My cheek was smarting. I was surprised that I liked it. The anger it provoked made me want her even more.
She was breathing hard and struggling to free herself. With my left hand I ripped the chiton from her shoulder, the metal clasp flinging to the floor. Her back was exposed all the way to her hip. I ran my hand over her body. Her skin was damp with perspiration, and she smelled of the same scent I’d noticed in the bedroom, a bright scent of flowers and a musky scent of earth, as if she’d been rolling in a meadow. Her hip flared out to her dimpled derriére, which I felt with my hand and the inside of my wrist, my fingers probing underneath her.
I pressed my lips to her shoulder blade, and nosed beneath her black curls to the gentle curve of her neck. There I bit her softly, holding a fold of her skin in my teeth. As my fingers found their way inside her, she moaned and relaxed in her struggle against me. I released the bite of flesh and loosened my grip on her wrist. She turned, slowly twisting around, and lifted her arm up over me, releasing a breast from her half-open gown.
I kissed her throat. Her chest heaved beneath me, and again the scent of wildflowers wafted from her skin. My hand could not encompass her breast as I lifted it to my mouth. It tasted of salt and powder. A wavy black curtain of hair draped me as I feasted. Her fat, engorged nipple endured the onslaught of my tongue.
Euphrosyne was suddenly behind me. She reached her arms around me and started unzipping my pants. Her chest swelled against my back, her breathing warmed my neck. She reached into my jeans and took hold of me. I was as stiff as a randy satyr. She held it like she owned it while giggling in my ear.
I dragged the chiton off Aglaia’s shoulder. The gown dropped to her waist. She struggled to free herself and push me back as I pressed in tight upon her. When she turned her face aside, I kissed her pulsing temple and nibbled at her ear. Her arms slid over my shoulders, and she hugged my face to her breasts.
Euphrosyne’s arms were still wrapped around me, her hands still clamped on my cock. She treated it like her toy. My pants had fallen to my ankles, and she ran her bare foot up and down my leg, stroking her thigh against me.
Over the throb of the music, I heard Basri groan, and a woman’s voice called out in Greek a word or a phrase like a song. Aglaia turned and kissed me. She touched her tongue to mine. Euphrosyne finally released her grip, and together with Aglaia, the two of them tugged me away from the wall and down with the bodies on the floor. I caught in the writhing mass of flesh a glimpse of Dan, his bullet head locked between a woman’s thighs. Farther off, Basri was riding atop the big woman who had earlier been riding on him. His face was buried in the crotch of another standing with her legs open before him. Women were climbing over one another, trying to get their hands on his body.
Half a dozen women joined Aglaia and Euphrosyne as they kissed and caressed and sucked me on the floor. Irene’s chiton was half torn off; Marina was totally naked. An elegant-looking woman hiked up her gown and lowered herself to my face. I clawed at her with my tongue and she pulled herself away. Then another came and did the same. Then another. And another. They drove me into a frenzy of rampaging lust.
I went after them like a madman. We wrestled into a writhing mass. Women scratched and slapped and bit me. I licked and fingered and felt and fucked. Thrusting deeper into the frenzy, I rammed my way into rapture, burrowing into their flesh. My body ignited in a blaze of sensation. Thought was entirely obliterated. It seemed I could no longer see—only hear, smell, taste, touch. Everything blurred in a violent flux. I lost all sense of separation, of being bound in a single sheath of skin. In that explosion of consciousness, I vanished into a devouring maelstrom of matter: eyeballs, buttocks, bellies, breasts, lips, tongues, teeth—
The last thing I saw before losing myself was the beautiful face of Damiana. This stranger who had captured my eye on the beach, this dancer who had moved like a panther, was approaching naked on her hands and knees.
Her teeth were tinged with blood.
II
THANATOS
11
WAS I unconscious or sleeping?
I seemed to be floating on an Olympian cloud. My eyes couldn’t focus on the whiteness. My temples throbbed. My limbs ached. My mouth felt dry and cottony.
As I rose up painfully onto my knees, I saw I’d been lying on a polar bear rug. The rug was stained with blood.
I was naked. There were scratches and bite marks all over my body. Many of the tears in the skin still bled. My scalp felt oddly tender, and my penis was raw and sore. My shoulders and knees and elbows ached. When I noticed a similar aching tension in my fingers, I realized I was clutching something tightly in my fist.
I opened my hand. A bloody little stick of flesh lay on my palm.
Short and thick as the butt of a cigar, it was creased and curved, with a round, tapered tip. Wiping the blood away revealed a wrinkled knuckle and a broad thumbnail.
From the size, it appeared to be a man’s thumb. It had been ripped from the joint where it joined to the hand. The red root of torn flesh covered the metacarpal, from which severed blood vessels hung like scarlet threads.
I stared at it, stunned, for what must have been a full minute, trying to figure out whose hand it belonged to, and how it had been torn off, and why. Did I do it myself? I had no memory of it. Certainly tearing off somebody’s thumb is a thing you wouldn’t easily forget. I wondered how it was even possible. It must have taken great strength. Why would I ever do such a thing? Why would anybody?
The nail, I noticed, was bitten back, which made me think it was Dan’s—he bit his nails obsessively. Basri may have done the same, of course. The thumb might even have belonged to a woman—at least one of them had been large enough to have had a thumb this big.
I stood up and looked around the empty room. Where has everyone gone? I had no idea how long I’d been out. It appeared to be early dawn. Somber gray light from an undraped window fell across the carpeted floor, revealing more scattered bloodstains. Basri’s shirt lay draped across the couch, his torn boxers crumpled on an Oriental rug. Dan’s boxers dangled from the bar. There was no sign of a single chiton, or any other clothes from the women. I noticed my jeans lying in the corner, the same corner where I had captured Aglaia, pinning her body against the wall.
What have I done? Our playful sexual encounter had come dangerously close to rape. She seemed to have lured me into it, then deliberately resisted, which only increased my desire. I tried to remember what had happened after that. The bodies writhing around me. The women’s sexual assault. My final, explosive rampage.
And Damiana. Crawling toward me with blood in her mouth.
What the hell happened? What was in that drink?
My head was throbbing. I found it hard to focus or make sense of anything. Still holding the thumb in my hand, I started toward the corner to pick up my jeans and stepped into a pool of blood saturating the carpet. Jumping back, I stamped a bold red footprint on the rug.
The sight of the footprint frightened me.
Someone had clearly been murdered. Most likely it was the same person whose thumb I held in my hand. It suddenly seemed quite possible that I had taken part in the murder. Given my state of mind at the time, I certainly couldn’t prove that I hadn’t.
I rubbed the sole of my foot on the carpet, trying to smear the footprint out and wipe the blood from my skin. Something sticky came off with the blood. I crouched down for a closer look and probed it with my finger.
It was a clump of human hair, torn out from the roots.
In the dim light, with all the blood, I couldn’t tell its color. I wiped my finger clean on the rug. Then I went over and pulled on my jeans. As I zipped up, I noticed on the wall nearby a large handprint in blood.
Again I felt a shiver of fright. I moved closer to examine the print. All five fingers had left an impression. The hand had rested on the wall, then slid down leaving a bloody smear. I looked at my hands. The left was clean, but the right hand that held the severed thu
mb was stained red with blood. I dropped the thumb to the floor. Then I raised my bloody hand to the bloody print on the wall.
It fit perfectly.
I shuddered. In a panic, I backed away, then turned and ran from the room.
ON THE floor above, the main saloon was empty. I went up front to the pilothouse and found it empty, too. Through the windows I could see the lights of the harbor. The eastern horizon glowed faintly, the sky was overcast and gray, the water dark and silvery.
I left the pilothouse and ran up the stairs to the flying bridge, the top deck where Dan and I had met the three women. There was no one up there, either. Most of the deck was open to the sky, which seemed to be pressing down overhead, an unbroken mass of heavy clouds. A cool breeze ruffled my hair. The hot tub bubbled noisily. My martini glass sat on the bar where Aglaia had placed it. Other than that, there was no sign anyone had been on the deck.
As I started back to the stairs, I glanced at the horizon and noticed there was something strange about Mykonos. The ships in the bay had all turned into fishing boats. White stucco houses stood piled above the shore, but the island appeared to have changed shape during the night. A mountain now loomed above the town.
The island was not Mykonos. We had traveled away from it during the night, and arrived here, at this strange harbor, while I’d been passed out down below.
Where am I? And where has everyone gone?
I remembered having seen a dinghy on the yacht. The size of it had impressed me. I hurried to the back of the top deck and peered out over the rail. The dinghy was gone. The spot where it had been tied up, three floors down at the stern, was empty.
The women, Dan, Basri—someone had taken it to shore.
I scrambled down the staircase again and searched every floor, every room of the yacht, calling out for Dan and Basri. There were ten bedrooms in all, including a small one behind the engine room and another behind the pilothouse. Every one of them was empty. I found no trace of the women at all; their bags and dresses had vanished. Dan’s pack and mine remained exactly where we had left them. I checked for our passports and wallets. Nothing appeared to be missing, not even the cash. Clearly, this wasn’t a robbery. The master bedroom closets were filled with Basri’s clothes, and in the bathroom, his razor, toothbrush, and contact lens case lay where he’d left them on the counter. Obviously he hadn’t packed before taking leave of the ship.
I gulped down some aspirin from his medicine cabinet. My frightened face stared back from the mirror.
I was the only one left on a boat where a murder had been committed. I may have had a part in that murder. My brother might well be dead. If I were the only one found on the boat—literally with blood on my hands—I’d be the prime suspect.
I had to get off the yacht as quickly as I could. Before I could even consider going to the police, I had to locate Dan and find out what happened. Only then would I know what to do.
The Zodiac tender and the jet ski were still tied down on the forward deck. I decided I should take the tender; the jet ski would draw too much attention. For the same reason I decided to avoid the harbor and come ashore farther up the island. I scanned the shoreline and picked a spot—a white gravel beach beyond the fringe of the town. At this early hour it looked deserted.
THE LEADEN sky lightened at the horizon as the sun began its climb. It cast the island’s mountain in a peculiarly colored light, a strange mix of rosy dawn and ugly, yellow dusk. As I steered the Zodiac toward the shore, I glanced back at the yacht, anchored out in the bay. The black hull gleamed like midnight, but the white walls of the upper decks reflected the odd, orange light. It looked like a bloody ghost ship.
My Zodiac was the only boat moving on the water. The tiny outboard droned across the silent bay like a zipper, leaving a minor wake behind that nudged the fishing boats. Of the few figures I could make out on shore, no one seemed to pay me any mind. A fisherman stretched nets out on the dock. A storekeeper swept his sidewalk. A boy climbed onto his bike.
When I passed beyond the arm of the harbor, I saw there was no one on the white gravel beach. Just a neat row of upturned hulls, hauled up onto the shore. Beyond their bows was a low stone wall, and beyond that a rocky incline to a road that led into town. An old stone building flanked by cypress trees looked abandoned. Alongside the trees a steep, stone staircase led up the incline to the road.
I gave the outboard one last shot, then cut the engine, lifted the prop, and coasted onto the beach. I donned my backpack and hauled the Zodiac up onto the shore. The yellow craft stuck out from the row of wooden boats, but I didn’t know what else to do with it.
The boy on his bicycle was pedaling up the road. He glanced at me briefly and waved. I found it somehow reassuring, and headed for the stairs.
The square stone building behind the cypresses appeared to be abandoned. Greek graffiti in blue letters were fading on the building’s facade: . As I walked past, I peered through the trees into the dark archways and the glassless windows above them. I didn’t see anyone.
At the top of the stairs, I had a view of the harbor and down the street into town. The street was cobbled, and most of the houses were built of stone and sealed in stucco. Rising from the sea of red-tiled roofs was the large golden dome of a church. Far off I spotted a stout woman waddling down the street, a broad, shallow basket propped against her hip, her head wrapped in a raven black scarf. The streets looked as twisty and narrow as those in Mykonos and covered the crowded hillside. Eventually the houses gave way to the mountain, which peaked somewhere beyond my view.
Below, the harbor was coming alive. Fishermen in captain’s caps were busy on the dock, and a group of people were assembling around a boat at the edge of the water. I assumed they were buying fish, but no fish or cash was changing hands, and the crowd seemed agitated. With a jolt of panic I realized the boat was Basri’s dinghy.
I raced down into the town, but it took me several exasperating minutes to find my way to the beach. One street gradually turned and narrowed, ending in a cul-de-sac. Another initially promising lane led me back up the hill. Finally, I spotted a young Greek couple descending a narrow staircase. I slipped past them and hurried to the bottom, which let out onto the esplanade, a flagstone walkway bordering the waterfront. Just beyond it lay the gravel beach, with Basri’s dinghy and the gathering crowd.
The boat had been beached, but half of it was still in the water. As I approached, I saw that several of the onlookers were tourists or vacationers, either Greek or European; I didn’t hear a word of English. Most of those gathered appeared to live in the village: fishermen with bristled, wind-blasted faces, and shopkeepers whose sharp eyes showed serious concern. I worked my way through the crowd to get a closer look. One or two people gave me scrutinizing looks, but most seemed to assume I was a tourist.
All at once the crowd stopped their chattering and turned to look behind them.
A policeman, led by a small, anxious-looking man in a suit jacket, had stepped off the esplanade and was heading across the strand.
I squeezed between two large barefoot fishermen and peered over the side of the boat. I froze in horror. Inside lay Dan’s naked corpse, curled in the fetal position. His flesh had been badly bitten and scarred, and his arms appeared to be wrapped around a wrinkled ball of blood.
A memory flashed into my head—a woman shrieking madly—
Someone pulled me back as the policeman made his way through the crowd. I was so stunned, I couldn’t speak—and I wasn’t sure that I should. I gaped in silence as the cop brushed past. He was a burly, bearded man, with a cigarette in his mouth. He looked fatigued and slovenly in his hastily donned uniform, and he had a drooping gray mustache and long, disheveled hair. Silent, grimacing, he stared at Dan’s body a moment, then tossed his cigarette to the sand and climbed up into the boat.
After taking a closer look at his face, he slapped Dan several times on the cheek.
I pushed closer, my heart racing.
Dan sti
rred.
He was unconscious, not dead. A murmur rumbled through the crowd.
I was so relieved, I nearly shouted. For a second I debated whether to lay claim to him and to reveal to the cop who I was. I started moving toward him, thinking that if I told the policeman everything that happened, if I explained to him that—
The cop lifted from Dan’s arms the object they were holding. It was wrapped in Dan’s Hawaiian shirt, saturated in blood. He set the thing down on the seat. Then he gingerly pulled back the bloody cloth.
I gasped.
Inside was Basri’s head.
The crowd exclaimed, stepping back in revulsion, then immediately moving forward to take a closer look. The cop growled orders for us to move away, but everyone, including me, ignored him. We peered over and between one another, angling for a glimpse at the horror.
The cop grumbled to himself. Searching the bottom of the boat, he reached down under where Dan was lying and pulled up a strange-looking ax.
Another exclamation erupted from the crowd.
It was a double-headed hatchet, each blade facing in the opposite direction. It appeared to be very old and made of bronze, with an intricate design in the metal, and a long, slender, almost delicate handle. The ax looked as much like a work of art as an actual tool or weapon.
The blades glistened with blood.
Dan lifted his lolling head, trying to rouse himself. His sleepy eyes struggled with the scene unfolding around him: the bloody head on the seat, the ax in the policeman’s hands, the crowd of leery onlookers. It was hard to tell how awake he was, how much he was understanding. I still felt groggy myself; had I drunk all three sips like he had, I’d still have been unconscious on the yacht.
The crowd murmured among themselves, and although I couldn’t understand the words they were saying, I had no doubt one of them was “murder.” The yacht was clearly visible out in the harbor, and they all seemed to be eyeing it now. Several men headed off toward their boats. The cop shouted for them to stop, and they turned to argue with him. Presumably he didn’t want the evidence disturbed. I thought of my bloody handprint. But I had taken my wallet and passport with me, along with Dan’s and Basri’s. It wouldn’t be so easy for them to find out who we were.
Night of the Furies Page 11