Ori thought she was going to cry, but she just frowned deeply and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. He wanted to tell her the story of Kahalaopuna and the husband who kept killing her, even after death, so like Jonathan, like a shark who—wait, considering how the legend ended, that was probably the single worst fucking idea he’d had all day. He just swallowed and nodded in what he hoped would be taken for sympathy, because it was sympathy.
“I never did have kids. What happened to Malia terrified me. The mistrust… My husband and I got divorced shortly after she died. After all those years wanting the same life as her, it felt like there was no way I had a chance at a different outcome. I wish things would have worked out with Keola. Ha, maybe then I could have married Saul; wouldn’t that have been just perfect?” Her voice had gone sarcastic, a little bitter and self-deprecating, but she shook it off. Ori had the sense she’d spent a long time criticizing herself for all her failed plans. “No, that’s not true. I wish she’d have known she didn’t need a man—any man, nice or mean or any at all—to be whole.”
Ori had told himself that enough times. But he never stopped needing Kalani. Never stopped feeling like half a person without him. Saul. He almost didn’t want to ask her. It felt completely exploitative to mine her for information when she was talking to him like a trusted friend.
“So you and Malia… Keola and Saul…” He didn’t know how to phrase the question. Wasn’t even sure what question he needed to ask.
“We were friends. Well, Keola and Saul were my friends, and any friends of mine were friends of Malia’s. God, she used to be so nice before Jonathan got a hold of her. And then Keola and Malia got together, and I just figured Saul and I…but he was so freaking jealous, he looked right past me.”
Because he was in love with Malia
Ori tried to picture it: Saul, in love with a woman he couldn’t have, watching her fall in love with his best friend, torn by guilt that he couldn’t just be happy for them. And then she’d left them both for some abusive asshole she could never gather up the strength to leave. Was Saul the kind of man whose love could turn to hate? Had he thought Kalani was Jonathan’s son? Had Keola kept his tryst with Malia a secret even from Saul? Was this all a big misunderstanding, and Kalani was bearing the brunt of it? He had to find Saul, tell him the truth. Maybe he was bitter enough to punish the son for the sins of the father, but he had to change his mind once he found out Kalani wasn’t Jonathan’s, wouldn’t he?
“Saul was in love with Malia,” he said, the revelation making his chest swell. The pieces joined together.
He’d ask Andrea how to find him. He’d canvass the whole fucking town. Go to every bar, every restaurant, every corner store, knock on every damn door, and trip every grower’s booby trap.
“No,” Andrea said. “He was in love with Keola.”
Chapter Eight
2004 Ori knew that Julie’s birthday party was nowhere near as wild as she wanted. Her father, Anela’s ex-husband, was in town for the event and made sure nothing stronger than soda was served, and there was an army of little kids underfoot. As the sun set, Julie and her high school friends drifted down to the beach, where they could drink and smoke away from prying adult eyes. Kalani and Ori went along with them. They sat side by side on a wave-worn rock, passing a sickly sweet wine cooler back and forth.
Kalani swallowed a mouthful of the syrupy stuff, his teeth gleaming pearly white in the twilight. “Ho brah, I can finally tell you.” He smiled impishly. “Amy and me went all the way last night.”
Ori’s mouthful went suddenly bitter. “Really?” he asked, like an idiot, although he realized a second later it was a good simple word to say, nice and neutral and it didn’t mean anything or give anything away.
“Yeah. For real kine. It came out of nowhere. We were in her room, and she wanted to see my shark bite scars. And then she wanted to feel them. And then… Oh my God. Hey, I bet she wouldn’t want me to tell everyone, so you got to keep it quiet, okay? I just had to tell you. I got devirginized, brah. The sky’s the limit now.” Kalani waved the bottle in the air, out at the westward Pacific. “She’s so hot. We’re gonna get together again on Friday.”
What was he supposed to say to that? “Really,” he repeated, like a robot. Maybe he was supposed to agree that Amy was hot too. And she was. He could recognize that—recognize that she had a fine-boned face and full, graceful hips—but that was just a fact in his mind, and when he thought of her and Kalani together, it was like she wasn’t even there. “Yeah, she’s hot.”
Kalani slapped him on the back and nodded, still smiling blissfully. “So what about you? I saw you and Jen giving each other the eye back at the house.”
“That wasn’t anything,” he said. It really, reallywasn’t. The best he could guess, maybe Kalani had been sitting next to her at the time. He thought about pretending there was something there, lying even to himself, but no, he just couldn’t go that far.
“C’mon, really? No act. What are you, a monk?” Not even close, not that Kalani could ever know. The wanting came on him worse every night. But he had a plan. He could burn it off. Take the bus to Honolulu where nobody knew him but everybody knew. Knew, and didn’t care and felt this wanting too. He’d use a fake name. Say he was eighteen. If anybody suspected, they wouldn’t spoil the act by asking. He’d watched some porn, trying to get an idea of what they’d want from him, but he figured whatever they’d ask, he’d gladly give. Anything to make this go away, if not completely, then at least for a while. Let him feel normal, not so hungry, not so desperate, not so out of control.
He was terrified and excited and horny and scared and miserably, miserably guilty, and here was Kalani, sitting next to him with his full lips smiling around the neck of a bottle, telling him about how much of a pain in the ass bra hooks were. Watching the dependable beauty of the waves, rolling in orange in the sunset. Laughing—Ori wished it could all be so easy.
But it wasn’t. Nothing was.
* * * *
2011 That night, after a dinner eaten alone, just a few mouthfuls of rice and a grilled ono steak, he went to the beach. Other than the once with his sister, he’d been purposely avoiding the ocean—no small feat on an island—afraid that if he looked too long, he’d be hypnotized by it, called to it, and the undertow would drag him home. Of course, when he’d first made that decision, it was under the impression that there was no Kalani to give him reason to stay here, but now it was something else. Some determined, weird resolve that he wouldn’t let himself enjoy Hawai’i’s goodness until Kalani could too. All of him.
He drove a little north of Hilo so that he’d be alone, parked on a side road, and followed a narrow trail down to where the land dropped into the ocean. Fifty feet of flat rocks and driftwood formed the beach; it was bounded on either side by steep cliffs trailing with flowering vines. The ocean rushed into the cut, frothing white, clawing back. The smallest, smoothest rocks tumbled musically back and forth with the waves. The beach seemed like a whole world in miniature, where water, air, and earth (born from fire) clashed into one another and negotiated uneasy, shifting boundaries.
Ori picked up a rock the size of his hand and threw it into the waves. The sound of its splash melted into the roar of the waves and the rainmaker clatter of the stones.
“I’m here,” The words were quiet, but they cut straight through the sound of the waves.
“Kalani,” Ori turned and took two steps over the rock shelf, reached out to touch Kalani’s shoulders, moved carefully closer until they were leaning into each other. The cool spray of the ocean at his back and Kalani, warm in his arms. “Please don’t leave like that again. I was worried, okay?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t have a lot of control over it. When I’m away, sometimes it’s like I’m asleep, and sometimes I’m drifting, and it’s like I’m in this world but everything’s alive, even the things that should be dead, and I—” He took a deep breath, and Ori folded him in closer, cupping and massaging his shoul
der blades. “Listen, I don’t want to talk about what happened today. About what I told you. Not yet. Can you respect that?”
“Of course,” Ori said. He touched the tip of his nose to Kalani’s. “I talked to a friend of your mother named Andrea. She really cared about Malia. I thought you should know. That room with Moses…” He wondered if he’d gotten too close, but Kalani didn’t say anything, and his breaths sounded steady. “She was really torn up about what happened to your mother.”
“Andrea. She sent me birthday cards for a while.” Kalani looked up and finally met Ori’s gaze. “And I could have been helping you. I could have given you her first name at least, instead of…whatever the fuck I’m doing. This isn’t me. I’m not like this. I feel like I’m falling apart.”
Kalani’s words, so vulnerable, tapped into the deep well of dread that Ori carried inside him, that had slowly been wearing him down for years. Life without Kalani, without meaning or happiness or purpose or light.
“I’m going to fix this,” he said. He gripped Kalani’s shoulders too tightly, cursed himself, and forced his grip to slacken. “I’m going to save you. I—”
“Let’s swim,” said Kalani. “Come on. It could be the last time. Everything could be the last time.” Before Ori could answer, Kalani was already slipping away from him, restless, driven. He stripped his clothes as he went, picking across the rocky beach toward the shore as surefooted as he’d ever been. Ori could almost pretend they were seventeen, leaving the bonfire behind on a Saturday night. Except this time, Kalani’s boxers dropped into the sand with the rest of his clothes, leaving him naked and silhouetted against the waves, the rising moonlight catching the smooth, bright skin of his body.
Ori was so stunned by the sight he couldn’t even move. Then Kalani beckoned impatiently, and all thought of staying behind vanished. How could he refuse? Ori wrestled out of his T-shirt and boxers and jeans as if they were a straitjacket. He threw them behind him and threw himself after Kalani, using all his balance to keep from slipping on the rocks. The water was dark where it swirled under the white foam and welcomed him with a kind of cold compassion.
Kalani yelled a wordless challenge out to the open ocean—to hear his own voice above the roar, maybe. Then he let himself fall and tumble into a wave, vanishing as it dragged him outward. Ori followed. I’d follow him anywhere, he thought, as water filled his ears and wrapped him in silence.
He kicked out. Noise returned. Quiet rumbling, faint pinging, the thud of his own heart. A solid collision, though softer than stone: Kalani’s forearm. They held each other again. Found their footing together in neck-deep water, dragging their feet over sand instead of stone. The mild undertow tugged at Ori’s calves, trying to pull his feet out from under him, so he compensated against Kalani, and they whirled together like dancers.
Kalani’s face and hair were wet and dripping where his head bobbed above the waves, and his huge dark eyes glistened. His mouth curved into an open smile, lips shining with water. Ori grabbed his face in both hands and pulled him into a rough, deliriously happy kiss. Kalani tasted of salt, and the wet warmth of his mouth played a strange contrast to the cold of the ocean around them.
A cross-wave washed over them, and Ori emerged to the sound of Kalani’s laughter, the sight of Kalani smoothing his soaking hair back over the top of his head while Ori spit out a big mouthful of salt water.
“I love you!” Kalani shouted, once he’d caught his breath from laughing. Ori shrank away from him, almost afraid to hear it. Kalani had offered it so fearlessly, without doubt. Another wave crashed over them, foam slapping against his face, cooling his burning eyes. Crying—just a few moments of letting out the sorrow, down there in the dark water where no one could see—because even after all Ori’s arguments, Kalani was still too ready to die. “Everything could be the last time.”
“I love you.”
“Good-bye.” Ori tore himself away and turned hard for shore. He’d get dressed, then he’d tell Kalani what he’d learned. They’d make a plan. No more fooling around. No more trying to ignore their situation. No more “seize the moment” happiness half withered under the long shadow of Kalani’s death.
Ori had reached calmer, calf-deep water by the time Kalani’s hand clapped down on his shoulder. “I always have,” he said, softer. His voice seemed to roll with the shushing of the waves all around them. The sincerity in that little sentence… Ori’s chest tightened.
He thought of all those moments, all those memories where they’d almost but not quite, where Ori had held back and wondered and told himself no, it couldn’t be. “Even when—”
“ Always.” Kalani’s hand cupped the back of Ori’s neck. Ori reached back and laid his palm on top of Kalani’s hand, weaving their fingers together.
“I thought—”
“Always.”
Ori couldn’t even look at him anymore. His earnest, wanting eyes. “Maybe we should go back to shore,” Ori said. “Why don’t we stay here instead.” His eyelids dropped, one hand gliding down the side of Ori’s body, down, down, cupping his hip.
“We really need to talk.” Even as he said it, Ori’s body shuddered with pleasure, his cock twitching against his will. Kalani’s body was so warm.
“The sand is soft here.” Kalani slid down Ori’s body, touching every inch of Ori’s chest along the way, and down to his knees. Ori looked down onto the thick, shining strands of his jet-black hair, then up the cliff to where a jagged peak was crowned with stars. The scenery mimicked a brushstroke painting, the hills all dark moody blacks and the sky a wash of deep, transparent blue.
“It’s beautiful,” he gasped and took the side of Kalani’s face into the curve of his palm. Kalani moaned and cradled Ori’s erection, circling the base of his tight sac with one hand and stroking down his length with the other. Water cut Kalani off at the waist as he knelt, his body sending out glittering ripples. “You’re… Oh God, Kalani, I don’t have the words. Yes. You.” He gently guided Kalani’s head forward, but let him take the next step in his own time. He wouldn’t rush him, wouldn’t force him, wouldn’t manhandle him at all—this fragile thing between them was too precious. It was a miracle in and of itself that for the very first time in his life, the idea of sex didn’t cheapen an intimate moment, but made it blossom.
Kalani’s tongue wrapped around the head of his cock, swirling to catch every ridge of the crown and burrow shallowly into the slit. How many times had Ori watched that tongue—as Kalani toyed it around an eye-tooth in thought, or pulled a face licking an envelope with it, or poked it out to mischievously ruin a photo—all those years watching, and now he was feelingit. Ori’s knees buckled, but Kalani caught him behind the thighs with both hands, gathering him in so he could rub cheek and lips and tongue clumsily against the side of Ori’s shaft. He never took his bright-eyed gaze off Ori’s face, not even once.
I love you, Ori thought, but he couldn’t say it.
Kalani nuzzled into his balls, mouthing them slowly, then inhaled with a shuddering gasp—so unguarded, so reverent, Ori had to believe that Kalani too was astonished by the force of his own desire. Like Ori was. Like Ori always had been.
Kalani’s nails raked down the backs of Ori’s thighs, bringing him back into the moment, back into his body, back to a place where all thoughts of his past were as evanescent as sea spray. Then Kalani softened his touch and balanced himself with a palm against Ori’s hip. Out in deeper water, a high wave thundered against the cliff face; so far away, but still so massive that it sent a cold mist drifting down on Ori’s shoulders just as the divine heat of Kalani’s mouth enveloped his shaft.
He’d never been loved like this. Or pleasured like this, with such care and devotion, as Kalani took him all the way down, down to where Kalani’s throat convulsed and the wet noises he made were drowned out by the ocean’s music.
Kalani wasn’t as practiced at deep throating as many of the men Ori had been with, but the way he gagged and pulled back and laughed at hims
elf a little before diving in again made Ori realize there were things way more important than skill. He cupped Kalani’s jaw, guiding him to ease off until the depth wasn’t so overwhelming, and used his other hand to show Kalani how to squeeze and jerk his dick by the base where his mouth couldn’t reach.
“That’s it,” he said, his voice a growl of arousal. He dropped his hands to Kalani’s shoulders, giving him space. Kalani’s skin was cool with a wet dew of spray. Glistening.
Kalani smiled up at him with his wicked black eyes, hollowing his cheeks as he bobbed his head. The movement was quick and shallow and mind-bendingly hot.
“I’m gonna—” Ori fought to keep his body from crumpling forward. His abs spasmed, every muscle in his body seeming to tense and release.
“Mm.” Kalani moaned in reply, and the vibrations of that sound pushed Ori over. Crushed him and consumed him, like losing himself under the powerful crest of a wave.
When it was over and he surfaced again, his head literally broke the surface of the water. He coughed, sputtered. He was treading water. How could he be treading water? A horrible cold feeling ran up his body in tendrils, giving him the kind of shudder normally reserved for unexpected brushes with seaweed. Had the undertow pulled him out? No; it couldn’t possibly be powerful enough for that.
The shore wasn’t far enough away that he couldn’t make it back, but it was far enough that being at this distance suddenly and without reason scared him. Badly.
He tossed his head and called for Kalani over and over again until his throat was hoarse, until he’d spooked birds from the cliffs. He swam back to shore alone.
* * * *
I wish I was better at writing. I really want to persuade you to save my friend Kalani. He is very important to me. I know some bad things happened in 1988 and you lost someone very important to you. But Kalani is not to blame. He wasn’t even born then. He is in a coma now and I think it’s because of the curse. If you are mad at him for being Jonathan’s son please know I have heard he is really Keola’s. If this is all an accident can you help make it right and save him? I’ve seen his spirit. He needs help or he’ll die soon. I don’t have a lot of money but I will do anything for you if you can save him. Please call these numbers. Please.
Belleau, Heidi & Vane, Violetta - Hawaiian Gothic Page 8