It was the perfect pond, Simon mused. The smile reflected back at him was tranquil, relaxed. His fingers flirted where the tadpoles played. It was Spring. He wondered if she felt it.

Sarah watched through the double-glazed patio doors. She'd had high hopes for Simon. Even now, watching; the easy ripple of his muscles as he crouched extending to somewhere deep inside her, reaching beyond her, through her.

He felt her eyes upon him and sprang to his feet like one caught red-handed. The smile was gone and his tongue darted out, as it always did, betraying an innate jumpiness, his Adam's apple pounding the pale throat. He could feel her growing tired of him.

My Prince, she thought. And yet he wasn't. Somehow, none of them were ever right. There was always something: a smell, a mannerism, a penchant towards Narcissism. After a while the boredom would set in.

He couldn't imagine life without her. Worse: he could not remember a life without her. He could feel his Adam's apple pound against the thin flesh of his throat and knew, just knew how it was irritating her, as his size fourteens clambered towards the patio.

His lumbering gait ' he would never be graceful on land ' reminded her tonight was the night to begin his copper supplements. If her timing was right, and it generally was, then he would be drawing his last, throaty breath just as the first tadpole qualified as a frog, one mature enough for a bona fide Princess to kiss.

It was Spring. She wondered if he felt it.