He avoided being alone with me and, when we broke rehearsal for the day, I took a long, contemplative shower and took a short nap on my new bed until Lon woke me to tell me that we were going to dinner.
Most of the company, except Kimo, who wanted to be by himself, was going out to the Volcano House. I sure didn’t want to be left alone on the premises with Kimo in his current, belligerent state, so I joined the others out front.
Mr. Affatata drove us in the minivan and said he’d pick us up again at nine pm. He kept looking at me in an odd way and I wondered if he knew about me and Kimo.
With the most spectacular view in the world of the steaming, roiling Kilauea outside every unadorned window, I didn’t see the point of coming to the Volcano House when the view disappears with the sunset.
And as the locals and the more discerning travelers often grumbled, so do the food and service.
The others were teasing Roland about sharing the guest cottage with Kimo.
“Bobby, your snoring must be really bad,” Lon said. “But Kimo ain’t seen nothin’ yet, because Roland’s snoring is like a freakin’ freight train.”
I smiled, but inside me, that lava stone was growing into a boulder. I scanned the menu, picking steak and an ohelo berry shake. I barely touched the steak, but the shake was pretty good.
It was a specialty of the house and since the ohelo berry had all kinds of kapu associated with picking Pele’s fruit, the volcano park rangers encourage tourists to come here and try the infamous berry, rather than pick it themselves. The Volcano House takes things seriously, always offering Pele some first, before taking some for the restaurant.
I tried hard not to think about Kimo feeding me the berries, then me, to Madame Pele. I tried hard to be a part of the group and nobody seemed to notice that my mind was drifting. There was a payphone by the Volcano House shop and everybody snapped up bags of Volcano coffee and tea, candy bars and cookies, while we wrestled with one another for the phone.
I put a call through to Johnny, deciding that maybe I’d been hasty.
No, I wasn’t. The other guy answered his phone again and I hung up.
The lava boulder in my belly grew heavier and felt like it was on fire.
Roland nudged me. “Why do you torture yourself?”
“Boyfriend trouble?” asked Ginger.
“Another guy just answered his boyfriend’s phone.” Roland bit into some chocolate.
“Ex-boyfriend,” I said.
“I hope so.” Roland broke off more chocolate. “He’s a chronic cheat.”
“That’s so cold, cheating on you with another man while you’re out of town.” Lon looked sympathetic. “Maybe it was your snoring?”
This time I laughed along with everyone else. My life was one big cartoon with an empty dialogue bubble over the top of my head.
When we arrived back at the Aloha House, I bid Roland a good night as the rest of us went into the Guest House and he kept walking toward Sushi Cottage.
And the man of my dreams.
* * * *
“You’re not coming up?” Lon asked.
“I’m gonna read for a while. You want some tea?”
“Sure,” Lon said and we went to the kitchen, opening the bag of green jasmine I’d just bought at Volcano House. It had a comforting island smell that only got better with the boiling water. We carried our cups to the living room.
It was freezing and Lon worked at stoking the fireplace back into action. The warmth from those lava stones eased the unhappiness in my soul. We sipped our tea in companionable silence, then Lon excused himself.
“See you upstairs,” he yawned.
I studied the eighteen-foot high shelves of extraordinary works of Hawaiian history and fiction. Where to start? I sat in a big, comfy chair by the fire, reading random texts that captured my fancy. Though I respect the work of Nathaniel Emerson, one of the greatest translators of Hawaiian literature into English, his writing to me is unreadable. Most if it takes a lot of work to decipher and understand, but since I was now involved in the sacred hula of Pele, I thought it best to check out what he had to say about Pele and her sister Hi’iaka.
One of the things you have to understand about Pele is that her relationships, and I mean all of her relationships, were complicated. Just like Pele herself. She erupts in anger, her volcanic rage extinguishing life, yet in the hardening lava, she has always created new land and fresh, new life.
She gives and she takes. She even murdered her lover, the Chief Lohiau, because she was jealous. I thought about her relationship with Kamapua’a. It was exactly the same. Push-pull. They’d love and they’d hate.
I realized that this was what Kimo was doing to me. Giving me his all, then removing it from me. The Kamapua’a texts describe his lovemaking with Pele as putting out fires. I was surprised to learn he defeated his own father and brother in battle, then banished them from his islands forever. Like Kamapua’a, Kimo was a born conqueror. He’d vanquished me, then banished me. Yep, I just had to go and find me a raging Volcano Pig God of Fire.
Emerson soon sent me to sleep, but I was too tired to move. I stayed in that comfortable chair until I felt my Phantom Lover’s tongue on my throat.
I bolted out of the chair, clutching that book to my body.
“Why you reading myths?” he growled. “You’ve got the real thing with me.”
I immediately went to run to my room, but he grabbed me by the wrist.
“Don’t go.” His voice broke. “I…I only want to show you how sorry I am.”
Kimo started to kiss me. I resisted. I still had acid burns in my brain from how he’d been treating me all day.
“Please, baby.” He moved his hands all over my body, anxious to get the reaction he craved. He licked and sucked at my mouth and hands, which had moved to his neck and he felt my timid kisses coming back to him.
“Give them to me,” he commanded and my mouth opened to him. He was drinking of me, consuming me and I was drowning with the joy of being with him again. “I know I freaked out, Bobby. I’m so sorry.”
His apology was heartfelt and rare. He kept his mouth on me and I just melted into him. His hand went to my crotch and I felt my painful erection betraying me as his hands moved to my waistband and he yanked at my pants.
Grabbing onto his, I pulled them past his bulging cock and I dropped to my knees to inhale it with my greedy mouth.
“Bobby, there’s no time for that.” He got down on the slick wooden floor, pulling me with him. I felt his frustration as he worked to free me from every last shred of clothing.
The shock of the cold air on my skin was quickly replaced by the warm, dying embers in the fireplace. My face felt hot and when he put his scorching mouth on my arms and chest, I felt my breath catch and my heartbeat quicken. His big hands took my hips, lifting them to him and I found my lover’s face buried in my ass, kissing and licking at my balls, trying to get his hot tongue into me.
“I need that ass, baby.” He kept holding me off the floor. I spread my legs, my feet dangling in midair.
“Put your feet on my shoulders.” The second I did, I felt his tongue enter me and I moaned.
Kimo licked and sucked at me, putting me on the floor, pushing at my thighs to spread them further. He sucked at my ass like he was putting out a fire and when at last he drove his cock into me, I felt the way this fucking of a lifetime detonated the boulder that had been festering in my belly. I felt his blazing surge inside me, feeding me.
He didn’t stop moving his rutting, drenching cock, but lowered himself to me, his body shaking from the impact of his orgasm. I wrapped my legs around his waist and we both let out a cry as he moved back into me a little more deeply.
Kimo kissed and licked my face, which I realized was wet with my tears. I understood now why Johnny had cried, but unlike Johnny, I was not going to run away from the feelings I had for Kimo. Even if this ended up killing me.
He looked down at my own cock, which had come, spilli
ng my seed all over our stomachs.
“You came without me touching you,” he said.
“Oh, you touched me.” I held his face in my hands and my lips sought out his tongue. “You touched me in all the right places.”
Kimo stayed in me, stroking and kissing me, until it started to grow light outside.
“You feel better?” he asked.
“Yeah. It’s been a hellish day.”
“It was excruciating for me, too.” He touched my face. “I went crazy from not being with you. I thought you might…I thought you might…”
“Get with somebody else?”
“No. I thought you might leave. You do know I ripped out the goddamn fucking phones because I heard you called your ex.”
“I had no idea it was because of me.”
“Yeah, well, now you know. I thought you might go back to him.”
“There’s nowhere else for me to go, Kimo. It’s over with Johnny and there’s nothing waiting for me back home in Honolulu.”
“Then you’ll stay here with me?”
“Of course.”
“We have to be discreet though, Bobby.”
“I’m always discreet.”
“I’m going back to my room. But I promise you, tonight you’ll be back in my bed again. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He grinned. “The ancient kings had more than one wife. Why shouldn’t I?”
And with that, he pulled out of me, raising me to my feet. We helped one another get dressed.
“I think you’re unbuttoning my fly again, Kimo.” A warm smile covered my face.
“Damn. I can’t help myself. You’re getting me hard again, Bobby. I’d better go.” With reluctance, I watched him put that beautiful cock back in his pants.
“It’s not going anywhere.” He caught my bereft stare. “It’s gonna come in that beautiful brown ass again tonight. It is my ass, right?”
“Yes.” I was overjoyed that he’d woken me from sleep to take ownership of it again.
Kimo gave me one more hard kiss, then slipped away from me into the misty shrouds of the early morning dawn.
It was only then that I heard the sound. The sound of stealthy footsteps retreating. And a softly closing door.
Somebody had been watching us.
Chapter Seven
Kimo shipped Roland out of his room the next morning, saying his snoring was worse than mine. Although Lon offered to share, Kimo said, “No, thanks. Roland says you talk in your sleep.”
Poor Lon looked mortified. I couldn’t tell you whether he talked in his sleep or sang Hey Jude a cappella, since I’d spent most of the night in the living room and slipped back to my bed about an hour before our wakeup call from Kimo.
It was Lon who woke me as Kimo bashed on our door. We went for our usual run and, about half way, I felt a hand on my butt. I wasn’t surprised to see Kimo leaning in for a quick kiss.
I let him run ahead of me, even though I could easily have kept pace with him. I was already aware that Kimo liked being in charge, liked being the lead and I let him have his way.
Over breakfast, which once again he cooked, this time the Hawaiian staple of steamed fish, vegetables, two scoops of rice and some poi. I looked at the poi. It sure tasted like my tutu made it.
“Oh, your tutu came by this morning and brought you some poi and breadfruit,” Kimo said in a breezy way. “I felt sure you’d want to share.” I didn’t mind sharing food. I minded Kimo absconding with my grandma. She’d walked two miles to bring me food, but only Kimo got to see her.
As I bit into the breadfruit, which had a wonderful cake-like consistency in its fried state, I couldn’t help feeling stupid about being jealous. Grandma was never very fond of Johnny. She must have had a big old giant granny-crush on Kimo to come this far to bring us food.
I caught Kimo’s warm smile and I couldn’t wait until I got him alone.
We all enjoyed Grandma’s offerings and then Kimo dropped the bomb on Roland. There was no time for furtive fumbling with Kimo before our rehearsal day since Roland and I were left scrambling to change rooms. Once again, we were throwing our sheets into the wash, but I was hoping for some private time with Kimo at some point.
* * * *
Kimo’s wife returned at lunchtime and I saw the scowl on his face as she arrived before we’d even finished rehearsal. He went over to her immediately and I saw them kiss each other’s cheeks twice, then they went off in private to talk.
“She looks really pissed,” Ginger whispered.
“Want to go into town?” Roland asked me. “We could hit Gino’s, you know the shrimp truck down the bottom of the hill by the pond.”
A few of us walked down and I was surprised to see Kimo and Mim walking back toward us.
“Where are you all going?” Kimo asked, but he looked directly at me.
“The shrimp truck,” Ginger said in a bright, breathless-girl way.
Kimo nodded. “I’m taking Mim back to the airport. She’s leaving for Honolulu, so take your time. I’ll see you back at rehearsal at two o’clock.” He did not look at me as he said this and I saw the grip on his wife’s arm was anything but friendly.
“They’re not happy campers,” Roland said. “He tossed and turned all night. He went off for a walk, but when he came back, he had this big ol’ smile on his face.”
“You think he went for a run?” Eddie asked.
“If you ask me, he must have some chick stashed somewhere, but he’s so grumpy all the time, who’d put up with him?”
“I would.” Ginger’s dreamy response, earned her a permanent frown from Eddie.
* * * *
The shrimp truck, a Hawaiian specialty, wasn’t elegant and the ambience with these trucks was whatever was around them, but the shrimp at most of them was always delectable. When you’re working as hard as we were however, even the freshest shrimp pulled right out of the pond won’t sustain you for very long.
So not only was I starving, but I didn’t get a moment alone with Kimo, who was quiet and low-key during the afternoon session. If I had to gauge his mood, I would have said pensive. Back in our room after showering and changing, I lounged around on my bed, hoping he’d come and join me, but by seven he was still nowhere in sight and when the others suggested dinner, I jumped at the chance. This native had been getting restless.
* * * *
Eddie somehow finagled the use of the Affatatas’ minivan and he drove it like a baboon on crack who’d stolen the keys and taken it on a joy ride. The rest of us held on for grim death as he headed back toward Hilo, shouting suggestions over his shoulder.
“I’m walking home,” I screamed. “Slow down!”
“You have no sense of adventure,” Eddie griped when Ginger punched him in the arm in an effort to get him a little friendlier with the brakes.
An argument ensued over whether we should eat seafood or pasta and pasta prevailed.
Eddie wanted seafood and the rest of us wanted pasta. He was forced to turn around and we veered toward Haili Avenue and the best Italian restaurant—correction, only Italian restaurant—in Hilo. We were all surprised to see Kimo leaving as we arrived. He was accompanied by a very beautiful Hawaiian woman. I would have gotten out of the van and clubbed her to death, except that I realized it was Kaiona, wife of my best friend Nicky.
“Bobby!” she squealed when she saw me. She gave me a huge hug and I watched the indulgent smile on Kimo’s face.
“Where’s our girl?” I asked Kaiona.
She pulled a face. “She’s at home. I came out here to tape a TV commercial if you can believe that.”
“A commercial for what?”
“Kona coffee. I called Kimo and he came on the set to have a good laugh at me. We’ve just had dinner and now I’m missing my wife, so I’m flying home.”
“Give her a hug, will you? I miss my Nicky, too.”
“I will.” She threaded her arm through mine. “Now, introduce me to everybody.”
The girls were transfixed by Kaiona, since she was a hula dancing legend and the guys drooled over her.
She was sweet and charming with everyone, then Kimo said they had to leave.
“I’ve got another airport run.” He didn’t look happy and never even glanced at me.
“Bobby,” Kaiona called out as we started to pile into the restaurant. “How are things with what’s-his-name?”
“They’re not,” I shrugged.
“Oh, that’s too bad. We have to find you a nice guy. Now things are settled down after the wedding, once you’re back in Waikiki, Nicky and I will hook you up.”
What else could I say, except, “Great. Thanks.”
Kimo touched her elbow, while managing to avoid even a glance at me, then they were gone.
* * * *
I tried hard not to flip out over dinner at Pescatore. Kimo had seemed remote and angry again. Well, it couldn’t be helped. We’d had some awesome sex, but the man was clearly conflicted. I had to get through the rehearsals and the show and forget all about him. Then a little voice in my brain said, He wanted to be discreet, remember?
Yeah, but there was discreet and feeling totally abandoned. Why did I keep attracting guys who were so emotionally detached?
Our little group wolfed through shared plates of pasta and finished with huge chunks of double chocolate truffle cake. That cake did, as our cute little waiter promised us, change our lives.
When I arrived back home from dinner, I didn’t know what to expect. I certainly didn’t expect to find our bedroom turned into an erotic-looking bordello with our beds pushed together, flower blossoms tossed all over the beds and the floor, champagne chilling on ice. Kimo, naked except for the red and yellow sarong tied loosely around his hips, was also not how I expected him to be dressed.
The second I opened the door and saw him waiting for me, I locked it, helping him jam a chair under the door handle. My clothes were coming off and he had me on the floor, then he was inside me before I could finish saying, “I missed you all day.”
Phantom Lover Page 7