Almost Always: A Love Unexpected Novel

by Adams, Alissa

  "You really don't want to stand in line for an hour waiting to get into the village," he told me. "Fortunately, it's September. I've never been here in August, but I'm told it's a real zoo. Most of Europe takes the entire month off."

  We zipped close into shore and Taishi stopped the boat Kason jumped into the water with a waterproof bag and I followed him. He told Taishi that we'd call when we were ready to be picked up. I watched the dingy disappear quickly toward the far end of the sands.

  Paddling toward the sand at a leisurely pace, we used the waterproof bag as a float. I watched Kason reach under the surface and wiggle himself out of his bathing suit.

  "Is there a rule . . . I mean about being naked?"

  "You're asking whether you're required to be in the buff?"

  "Yes."

  "I don't think there's a rule, per se. You'd just get some dirty looks—and not in a nice way. Naturists don't appreciate gawkers and that's what is assumed if a clothed person shows up on a nude beach, but mostly that applies to guys. You can certainly keep your bottoms on. Women often do, especially if they have their period."

  "I think I'll start with that." I untied my top and slung it over the floating bag.

  "Suit yourself. This isn't a test. We're here to have fun and be liberated. Just swimming naked like this feels great to me. I hate wearing a bathing suit. Especially when there's any hint of sand involved." He smiled and did a surface dive. I watched his backside crest the water and disappear for a moment.

  "You'd better slather on the sunscreen on that butt of yours. It's as white as snow," I said when he came up for air.

  "Oh, don't worry, there's plenty in the bag. And I'm looking forward to you making sure I'm well protected all over."

  Kason was absolutely right about the beach. As soon as we stepped out of the water I realized what the whole point was. At first I felt self-consciously beautiful. That was weird. I, who had never thought of myself as particularly stunning, stood in the bright sunshine with the breeze on my breasts and felt utterly gorgeous.

  All around me, as Kason had forewarned, there were human beings in every shape and size imaginable. There were many who were well past their prime. There were plenty who needed to drop ten pounds, or fifty. There was a smattering of skinny kids not yet in school and a fair number of young people, like us, slim and shapely. There were lots of smiles and I swear no one even looked at my chest.

  Nakedness is a great equalizer. It took all of fifteen minutes for me to accept that no one was the least bit impressed or shocked by my appearance one way or the other. I quickly shed the bottom half of my suit as Kason went to get an umbrella and a couple of lounge chairs from the rental kiosk. He returned to find me coating myself with lotion oblivious to anything but the best angle for our chairs.

  "Feels great, doesn't it?" he asked me when we were settled into our spot. We spent the rest of the afternoon people watching. I guess it was my newness to it all, but I couldn't help but size up the genitals of the people walking by. It's hard to describe how something can be very sexual and utterly not at the same time. I saw more genitalia in a few hours than I might ever see again for the rest of my life. Without staring rudely, it was still possible to take in the endless variation in human anatomy. I suppose if our society covered hands as a rule, I'd have been noticing hands.

  It humbled me to see how age takes its toll on the flesh. I watched the older men, some still in very good shape and glanced over at the Adonis beside me. Kason had his eyes closed. His body was nicely tanned, except for the pale pair of skin shorts his nakedness wore. I watched the rise and fall of his hard chest, the golden hair glistening with suntan lotion, pectoral muscles untouched by gravity, skin unblemished by the spots of age. His long, lean legs were comfortably parted, a flat abdomen above it. He was all youth and all prime.

  A lump rose in my throat when I realized that I still wanted to know him when his posture was a little less straight, when his muscles showed a lifetime of use, when his golden snatch of hair was streaked with gray. I knew I could feel about him then just as I did at that moment. Even in my mind, I didn't dare put a name to it. It was too scary to admit, even to myself, that I was falling in love with a man who had told me repeatedly that there could be no expectations. Love is nothing but expectations and on a very grand scale.

  When Kason opened his eyes, I think I surprised him by suggesting we take a walk. I wanted to distract myself from too many heavy thoughts. Naked window shopping seemed to be as good a distraction as any.

  "Wasn't I right when I told you the whole 'naked in public' thing would fade fast?"

  "You were absolutely right. It actually feels more innocent to be this way than if everyone had bathing suits on."

  "That's because a bathing suit only reminds you that there's something hidden. With this kind of naturism, you quickly realize that we're all just variations of the same theme."

  I couldn't help but suppress some giggles as we strolled down the cobbled streets. We had nothing on but flip-flops and sun glasses. We carried a couple of towels to sit on and a small bag with our essentials.

  We passed a Laundromat where several couples chatted and folded towels and sheets—not many dirty socks or underwear generated in Cap d'Agde. We wandered through a wine shop and a market where we picked up some fresh fruit. In the course of a few short hours I had become completely at ease. Kason was right, it felt free and good and wholesome.

  Lunch was Salad Nicoise, crusty country bread and a local white wine. It was simple and perfect. The café was right on the edge of the beach, the breeze was gentle and warm and the children's laughter seemed to punctuate the purity of this Eden before the fall.

  We dozed next to each other on the lounge chairs after lunch. Before I drifted off, I remembered how I had wished to do exactly this—take a nap by Kason's side. I hadn't expected it to happen, and certainly not on a naturist beach on the Mediterranean Sea.

  When we woke, we called Taishi. Even with the sunscreen, there were parts of us that were in danger of getting just a wee too much sun for one day.

  Back on Royce's Risk, we slipped into the hot tub up on the upper deck. The sun was starting to set and the warm water felt wonderful against my slightly sunburned skin. Kason had planned dinner aboard as he said that we had probably had the best food the Cap had to offer the night before.

  ***

  Conversation at dinner was light. Deliberately and uncomfortably light, at least for me. I'd been denied a real emotional connection from the very beginning—ordered in no uncertain terms not to analyze or succumb to expectations. So, my psyche did what came naturally. I filled in all the blanks for myself. I interpreted every silence, every word, every touch and every action trying to get some sense of how Kason actually felt about me. I came up with bits and pieces I couldn't connect. He was like a jigsaw puzzle and I couldn't find any straight edges to start with. I only had unrelated middle bits, none of which fit together.

  He was willing to pay almost any amount of attention to my physical well being, whether that took the form of luxury surroundings, fantastic gifts, amazing food and drink or sex better than I could have even half imagined. He seemed genuinely concerned about my safety and my parents' as well. He lavished compliments on me and reacted to my touch in ways that told me he desired me with a primal passion I had never before experienced.

  And yet. Neither one of us had ever expressed anything emotional that wasn't connected to sex. For my part, it was a conscious and difficult effort. I wanted to talk about . . . us. I wanted to ask all about Elsa and even about the little-boy Kason and his lost momma. But under 'the rules' that I had agreed to more than once, those kinds of things fell under the 'analysis' and 'expectation' categories and were off limits.

  I sipped my wine in silence, wondering—no, analyzing—where the relationship was going to go. Had I been foolish in thinking that I could enter into this kind of unwritten contract? Every time he fucked me I became more attached. I couldn't help i
t.

  He had entwined his life with mine. First, by his rescue of my father and all that came after. How was I supposed to refuse that? More to the point, how was I supposed to put the brakes on it now? Sorry, Dad, Mom, but I've decided to throw you under the bus because I just can't handle this deal with Kason. Good luck.

  Then there was the job situation. When we got back to New York and reality, I very much needed the helping hand that Kason had offered me. He could open doors that would be impenetrable to me.

  "Annalise?"

  His voice—that unnervingly velvet sound—shook me back into the here and now. I gave him the sexiest smile I could conjure and told myself to suck it up and be a big girl. This was a situation that couldn't be changed in an instant. I was on his boat, in a foreign country and the only possessions I had arrived with had disappeared along the way.

  Seventeen

  We stayed away from the beach the next day and were taking a day trip to Carcassonne. The medieval city had not been on my whirlwind tour backpacking around Europe and I was delighted to have the chance to see it. I was a little disappointed when Taishi pulled the Landaulet onto an expressway.

  "It's almost sixty miles to Carcassonne," Kason explained when I told him I had hoped for a country drive. "Depending on the time, perhaps we can drive back on the secondary roads. Meanwhile, relax and enjoy the sky above us and this baby's sweet ride."

  He wasn't exaggerating about the car. Inside, it was as quiet as a tomb, even with the open roof. I wondered what kind of engineering genius it took to manage that feat. We sipped on café au lait and watched the French countryside speed past the windows.

  "It's so beautiful here," I sighed. "Everything looks like it came out of a postcard. I mean, I love New York, but here it seems everything has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years."

  "That's because it has. My mother used to say that France was not given nearly the credit it should have been in history. She said the Greeks and the Romans took all the credit and the Gauls were treated by scholars like some abandoned step-child."

  "Did your family travel when you were a child?" I saw an opening and I took it. Kason was a master at avoiding any sort of conversation that would enlighten me about his past. If the quiet morning ride under the clear blue September sky was loosening his tongue, I wasn't about to miss the chance to untie it.

  He leaned back and stretched his long legs out in front of him. The vehicle gave even him room to spare. "My mother loved to travel. My father hated it. Still does, I believe. Every summer when school was out, we would spend as much time globe-trotting as she could manage."

  "Did you enjoy it?"

  "Oh, yes. My mother was a wonderful teacher. In another life, she could have been a great educator. As it was, I was her only student. She was so brilliant at helping me see the world through her more knowledgeable eyes. I ate it up. Of course, I think I would have been happy touring a landfill if my mother took me there."

  "You were lucky to have that time with her. My Mom was great, but there wasn't much time for just her and me. I guess that's why I'm sort of making up for it now. I'm glad I'm the youngest. I've finally got her to myself."

  "That's part of why traveling was so special to me. I didn't have to share her with my father. We had wonderful days, but once he came home from work, most of the energy in the house went into keeping him happy. Never an easy task."

  "Was he cruel to you?"

  "Not unless you consider being incredibly cold a form of cruelty. He could be caustic, too, when he chose."

  And you have certainly inherited that ability, Kason. "That's sad. My dad is a lot of things, but cold isn't one of them."

  "My mother made up as best she could. The trips were part of that."

  "My family never traveled any further than the Jersey Shore. Not exactly an exotic vacation destination. My mother envied me when I scraped together enough nickels and dimes to backpack through Europe."

  "If I ever had children, I would show them the world."

  I wondered if I should censor my next question. But I didn't. "Do you want to have children, Kason?"

  He surprised me by taking his time before giving me a thoughtful answer. "Children seem to be the greatest risk of all in life. I often wonder if my mother would have chosen to have me if she had had a crystal ball."

  "How can you say that? She obviously adored you!"

  "Yes and then she left me with a man who couldn't . . . who wouldn't . . . I just wonder if she had known how it all was going to end up, if she would have brought me into the world."

  "And how has it ended up? You're a hugely successful man who seems to live a rather full life."

  "Is that how I appear to you?"

  "Yes, as a matter of fact it is. Okay, so there's a strange dark side to you. I mean, this whole 'no expectations thing' of yours has to come from somewhere. I'm guessing it stems from losing your mother at such a tender age."

  The shadow that darkened Kason's face frightened me. I knew I had overstepped. "Is it impossible for you to remember the one thing I have asked of you? If I want psychoanalysis, I can afford the best. Amateur hour isn't my style when it comes to healing my delicate damaged soul." He spit the last three words out with so much sarcasm and venom that I winced.

  He leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes. It was a pretty clear message. The conversation was over.

  ***

  "Kason! Look at that!" I couldn't help myself. When we approached Carcassonne, the sight of the towers, the ramparts, and just the hugeness of the ancient relic overwhelmed me. Kason seemed more than happy to rouse himself from his (pretend) nap and get us back onto safe, neutral ground. He could turn on a dime that much I knew. The icy mood was gone. If I still felt the sting of his words, that was clearly going to be my problem and mine alone.

  "It's amazing, isn't it? It was restored in the 1800's and the whole process was quite controversial. Carcassonne is the largest surviving walled city of its kind. I, for one, don't mind if Viollet-le-Duc took a few liberties in the nineteenth century."

  I leaned toward the window, angling for a better look. Kason picked up the intercom mike and told Taishi to pull over onto the shoulder. "You really need to take it all in before we go inside the city. Appreciating it from a distance is critical."

  We stood on a small hill overlooking the arched bridge over the Aude River. The sun brushed that peculiar golden light over the landscape that makes everything seem like a painting. I looked over at Kason, his profile strong and masculine against the backdrop of the green countryside. A wave of gold-brown hair caught in the slight breeze and fluttered behind his ear. I wanted to touch him again. I wanted to tell him I was sorry for trying to pry open the lockbox that held his pain. But I really wasn't sorry. I was only sorry that he had reacted the way he did.

  I couldn't compartmentalize like he could. How was it possible for a man to be so intimate and so distant at the same time? How could he touch me, caress me, worship me and care for me and still shut down completely when I tried to get past his rigid barriers? When I sighed, he took it as a reaction to the stunning sight in front of us.

  "I've always thought this place should have been the inspiration for Oz. But in reality, the legend is that this is the city that inspired 'Sleeping Beauty'." He took my hand and shot me the look I'd come to think of as "kid in a candy shop". It was the look that told me he was about to bestow an exquisite discovery and he couldn't wait. For the moment, and not for the last time, I would choose to push my misgivings aside in favor of his gifts.

  Carcassonne defied my wildest expectations. I'd seen all sorts of castles and ruins in Europe, but never anything so well preserved, so real. I wouldn't have been surprised to see a band of knights in armor ride through one of the cobbled streets on massive steeds decked out in royal colors. It looked almost like a movie set and Kason informed me that it had in fact been used as a backdrop for Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves in the 90's.

  Althoug
h it would have been impossible to furnish and decorate the entire walled city as it would have been at its glory, it was marvelous to see the relics, tapestries and ordinary stuff that might have belonged to the people who once lived there.

  Kason followed me as I almost skipped around the old city. It was a delightful place and I wanted him to know how much I was enjoying it. I took his hand in mine as we strolled along the ramparts and looked out over the escarpment that ended at the Aude River.

  "Thank you for bringing me here. I had no idea it would be this amazing."

  "There are over fifty towers at Carcassone. See those two over there?" he asked pointing to a far corner of the city. "That's where Mom and I stayed when we were here. It was during July and she knew about the annual event when the city is set ablaze with fireworks. The view from our rooms in the tower was something I'll never forget."

  I tried to think of some comment to make that was appropriate and neutral. I didn't want to get too 'personal' and sour the mood of a fantastic experience as I had in the car. "It sounds like your mother planned your trips so a kid could get the most out of them."

  "She did. That she did." He steered me toward a shop that sold hand milled soaps and colognes all infused with local herbs and flower essences. "Let's put a basket together for Marjorie. Any woman would love these products . . . " He began to pile all sorts of different bottles and boxes in the shopping basket to put together a collection for my mother. It was thoughtful and poignant; almost as if in giving my mother a gift, he could honor the memory of his.

  Eighteen

  I was never aware of Taishi as a bodyguard. He didn't shadow us the way you see celebrities or politicians covered by burly men in sunglasses with wires behind their ears. When we had gone to the beach, he had disappeared all together. While we were strolling through the streets, building and squares of Carcassone, I glimpsed him once or twice nearby. He didn't seem to be paying particular attention to us and I was quite sure none but the most expert eyes would have connected him with us.