neither bothered checking the forecast more than once. The yellow raincoat stayed in the car, ready if they needed it.

They did not check the forecast the next week either.