Ecstasy

by Gwynne Forster

  * * *

  Jeannetta forgot about the fish. Mason’s long, lean physique with the rippling muscles, slim hips, and broad chest presented a feast to her eyes. Clothed in the tiniest of swimsuits, the vision brought back the memory of him lying in the sand on the Lido beach wearing only his red bikini. Pictures of sea and endless sand forced their way to the fore of her mind and, with it, another experience begged to be recalled. She could feel it thumping against her cerebral walls. Strange; she had forgotten everything of that part of the tour except Mason on that beach. The red, white and yellow ball on her line bobbed in the water, but she ignored it. Powerful strokes brought him past the pier, and she would have loved to strip off her clothes and join him.

  “This isn’t like me,” she told herself, trying to bring to her conscious mind the strange something in her that knew him. He’d suggested that they had become more intimate than she’d remembered. If they had, she’d give anything to know how he’d made her feel.

  “You’ve got one terrific kick,” she called to him, when he pulled up to the pier.

  “I’d better have, big as I am. What did you catch?” She laughed, recalling that she’d ignored the “bite” for the pleasure of swooning over his near-nude body as he flashed through the water.

  * * *

  He had eyed her surreptitiously and watched her hand go repeatedly to her forehead.

  “Do you have a headache?”

  She nodded, but he saw that she did it reluctantly.

  “Are they frequent?”

  She smiled that wonderful way in which her face seemed to welcome the opportunity to show pleasure. He hopped up on the pier and observed her closely.

  “It’s getting too warm. Come on, let’s go back to the lodge.” Mason grimaced at the scowl on her face; she wasn’t thinking what he was thinking. No doubt about it. As they walked back to the lodge, he prayed that she’d remember the powerful and explosive, brain-branding loving they’d had together—not once, but twice. He didn’t want to entertain the thought that she’d never remember. He saw her staring down at the ground.

  “What do you see there, Jeannetta?” He stroked her shoulder in gentle encouragement. “Tell me.”

  She let a handful of sand stream through her widespread fingers.

  “I remember trying to do that, and the sand stuck in my hand and wouldn’t fall out. But when?”

  “You were coming out of anesthesia after the operation, and that was a kind of delirium. What else do you remember?”

  She shook her head.

  “Nothing? Not even the night before I took you to the hospital?” He had to hide his sadness and consternation, so he turned his face away from her.

  “Let’s take the shortcut through the forest,” he suggested. “I don’t want you to get too tired.” Minutes later, he wished the thought had never occurred to him.

  Though the wind was nonexistent, a dank, dusty odor assaulted his nostrils. He stopped. The cracking of dry sticks and leaves hadn’t come from their footsteps, so he waited. Almost at once, a brown bear ambled across their path, glimpsed them and stopped.

  “Don’t move, and don’t say a word, honey.” He surveyed their surroundings as best he could from the corners of his eyes, to find out if the bear had cubs, and whether he and Jeannetta stood between them and the big animal. At least that posed no problem. He hoped the bear was nearsighted, but he wasn’t about to test it. His belly knotted to a figure eight when the animal took a single step toward them and stopped. His fingers gripped Jeannetta’s waist. This was one time when his black belt in karate would be of little help, but it would take more than that bear to get her away from him. The animal suddenly turned and bounded into the thicket, and he breathed again.

  “That was close, and we’d better get out of here. Next time, we’ll use the main road.” He could be thankful that Skip hadn’t wanted to come with them, because the inquisitive boy would have wandered around and might have bumped into the beast. He didn’t want to rush her, but he wouldn’t be at ease until they crossed the highway.

  “I sure wouldn’t want to be within kissing distance of one of those boys.”

  Mason squeezed her to him. For the second time, he’d been willing to give his life for her. “Being that close doesn’t mean you’d get kissed. I’m pretty close to you,” he needled, “but, if kissing me crossed your mind, you did a great job of keeping it to yourself.”

  She covered his hand with her own and squeezed his fingers. “Ask, and it shall be given,” she said.

  Without thinking, he playfully patted her bottom, bringing a gasp of surprise from her, and he had again the painful reminder that she didn’t yet recall their intimacy as lovers.

  “I have to ask?”

  She raised an eyebrow and glanced at him through half-lowered lids. “Do you?”

  They’d reached the highway, and waited for the traffic to ease. He cupped her chin, raised her face to his, and covered her mouth with his own in what he’d meant as a quick exchange. But when she parted her lips and stepped closer to him, he dropped the chair and fishing gear and brought her into the strength of his body. Her mobile lips asked for his tongue, and he couldn’t, wouldn’t, deny her. But he wouldn’t let her drag him into hot, seething passion as she’d done so many times. He cooled the kiss, gently put her away from him, and grinned.

  “Just checking.” He held her hand as they walked on to the lodge. Maybe he ought to turn her over to another doctor. But who? He knew many competent physicians, but he didn’t think he’d be able to entrust Jeannetta’s well-being to anyone. Perhaps he should ask her whether she’d accept a change. But what if she agreed?

  * * *

  “Do you have a friend named Geoffrey Ames?” Laura asked Jeannetta when she and Mason entered the lodge.

  “Yes. What about him?”

  Mason’s broad smile told her of his delight that she remembered Geoffrey.

  “He wants to come here with his new bride for a couple of weeks. Said you’d vouch for him.”

  Jeannetta turned to Mason, her heart singing with delight as she recalled her fondness for Geoffrey, and their shared good times. “Oh, Mason. Isn’t this fantastic? They really did get married.” He stared deeply into her eyes, and she didn’t doubt that he hoped being with Geoffrey and Lucy would trigger in her mind what he wanted her to remember.

  “I never doubted Geoffrey’s intentions,” he told her. “Nor Lucy’s. Wish I could be here with them.”

  “They’ll get here tomorrow,” Laura told him. Jeannetta asked if he could stay for the weekend.

  He needed to stay, to be with her as much as possible, because he had to do whatever he could to make her know what he’d done with her and to her on those nights when she’d screamed his name in ecstasy and told him she’d love him forever. And he wanted to examine her incision and change the dressing. After thinking about it for a minute, he decided he could do it at Pilgrim’s small General Hospital. He’d stay.

  “I’ll call my offices and see what’s going on. Laura, where’s Skip?”

  “In the back with Clayton learning to clean things with natural ingredients. You know, without chemicals.” She looked up from her bread making. “Is he any relation to you?”

  “No, but he may be one of these days. He wants me to adopt him, and I just might do that.” He pinned his gaze on Jeannetta as he said the words, and when her eyes widened, he could see that she was taken aback.

  “Don’t you want children of your own?” she asked.

  He looked directly at her, but she had found something interesting across the room. He didn’t let her off.

  “You’re not against adoption, are you?”

  “No.”

  That simple answer left him unsatisfied. He called his medical office, learned that he didn’t have any urgent busines
s, and decided to take Jeannetta to the local hospital that afternoon. He phoned and made the appointment.

  “Laura, you got any snacks? I eat a lot,” Skip exclaimed, barrelling into the kitchen with the speed of one fleeing vipers. He glanced around and saw Mason and Jeannetta.

  “Oh, hi. Mason, you ought to get into this environment thing. It’s a gas, man...I mean, Mason. I already learned that you can do almost as much with vinegar and baking soda as you can with those detergents. I’m gonna learn a lot up here.” He glanced over at Jeannetta, and hardly broke his stride. “While you’re getting well, Jeanny, you and me can be buddies. I’ll take you down to the lake, and we can pick berries. You ought to see the raspberries around here.” His grin blessed them all. “Stuff like that. And you can teach me stuff. Mason said you teach college. Wow!” He paused finally to breathe and Jeannetta was able to comment.

  “I see you like to learn.”

  “Yeah. I want to learn everything, and that’ll take a lot of time.” Apparently unimpressed by the laughter that followed his words, he plowed on.

  “Mason’s going to adopt me, but maybe he has to get married first. I dunno.” The boy looked hopefully at Jeannetta, and Mason knew that she had locked her gaze on him, but he looked into the distance.

  Mason pushed his hands into his pockets. Hauling her into his arms wouldn’t solve one thing. The tension bounced off of Skip, who seemed suddenly ill at ease.

  “Any fish in that lake, Laura? Jeanny didn’t catch any,” the boy said, as though deliberately breaking the silence.

  “Plenty,” Laura assured him. “Water’s full of ’em. Clayton caught the ones we had for supper last night.”

  Skip looked hopefully at Jeannetta.

  “You know much about fishing, Jeanny? Boy, I sure could use a lesson, and I don’t have anything to do right now.”

  “I want her to rest,” Mason intervened. “You two can fish some other time. You’re making great progress, Jeannetta, so don’t push too hard and ruin it.”

  “Is she really sick,” Skip asked him, “or are you just manning your turf?” Mason couldn’t help laughing at Skip’s choice of words, though the first thing he’d do if Skip came to live with him would be to clean up the boy’s language.

  “Skip, I thought we agreed that you don’t get into my personal affairs. Right?”

  “Kids ask their parents anything they want, don’t they? Right, Mason? And I’ll be your kid as soon as you sign some papers. Right? That way, when you get old, you’ll have me to take care of you.” The boy’s hopeful expression tore at his heart, and he knew a peculiar and strange new feeling of pride and contentment. It wasn’t the satisfaction he’d known after successfully completing a difficult operation, but was more similar to the pleasure he knew as a young boy tending his vegetable garden, nurturing his seedlings and watching them grow. That garden had been his greatest joy, but he hadn’t thought of it in years. Until now.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, and he’d come to a decision. He saw the fires of love dancing in Jeannetta’s eyes, walked over to her, and let her read his own.

  Jeannetta held his gaze. Warm coils of comfort flowed in wave after wave from him, directly to her heart. The protective heat from his big body enveloped her and strengthened her. Why couldn’t he tell her how he felt about her? His eyes said “I adore you,” but it wasn’t enough. She nodded to him in a mute excuse for herself and walked upstairs to her quarters. Clayton met her on the stairs, turned and walked up with her.

  “We haven’t had much of a chance to talk. I want you to know that Laura has given me a sense of stability. I can imagine that you’ve been worried about my rootlessness. I’ve always known where I was going, but losing my life’s work knocked the starch out of me. I have reason now to pull my life together and get moving.”

  “I’m happy for both of you, Clayton. You must be good for Laura, because anyone can see she’s glowing with happiness.” Jeannetta kept her other thoughts to herself, though she couldn’t suppress a smile when the man reacted with an expression that bordered on cockiness.

  “Just wanted you to know that a lot has changed since we first talked on that plane.” He turned around and went downstairs.

  Jeannetta closed her door and lay down. Laura had to live her own life and, if Clayton made her happy for only a short while, it would be more than her sister had ever known. She removed her jeans and shirt, closed the blinds, and tried to sleep. An hour later, she awoke with a headache, and with images of green malachite columns, waterfalls, and gray sandstone carvings flashing through her mind. She took a tablet that Mason had prescribed for her, dressed, and went to find him.

  * * *

  Mason watched Jeannetta walk away from him on her way to her room. As a travel manager, his life had been relatively uncomplicated. Cut and dried. Now, Skip wanted to drag him into uncharted waters of parenthood; his dual role of doctor and lover complicated his feelings about Jeannetta; and, in a couple of weeks, he had learned that maintaining businesses as disparate as medicine and travel reduced his fitness for either. He couldn’t allow Jeannetta to complicate her recovery by becoming overconfident, but discouraging her and forcing her to slow down brought a stabbing pain to his heart. And his affections for Skip went deep, but...parenting was another matter. He walked out of the kitchen, leaving Skip to trail after Laura, and headed for the back porch where he could get a good stretch. He found Clayton there, cleaning tools.

  “Skip’s quite a boy, Mason. He says you’re going to adopt him.”

  Mason shrugged. “He seems to want that, and he operates on the principle that wanting it makes it so.”

  Clayton smiled, as though to indulge the younger man. “Why not? Faith has worked many a miracle. Jeannetta had faith that you’d help her, and she believed that your best would be good enough, but she was also willing to sacrifice her sight and her future so that you wouldn’t have it on your conscience if you failed. And you didn’t fail.”

  Mason walked to the end of the porch and looked toward the setting sun.

  “Not in the way that I could have, but she isn’t out of difficulty yet.” Why was he discussing Jeannetta with a man whom he barely liked? he wondered.

  “She seems to have confided a lot in you,” Mason told Clayton, in a tone devoid of friendliness. “I hadn’t realized the two of you had grown so close.”

  “Slow down, man,” Clayton chided. “We were soothing our individual wounds, not each other’s. We were strangers, and I suppose you know that sharing your concerns with a stranger whom you never expect to see again can be a powerful healer, because you’re totally honest. You ever try it?”

  Mason’s attitude toward Clayton probably needed some repair work, but he didn’t much care. “What do you mean?” He glowered.

  “You and I have more in common than you know.”

  Clayton had done nothing to invite his disrespect, but his behavior hadn’t been entirely above question either.

  “Let’s hear it,” he said, his tone harsh and sarcastic.

  But Clayton chose not to respond in kind. “That’s right. She told me about you. Well, I started Miles Chemicals with a seven-dollar-and-ninety-five-cent beaker and built it into a multi-million-dollar company. Then I made the mistake of trusting another person’s research reports on a cream that removed wrinkles, when I should have checked. Money poured in, and then the bottom fell out. After several months’ use, the product toughened the skin. The women didn’t have wrinkles, they had leather. I lost a class-action suit...and my business.”

  Mason stared in disbelief. “You’re that Miles?”

  Clayton nodded. “I made financial restitution, but that hasn’t restored my reputation nor erased my guilt feelings.”

  Mason’s head snapped up. “Jeannetta isn’t part of your absolution. Don’t even think it.”

&nb
sp; “No. But Laura is.”

  They were talking, so now was as good a time as any to air his reservations, so he looked directly at Clayton. “Few men would have the nerve to go after sisters, especially in such quick succession.”

  He’d touched a nerve, alright. Clayton stiffened and assumed the posture of an adversary.

  “I never went after Jeannetta, as you put it. I offered her an honorable way to a comfortable life, because I didn’t believe you’d do that operation. I knew all about your celebrated case, more than she could tell me, and I didn’t expect you ever to operate again.”

  Mason nodded absentmindedly, his thoughts partly in the past. “Neither did I.”

  “I fell for Laura minutes after I first saw her.”

  I’ll bet, Mason said to himself, and then remembered how he’d wondered what hit him when Jeannetta walked into his travel office. He had to admit the possibility. A thought occurred to him, and he found himself advising Clayton to prove that the maker of the wrinkle cream had lied about the tests and to clear his name. Within minutes, they had begun plotting Clayton’s course of action.

  * * *

  His conversation with Clayton had disturbed him; Jeannetta knew her diagnosis before she took the tour, but how much did she know of his background as a surgeon? He walked out of the lodge and headed toward the lake, because he needed to be alone, to think. But Skip caught up with him.

  “You can go on back to New York City, Mason, and I’ll take care of Jeanny for you. I won’t let her out of my sight. I swear it. That’s another reason why you ought to adopt me. I can keep your bird in line.”

  Mason laughed aloud and put an arm around the boy’s shoulder.

  “Stop calling her my bird. And another thing. You don’t keep women in line—they’re capable of doing that themselves.” He stopped at the edge of the lake, and Skip moved closer to him and assumed an identical posture.

  “I’ll be real good, Mason, and I won’t give you any trouble. Ask Aunt Mabel. She never has to worry about me. The problem is she’s going to wind up in a nursing home.”