by G. S. Bailey
“We’re ready!” Clair announced, shaking off the weird, unsettling notion that was making no sense, anyway.
The guys were in the lounge room watching television. Brent took Amanda in his arms, and they kissed. David was dressed in dark trousers and a silver-grey shirt. He looked different to Clair. He was wearing a nice fresh aftershave and looked more refined somehow. Clair closed her eyes and melted into his kiss. The other two were falling in love, so it was like pretending to do that too. She allowed David to control the moment, and he kissed her several times before his sister cleared her throat, waiting.
Brent was in jeans and a light coloured shirt. His build was slighter than David’s. He had an intelligent face, and Clair liked his eyes, the way they were all over his new girlfriend. He was hardly offering Clair a glance.
Brent drove. David claimed the front seat while the girls got in the back together. Amanda clung to Clair a bit as they entered the bar and grill. She was nervous, and Clair played the part of big sister, all cool and confident, but it was only play-acting because Clair was feeling strangely nervous too. She found herself watching David eat his food and noticing the way his smile reacted to things being said, and the way his eyes would intensify when he was being serious, and the way they would soften back to what appeared to be normal when he was joking around. She was noticing his teeth and how he almost had dimples in his cheeks, but not quite. She could see that his hairline was arched and a bit thin, and she decided it would probably recede before he got much older.
Clair watched the guy all through dinner, then she dragged him onto the dance floor when a band started playing some classic rock. She danced with him and with Amanda and with Brent, who had loosened up with a few drinks. And later in the night when the karaoke started, stupidity took over completely and Clair watched David singing, quite well, and she watched the crowd cheer her on when she joined him on the stage and they did Mustang Sally together.
She ended up alone with Amanda after that. The guys were getting more drinks.
“My, gosh, he’s really good!” she said excitedly. “Did you hear that?”
“I know,” his sister said. “He can sing with the band too. Like, without the karaoke.”
“Oh, shit—really?”
“Uh huh… He can sing Amazing Grace and make you cry. Without any music at all.”
Amanda was drunk. She was a happy drunk.
“You really like him, don’t you?” she went on. “I knew you would.”
“Yeah—I really like him,” Clair confessed.
“You look awesome together,” the indelible matchmaker pressed onward.
“So do you two,” Clair pointed out. It was true.
“I know!” Amanda gushed, taking both of Clair’s hands and squeezing them. “I might sleep with him tonight, but I have to sober up first.”
“Me too,” Clair said.
“Ooh—slut!” Amanda cried, pointing.
“Whore!” Clair said in reply.
The guys were back. “Who’s a whore?” David asked.
“That chick over there,” Clair lied, making them both look in the general direction of the dance floor.
“Hey, Brent, you have to check out a car registration for us!” Clair said, suddenly remembering the big old car in her granddad’s garage.
“Yeah—what car?” he asked. He was also fairly drunk. He’d already announced it would be a walk home, and he’d get the car in the morning.
“It’s an old LTD up at the mansion. We found it locked up in a shed,” David explained.
Clair had David’s phone in her purse. “What’s your mobile number, Brent?”
He called it out, and she sent the message to him.
“I’ll see what I can find out at work on Wednesday,” he said, checking it.
They stayed late and did more karaoke and dancing. Amanda and Brent were hand-in-hand on the walk home, so Clair slipped her hand into David’s. It would have been weird otherwise, she reasoned. Hands were held all the way to bedroom doors, and Clair rocked back against the closed door of the bedroom she was led to. She was kissed there while her new dress was tugged upward and off, and her underwear were removed and tossed aside, along with the clothing David had been wearing.
Clair was guided naked to the man’s bed, and she was made love to tenderly. It was different than screwing on the lounge. There was no talk, no trying to decide what was happening and what it would lead to. She just shut up and let it happen, and she was kissed and held and ravaged then stroked and spooned as she melted into slumber.
Chapter 16
“What?” David exclaimed as he sat up in bed. “What is it?”
“It was just a dream,” Clair said.
She was sitting there beside him. Her scream had woken him.
“Are you okay?” David stroked her mussed-up hair. It was too dark to see her face. He kissed it, anyway. “You have freaky dreams, eh?”
She snuggled to his chest as they lay back together. “Really freaky… I’ve always had bad dreams, but it’s every night lately.”
David yawned. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.” He hadn’t really woken up.
“You will? You’ll protect me?” Her voice was a sweet murmur.
“Sure I will. Me Tarzan.”
She giggled, and he felt her lips press to his. He responded, but sleepily, and he cuddled her and drifted back off.
The next thing David heard was voices in the kitchen. He was alone in bed. He could hear his sister, Clair and Brent. He pulled a pillow over his head and denied the morning. He had succeeded in going back to sleep when he was jumped on. He was on his stomach, and someone had straddled him. They had long hair, and it tickled the side of his face as his ear was whispered into.
“Wake up,” the soft, sweet voice entreated. “Come on we have to go.”
“Go where?” David didn’t move. He opened one eye.
“On a boat.”
“What boat?”
“Brent’s grandfather’s boat.”
“Old Morg’s boat? Seriously?”
Morgan Oldfield had a nine metre, six berth sports cruiser. It was the envy of The Cove.
David had flipped over. He was being kissed. “Good morning,” the angelic creature still straddling him said.
“We’re going somewhere in old Morg’s boat?” he had to confirm.
Clair frowned. “Who cares about a stupid boat?” She kissed him again. “You’ve got morning breath.”
David licked at his furry teeth. “I’ll brush.”
She was sitting up, still straddling his hips, and smiling down at him. She had on long black boots, grey tights and jean shorts with a big knitted cardigan.
“You look cute today.”
“Thanks. So do you. But I can’t believe you’re still asleep.”
“It’s Sunday. People sleep in on Sunday.”
“What about tomorrow and Tuesday? Do you have to work?”
“I could take a few days off. Why?”
“Well, we were just talking about it… Brent has three days off, and if Amanda can get out of work tomorrow we can go cruising up the coast. There’s a resort that we’re trying to get into. It’s off season so we might be lucky.”
“Well?” Amanda asked, poking her head around the door.
“Can we get in?” Clair asked.
“Uh huh. And I’ve got tomorrow off.”
Both women looked to David. “Shit, yeah!” he said. “We’re taking old Morg’s boat?”
Clair rolled her eyes and kissed him again. Amanda shrieked and ran. David thought of his no-strings code. It had slipped his mind the previous night, and he had indulged in a fantasy about making love to a woman he could marry one day. Not that he necessarily would, just that it was a possibility.
He had imagined being in love, but then again, he always did when he was with a woman. He had a wild imagination about such things. It had gotten him hurt recently. He needed to remember his new code, he reminded himsel
f as Clair lay beside him cuddling.
“It’s different here,” she said wistfully.
“Different?”
“It’s real somehow… In a good and a bad way.”
David kissed her forehead. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been feeling weird ever since I got here. I feel scared but it’s exciting. I don’t usually feel scared or excited, not much, anyway.”
This was interesting. “Scared and excited about what?”
She lifted to look at him. “This is exciting. You are.”
“I am?” David needed to avoid making a joke. He didn’t know what to say.
“It feels different, being with you. It feels real.”
“And that scares you?” David liked where this was going.
She laid her head back down. “No—that’s the exciting part. Something else feels scary. Something happened here. It feels like I needed to come back here for some reason.”
David stroked her. “That’s the bad dreams?”
“Partly… I’ve always had them. Always something huge trying to smother me, and I have to run but I can’t. It’s different monsters but the same dream, but it’s not just the dreams. There are places here and things I remember from when I was little. Do you remember stuff from when you were like, five and six?”
“Not much… Flashes of things. I remember starting school, but it’s only like a picture in mind of lining up at the assembly and looking at Mum with the other mothers. It’s like a snap-shot, and I remember feeling frightened. I also remember being pulled out of the water after falling off the pier when I was about five.”
“See, I never had that, but I’m starting to,” Clair said. “I remembered starting a new school when we moved houses once, but that was like the first day of my life. I only knew of coming here for Christmas holidays because I was told about it. The old house in Brisbane is familiar when I go there, and my first school, and now things here are sort of coming back to me, but it has been a complete blank until now. This was just a dot on a map that I’ve always been curious to check out one day.”
Clair was quiet for a moment before continuing.
“I remember that mansion. I’ve been inside it before. I remember the marble foyer. And I remember the old lighthouse. I used to play there with someone, I think. We had a game about being princesses, and the lighthouse was a castle. I was there the other day, and bits of it came back to me. And I remember there was a crawl space under the stairs but it’s a brick wall now. We used to hide under there. It had a trapdoor. I think I remembered it because of the trapdoor in Granddad’s garage.”
“Sounds pretty normal, remembering stuff when you see it again,” David ventured supportively. “We’ve probably got heaps of stuff stored in the memory banks that we don’t register until something happens.”
“Yeah—I know. I guess it’s more of an unsettled feeling than it is of being scared. I don’t have any rational fears about anything here. My parents and grandparents have never mentioned anything. I was the only child back then, and Mum and Dad used to send me to visit while they had their grown-up holiday for a few weeks once a year. Then my little brother came along, and that was the end of that, plus Nan and Pop moved into Melbourne.”
Clair rolled away, taking the doona with her and leaving David to cover his privates. He was still nude, and the bedroom door was wide open. “Hey!” he complained.
“Well, get up! You big sleepy-head.”
“Alright. Make me some eggs, woman!”
She tossed a glare back from the door. “Hey, Mandy, your brother’s a chauvinist pig!” she called out. “He called me woman and said I have to make him food.”
David pulled some clothes on, brushed his teeth and went out to be served a big fried breakfast. He pulled Clair onto his lap for some fresh-breath kissing before he started eating.
“I hope the meal is to your satisfaction, sir,” she breathed into his mouth. “I’ll bring you some coffee.”
The meal was to David’s satisfaction, so too the lovely waitress who sat there opposite watching him enjoy every mouthful.
“Mandy said there’s formal dining at this resort,” she told him.
David had never been there, but his sister had been a few times and raved about the place. It was newly expanded and refurbished only three years ago.
“You can try out your new suit,” Clair added.
“Okay. Did you bring something you can wear? All your stuff looks good enough to go formal.”
“I’m sharing with Mandy. She’s got nice dresses we can wear.”
Amanda and Brent had gone to get his clothes for the trip and the boat keys. Clair slunk back onto David’s lap after he’d finished eating. “We’ve got a little while,” she said suggestively. The warmth of her light, slender form was giving David an erection. “Do you want a lap dance?”
“I want a lap dance,” David said, fast. “I absolutely want a lap dance!”
She ground down onto him then edged off his lap and moved behind him. “Hands by your sides and no touching,” she breathed into his ear.
David pushed the table away and gripped the seat of his chair with both hands.
She smiled. “Good boy! And remember, if you try and touch, those two big bouncers over there are going to break all of your fingers.”
She turned and sat on his lap, tossing her head back and swishing her hair in his face.
“Got that?”
“Got it! No touching!”
“Oh, there’s touching,” she corrected him, lifting and deliberately wiggling her bottom on his erection. “But only I’m allowed to do it.”
“Oh, shit!” he groaned.
She was up off him, and she slunk around behind to press her fingers into his shoulders. “Give me something to dance to,” she said. “Hum me some music—something raunchy if you like.”
David gave her the intro to Joe Cocker’s You Can Leave Your Hat On. He hummed the opening bars then launched into the lyrics as well, doing his best Cocker impersonation. He had done it karaoke plenty of times.
Clair squealed in delight as she gyrated and ground against him. She had moves, David noticed, thrilled. She worked her way back onto his lap and squirmed down but only teasingly. He forgot some of the words to the song but improvised with more humming.
“Bugger the bouncers,” he said suddenly, and he grabbed her and kissed her.
“Hey—that’s not allowed!” she complained, squealing.
He carried her to the lounge and dropped down with her still in his arms. They kissed and cuddled.
“What are we doing?” she said to him, coming up for air. “What is this?”
“I don’t know,” David replied honestly. “I don’t know shit, Clair… I’m rubbish at relationships, so I’m trying not to think too hard.”
He kissed the woman again, and she responded. The door opened, though, and Amanda and Brent walked in.
“At it again,” Brent said to Amanda. “They’re worse than us.”
“So, let’s step it up,” Amanda replied, turning and flinging her arms around Brent’s neck.
They kissed, and David met Clair’s eyes. He was lying beside her on the lounge. She was fiddling with his shirt.
“So, let’s not think, huh?” she said to him. “Let’s just see what happens.”
“Yeah, let’s just see what happens,” David agreed, kissing her quickly then lifting and pulling her to her feet.
“So, we’ve got old Morg’s boat?” he said to Brent. “Awesome, man!”
“He said if we bust it up, we have to buy it off him,” Brent replied.
“Are you guys ready?” Amanda tugged at Brent anxiously. “Let’s go!”
David quickly packed a bag and took his new suit from the wardrobe. There was designated parking behind the fish market where there was a separate marina for pleasure craft. There were only half a dozen boats moored there. Morgan Oldfield’s cruiser was by far the most extravagant of them.
&n
bsp; “This is luxury,” Clair remarked, looking around inside the cabin at the galley and berths. “This can’t possibly belong to that funny old man I met when I first arrived. He looked homeless.”
Brent chuckled. “That’s my grandfather for you… This is his life’s savings right here.”
“Oh, we had better be careful with it, then. Are you sure it’s alright?” Amanda asked.
“It’s fine. I use it all the time, and we’re not going to be using the cabin at all. We’ll be there in a couple of hours, and other than maybe a cruise around the island, it will be locked up in the resort marina.”
The boat was smooth and powerful. They decided that since Brent couldn’t have a drink they’d all wait until they got there to start the party. David was in Heaven with Clair wanting to sit so close all the time. She was beside him with her legs on his lap as they cruised out through the headlands and into the open water. She was looking back at the lighthouse and the Mulvane mansion, seemingly in deep thought. He didn’t disturb her. He just waited until she came out of her trance and met her cool, salty lips.
Chapter 17
From the position of Nell’s bedroom she could see the entire cove and simply swing her telescope around to look out to sea. There was a blind spot between the headlands where boats would disappear then come back into view sometime later. The old fishing trawlers would take ages to emerge, but the cruiser with the blond girl on-board was travelling much faster.
Nell focused on the boat. She couldn’t make out faces anymore, but she watched the shiny vessel slowly cruise away until there was just a white dot that disappeared into the horizon. She so wanted to do that, to go to the horizon and beyond. She had been to town the past two nights in John’s car. He was coming for a visit again that afternoon. Nell loved seeing him and her mother together. She had asked her mother to invite him to stay for dinner, and she said she would see.
Nell left her room and went downstairs. Her mother was outside reading. Nell took a breath and stepped out onto the veranda. Her mother glanced up and Nell smiled. She looked around. It was sunny and warm. There was the smell of the ocean in the air and the singing of cicadas in the trees. The ground was moving a little, or it seemed to be, but that was just giddiness.