by L. B. Dunbar
I looked away from the receding shore and out over the vibrant blue lake. It was a beautiful day under a bright sun-filled sky. The green mixture of the trees surrounding the lake was a picturesque landscape that looked painted on a canvas. It was so clearly natural it looked unreal. The motor picked up speed and the scenery began to blur as we moved swiftly around the perimeter. The passage of time was unknown to me. It seemed like our path was a tour of the outline of the lake. We followed along the curved shoreline distancing ourselves from Camlann, the other Nights, and Arturo’s family.
Eventually, Arturo slowed to a stop. We seemed to be in a cove of some type. The beach before us was deserted.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“This is private property. The lakefront is actually owned by the state, but there isn’t public access to this strip. I thought we could hang out here a bit?” he questioned hesitantly.
“Won’t we get in trouble?”
“Nah. I know the owner,” he shrugged. I noticed that he was removing the prosthetic hand.
“What are you doing?” I asked. I didn’t want to sound defensive, just curious.
“It’s hot,” he said, continuing to struggle with the removal. The wrist covering came lose after some work and he gently rotated the hand to release it. He shook out his arm, holding his right hand in his left.
“Better,” he whispered. Looking up, he smiled at me. “Didn’t want a funny tan line.”
He laughed. I smiled.
He spread out the large towels on the front of the old Criss Craft boat. It was a beautiful wooden structure that Arturo took pride in restoring when he inherited his father’s home. We lay down and suddenly the déjà vu was all too familiar. I was on my back; Arturo was at my side. I kept my eyes closed to the brightness of the sun, but it was more a will to block out Arturo. I sensed his presence, his closeness, his skin. I was hyperaware of his skin. It was almost like the fine hairs on my arm were reaching out to the slightly curled hairs on his. Neurons wanting a connection or something like that.
After a moment or two, he huffed and fell onto his back. I imagined we lay in the same position. So close, but so distant, each confident of the other’s presence, yet completely uncertain in what to say.
“I…”
“It’s…” We both spoke at the same time.
“You…”
“We…” We both said again. This time I laughed and twisted my head to face him. He was propped up on his elbow instantly. He wasn’t towering over me, but if he leaned forward there would be no escape. His mouth tweaked.
“You go first,” he said, watching a piece of hair blow against my cheek.
“It’s so peaceful. That’s what I was going to say,” I lied. It wasn’t peaceful. It should have been, but the atmosphere around us was tense.
“Hmmm…” he replied still watching the hair dance next to my face.
“We…we should talk,” I blurted out, sitting up to brace myself on my own elbows. I hadn’t removed the tank top that covered my bikini. Removal of my clothes would only expose more skin, which was already on sensory overdrive next to Arturo.
“What do you want to talk about?” he said softly, his voice rough as if he needed to clear it. The awareness of my lower body went from nonexistent to hyper speed. A pulse so strong rippled through me, it rivaled the strength of the wake behind the boat as we sped across the lake. I rubbed my thighs together to squelch the feeling. It only increased the throbbing as if that were even possible. If Arturo were a drummer, I could outplay him with the beat between my legs.
I looked over my shoulder at him, and he licked his lips so exaggeratedly that I sighed. It was like he’d just had the sweetest of flavors over those lips, and he was savoring every possible last lick. I sighed out loud.
His eyes slowly travelled up the length of my body, like he’d done in my father’s office. The glare of them, the harsh caress, I craved. He covered my stomach, and swirled over each breast where nipples stood erect and obvious through two layers of thin fabric. The pulse down low was uncontrollable. I bit my own lip as his eyes continued. He rounded over each breast to my neck and stopped for the briefest of seconds at the juncture of neck and shoulder. I felt the sting of a bite that wasn’t there, but was imprinted on me with the blaze in his eyes. My head tipped back voluntarily, exposing more skin, and sweeping loose my hair. My eyes didn’t leave his face. His didn’t leave my skin.
Finally, he reached my mouth. I chewed my lip harder. His lips parted and he hesitated toward me. My eyes followed his mouth, as his body moved toward mine. I swallowed, mouth moist with the need to kiss him, taste him, and drink him into me.
“If I kiss you, would you come?”
My first response was a breathy, “Yes.” My second was the cold splash of reality. I sat up immediately and crossed my legs hard.
“What am I doing?” I muttered, recalling again the pleasure of that first kiss and the truth of our current position. We were not in a place to kiss. Physically, we were surrounded in natural beauty and silence broken only by the gentle lap of water against the bottom of the boat. Emotionally, we were a shipwreck engulfed in doubt, uncertainty, and unanswered questions.
Arturo sat up slowly. He could only use the one hand to lift himself and he adjusted his position so one leg swung behind me. He brushed a piece of hair over my ear and I flinched. I didn’t mean to. It tickled and startled me.
“Let’s talk,” he spoke.
I was absolutely petrified of what she would say to me, but I kept my voice calm. On the other hand, my body was shaking. There was no way to disguise my excitement, other than raise my leg and hope it blended into the disguise. Instead, my dick leapt for her as if it had a mind of its own and knew she was so close. I hadn’t fulfilled myself the other day when I pressed into her. It wasn’t enough, but I had to relieve the pressure later on my own. I was stiff as the trees behind me, at the moment. I didn’t sense relief anytime soon.
“What should we talk about?” I tried again when she remained silent. I didn’t know how to do this. I’d fallen in love with Guinevere. It was natural for me, but I didn’t see it coming. It didn’t take any work. It just happened. But this – us – we were going to be work now.
“Tell me again about your hand,” she said. The innocence in her eyes proved she still had questions. I was positive she’d heard my explanation the other day, but she seemed to want confirmation again. It was like an interrogation where the officer who just took your statement asks you to repeat it, over and over. Staring into her eyes, though, I knew she wasn’t quizzing me. She needed to hear it one more time.
So I began the explanation starting from the beginning when we left the concert, how I knew we were being chased, and I thought it was all in fun. The paparazzi were after me. Some photog wanted an image to sell. The camera flashes lit differently than the fuzzy blur of white street lamps and red stoplights. I recalled that in the moment, it was all a game for me. Could I outrun them? Perkins wanted the girl, and the motorcycle chase wanted me, so I signaled for Perk to go, take his prize, and leave.
A second motorcycle separated almost instantly from the chase. I remembered shifting gears, increasing my speed as I lowered my body. The next thing I saw was the viaduct wall, a little too close, and then nothing.
“I would eventually wake with this vague sense of being alive, but not being able to open my eyes,” I said, looking out over the water. My right arm balanced on my knee that was propped behind Guinie. She sat completely still between my open legs, as I told my story.
“I’d hear you,” I said, softly, still keeping my eyes focused on the water that stretched out for miles. “Or actually I didn’t hear you. I heard other voices and I wondered where you were.” I turned to look at her. “I questioned in my head, why you weren’t there?” My eyes narrowed as I stared at her, but I knew why she wasn’t there.
“I would have been there, in a heartbeat. I would have been there and never left you, if I o
nly knew.” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper.
“I know that. I knew it then, and I know it now. It wasn’t your fault you weren’t there.” I was confident in what I said. When I finally came around, the first face I saw was Ana’s. She’d been by my side the whole time. The second face I saw was Mure’s. He smiled as I awoke, but those two-toned eyes told me he was nervous. He was hiding something from me.
I didn’t have time to question him. The nurses were on me like fleas. The doctors descended next. Then I noticed my hand. Bandaged three times the size of Guinie’s thin gauze coverings, it didn’t look right. It wasn’t high enough. The white material was too low unless my arm shrunk. I remember looking at my shoulder to confirm that my whole arm was still intact. Then it hit me. My whole arm wasn’t. My hand was gone.
Distracting myself from my thoughts, I looked down at the bindings over her palms.
“Does it hurt?” I asked, nodding at her hands.
“Well, it stung a little. One of the maids had something to take out the sting, but the blisters were immediate. It looks a bit worse than it is,” she said. I heard the doctor’s words in my head.
It looks worse than it is.
I couldn’t imagine anything worse than losing a hand – and being a guitar player.
“It could be worse,” I tried to joke, but it was clearly lost on Guinie. She frowned, forcing a crease in between her eyebrows that I’d never seen before.
“Sorry,” I muttered. We remained quiet for a moment. The gentle sway of the boat rocked us. The sound of water moving delicately played as background noise.
“Why wasn’t I told? Why didn’t you tell them to send for me?”
Her question startled me. I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t ask. After realizing what had happened to my hand, I slipped into a vortex of depression. I literally felt myself sucked under. I refused to do anything to help myself. I was pathetic. I didn’t want her there because I didn’t want her to see me like that. Not whole. I didn’t want her there. That’s what I told myself. I didn’t want her there.
It had been a lie. I wanted her desperately. It actually scared me that I thought she could make it better. She couldn’t give me my hand, but I needed her comfort. Her quiet strength had surprised me on several occasions, when we first met. It was something that drew me to her. I needed to draw on the willpower of hers, but I didn’t want to have to do it.
“Mure thought it best,” I said. She made a harrumph sound and laughed bitterly once.
“Mure? Tristan was ready to kill him,” she said looking over my shoulder at the shoreline.
“And Perkins,” Guinie shook her head, “he had what he wanted, but he didn’t know what to do with her.” She laughed with a touch of tenderness. “He believed from the start you’d be back. When you were ready.”
I waited. She hadn’t mentioned the one person I was convinced she knew the best of the group. Then she spoke, quieter than before.
“Lansing. Well, he had so much turned upside down at once, he didn’t know what he was doing.”
I’d already learned of Lansing’s child with Elaine. He had his son with him, a few times, back in the city. Galahad was his name. Rather medieval, I thought. I also heard about poor Layne Ascolat. I didn’t know her, as she was younger than me, even younger than Lansing. As a matter of fact, she was the same age as Guinevere and had apparently been a friend of hers, too.
“I was sorry to learn of your friend’s death. I didn’t realize that there was a connection between her and Lansing. I didn’t make the connection with you and Lansing, until I saw the articles.”
Guinie flinched and looked nervously away from me.
“What connection?” she said with a shake to her voice.
“You all went to the same high school together. That never came up before,” I said, my tone taking a bite to it.
“It must have come up,” she said. Shocked, it had never happened in the past, but she was lying to me. If anything, I believed that Guinevere had always told me the truth. I never doubted her. I never distrusted her. If I acted as if I did, it was more a drive of jealousy than disbelief in her.
“I see,” I said, nodding and looking away. “You know, if we’re going to make this work, we can’t start with lies.”
She blinked her eyes at me several times. Her shoulders rose in defense and then slowly released. She sunk enough that her head fell forward and her hair shielded her face.
“It didn’t seem important,” she said quietly, speaking to the boards under her. “He was older than us, and we didn’t really know him then. Layne had a crush on him.”
“And you?” It came out of nowhere.
“I didn’t have a crush on him.” Her head whipped up quickly. “Layne was my friend. She liked him. I didn’t have anything with him.” Her tone was defensive but firm in her conviction.
“If I recall, you kissed him once,” I laughed, remembering a challenge I’d forced him to play against another guitarist. He took the challenge and the reward was a kiss from Guinie, the scrawny owner’s daughter. I was such a fool, I thought. I didn’t see it then because she was just a kid. She had grown, though, into a stunning poised woman, who looked like a teenager defending herself on this boat.
“I recall,” she emphasized, “you made me kiss him, and I only did it on the cheek.”
I laughed. Tristan had words about that kind of kiss. A flash of Lansing’s face after that chaste kiss crossed my mind. It wasn’t something I would have remembered as unusual, except that I had seen that look before, again and again. It was the way he often looked at Guinevere. I couldn’t have been so stupid. I sat up straighter. Lansing had had a crush on Guinie. All those years ago, he’d liked her, even if she had no interest in him.
I was a fool for never seeing it, but he was a fool for never acting on it. Guinevere DeGrance was a prize. As I sat up even taller, the words came to my head.
Guinevere DeGrance was my prize. My Once.
I looked at her as if I hadn’t seen her in a long time, which I had not. Tender looking skin with a touch of sun. Chestnut colored hair that hung in loose waves. Bright blue eyes that matched the depth of the water. Rosy lips that I longed to taste. Without thinking, I went for it. I leaned in fast before she could pull away, but I didn’t capture her lips. It was a battle tactic, pull up to the enemy, and then pause as they ponder your next move. I waited a beat, feeling her warm breath mix with mine. My mouth hovered, as she didn’t pull back. As a matter of fact, she seemed to be holding her ground, waiting me out. I made the final maneuver and tugged at her lips with mine. It wasn’t so much a kiss as a pull. I wanted her mouth to come to mine.
Her groaned sigh led me onward. My lips connected with hers in a slow dance of rediscovery. It was tender and torturous as we twirled around what I wanted most. I kissed the corners of her mouth and she let me without a chase. I wanted her to fight a bit. She always had at first. It was why I always felt the need to capture her. She’d struggle, but once she gave in. Oh, once she let go and surrendered to me.
Her mouth was still hesitant as was mine. My left hand had been bracing me as I leaned, but I realized if I wanted more of that mouth, I would have to give in. I would have to lean on her for support instead. I raised my hand to caress her cheek, and tuck hair behind her ears. I didn’t break my concentration on the mission at hand. My fingers skittered down her neck and wrapped around the nape. With tender pressure, I pulled her toward me. Her hand mimicking mine was all I needed. Delicate fingers touched my face.
I pounced. She purred. My mouth took control as lips tangled instead of sparred. We chased and caught each other, over and over. Her tongue met mine, almost instantly. I didn’t need to tease, she was meeting me stroke for stroke. I was no longer certain who was leading whom. My mouth watered more. My tongue screamed, I remember you: the taste of you, the feel of you. I was no longer thinking. My lips controlled the dance of our mouths. We were practically one.
Then I start
ed to fall over. I was leaning so much into her that we started going down. I knew as we decended it wasn’t a good idea. It was too much too fast. My body ached to be on top of her and the sheer force of gravity was pulling me over. She was going back when hands suddenly came up. Without a word, I knew what she would say when she pushed against my chest. She’d had enough, but I wasn’t ready. Just a few more swipes, a few more licks, another twist and…
“Arturo, stop,” she said, pulling away so quickly, we made a small suction release sound. The pop seemed to echo, leading off the weight of our heavy breathing.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, holding her neck so her head could not pull back.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, bracing our foreheads together. I rubbed mine to and fro against hers.
“I’m so sorry,” I begged one final time. It was more than an apology for the kiss. I needed her forgiveness for keeping her away. I realized that I wanted her to let me back in. I would lean on her for support this time. I just wanted back into her heart.
My heart hammered in my throat as the pressure between my thighs beat that heavy drum again. His words were so desperate, but the guilt burned me alive. There were things I had to tell him. Things he needed to know, but I wasn’t ready to share. As soon as he knew the truths, he was going to let me go.
“It’s okay,” I said, no conviction in my tone. “It’s okay. You’re still healthy, and you’re home.” My fingers caressed the light stubble on his cheeks, as my full hand was prevented from touching him. Our foreheads still pressed together as our breathing began to slow.
“You’re okay now,” I added, because he was okay. He was healthy, despite his hand. He was home where he belonged with the band. He was going to be just fine.
“Are you okay, Guinie?” he asked, still looking down at our jumble of legs and arms between us. “Are you really okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. I’d said it so many times; it was a habit. After a while I didn’t believe I convinced others, as I never convinced myself. They grew as apathetic to the words as I did.