by G. S. Bailey
Nell released her grip on the door frame and stepped across the veranda to the stair rail. “Are you okay, sweetheart?” her mother asked. Nell nodded, gritting her teeth in determination and defying her thumping heart and cold sweat. She had not walked down those stairs alone in a long time.
She moved down one step, and stood there gaining balance and equilibrium. In her mind the ground was still wonky and distorting this way and that. She knew it really wasn’t, though. She closed her eyes, but that never helped, so she opened them again and concentrated on the next step.
She edged down sideways, gripping the rail, and brought her other foot to that level as well. There were two more steps. The door was far away now, but she didn’t look back at it. She stretched a foot down to the next step and almost sat as she moved her weight over it. She was tired of watching television, though. She wanted to go to the horizon on a boat, and she remained squatting and gained the final step then the gravel of the walkway beyond. She was crouching with her feet spread and her hands finding the ground to help her balance.
She remained there bent over on her hands and feet, looking down the driveway and across to the grass where there was a seat under a tree that her mother often used for her reading.
Nell brought her feet together and bent her knees so that she was squatting on her haunches. She still held the ground but just with one hand for balance while she took some breaths and tried to calm down. The doctor had given her breathing exercises. She remembered them. She took deep breaths, releasing slowly and thinking, everything’s fine, everything’s alright.
She sat on the ground and looked back at her mother, forcing a smile. Her mother had her hands clasped over her mouth and her eyes wide.
“Enough, Mum!” Nell said. “Enough!”
“I know,” her mother replied, tearing up.
There was another chair along the front of the house that was less daunting than the one across the driveway. Nell set her mind on it. She decided to crawl. It wasn’t far. She got close then stood and took the last few steps upright, gripping the armrest and sitting back down. It was a bench seat, and her mother approached and sat with her.
“It’s not so bad,” Nell said. “I can do this.”
The ground had steadied. Her heart wasn’t thumping anymore. She stood and turned around to face the seat, releasing the armrest and standing up straight. She tugged her jumper down, tidying it. There was grass on her pants, and her knees were wet, but that didn’t matter. She turned and stepped onto the driveway. She walked slowly, her arms out for balance and keeping her eyes on the other chair. Her legs were as if gone and she was floating. She reached the chair, gripped it and sat down, looking back across the driveway at her mother.
Nell then looked at the house. She felt exhilaration, not fear. She had been chained to that house for so long, and she was suddenly free. The sensation was so much more intense than being in the car. It was a feeling of having seized control.
There was another seat. It was a wooden table and chair setting under a tree. Nell stood more confidently and walked slowly toward it. She looked to her mother watching. “Can we have dinner out here tonight, Mum?”
“A barbeque?” her mother asked.
“Yes. A barbeque,” Nell agreed, reaching that destination and sliding onto the bench seat to lean on the table. “We could ask John to stay, and we could have a barbeque party…”
Her mother sat down opposite. She looked around at the house and up at a spotlight that hadn’t been turned on in years. “I wonder if John could get that old light to work,” she offered casually.
“So, if I get better, you and John could get married, couldn’t you, Mum?”
“Married?” her mother returned with an animated glare.
“Well, why not? You love each other.”
“Yes, we do, sweetheart, but it’s not that simple.”
“How is it not simple—if I’m better?”
Her mother squeezed her hand. “I’m going to call John and tell him to bring his barbeque and some big green prawns… Any special requests?”
“Could you tell him to wear that aftershave again—the one from yesterday? It smelled really nice.”
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” her mother agreed with a laugh. “I’ll tell him.”
Chapter 18
Clair accepted David’s hand as she stepped up onto the pier at Lorton Island Resort. She was in Disneyland. It was not so much the three hour cruise on glassy still water and a perfect sunny day. It wasn’t so much the resort she stood there looking at, though it looked magnificent, set in lush gardens and on a private sandy beach, with pools and outdoor bars and shaded deck chairs mostly folded down for the cooler weather, it seemed. There weren’t many people around, and only a few swimming in what turned out to be a heated pool, which Clair discovered when she dipped a foot in as she walked past. No, she wasn’t in Disneyland over the beautiful scene before her. She was from the Gold Coast, and such was commonplace there. Clair was completely off kilter over something raw and deep having become exposed within her. She could sense it. She was having doubts about the things that were rock-solid only a week ago. She was questioning the meaning of her life, and whether or not she needed to do a complete overhaul.
Clair had seen a vacant shop down one of the streets of Everly Cove. It was small and old-looking, and it had an apartment upstairs. She had seen it on her walk around town when she first arrived and catalogued it in mind without any particular interest, other than the vague notion that something like that back home would be interesting. She had glanced at the For Rent sign and the Upstairs Flat notice in the window a few times in passing, and driving by on the way to the marina that morning, she had taken a good long look with growing interest.
“You guys take that room. We’ll have this one,” Amanda said, and Clair was ushered by David into a crisp, softly decorated room. It was hued in beige and cream, offset by dark leather couches and chairs. The bed was huge and firm as Clair flopped back on it dreamily.
Yes, she had fixated on that little timber-box shop for rent and built a whole new life around it during the cruise. The hum of the motor and the gentle breeze and the endless ocean had provided the ideal setting for dreaminess. Her safe little world had cracked open when she hired a car and drove up into the mountains. She didn’t realise it at the time, but she was shedding a cocoon and morphing into someone fresh and accessible. Her tough self-reliance had been a sham. It had abandoned her upon arriving at Everly Cove. She suddenly needed people.
Clair sat up and looked at the man she wanted to get to know. She couldn’t imagine being with him and being a stripper at the same time. She was finished with all of that. She had enough savings to make a start with a modest floristry business. She would be enquiring about the lease on that shop as soon as they got back to The Cove. Her neighbour Eloisa had friends her own age and community nursing support. There was nothing to go back for other than to pack up her apartment and finalise the month-to-month lease she had on it.
“What are you thinking about?” David asked her.
She sat up looking at him, but her mind was still off chasing quickly solidifying ideas.
“I was thinking about how nice this holiday has turned out,” she lied. She wasn’t quite ready to announce anything yet.
It also occurred to her that she was assuming David would be interested in something without a two week cut-off. He was actually rebounding from a serious relationship, and perhaps a holiday fling was all he needed.
He sat beside her on the bed. “I say we check out that hot-tub and the indoor pool first off.”
“I say, good idea, Tarzan. Let’s go!”
The hot-tub was enormous. The main pool was also heated but offered the perfect cool-off after steaming it up for a while. It was just a matter of flopping over the side of one into the other, kind of like a big seal or walrus might.
Clair and David spent an hour relaxing and chatting with the few other guests enjoy
ing the pools as well. They found Amanda and Brent again at dinner, and a piano bar drew them for cocktails afterward.
Clair liked dancing with a gardener in a suit. The contrast of the fine garment and his rough hands was nice. Later that night when he was inside of her, she found herself opening more than her legs. She was opening her mind and her heart.
“Like that?” he breathed into her hair.
“No—slower!”
He slowed his thrusting. “Like that?”
“Yes, like that,” Clair moaned. Her heart was tingling as she clung to his rippling back and gave herself over completely.
“Me Tarzan,” he said.
“No, no Tarzan,” she told him.
He lifted her with his erection and she bit into his shoulder.
“I want you,” she uttered. “I need this,” she went on breathlessly, fearlessly.
“You need this?” he said, curling his hips and spearing her then grinding into her and jolting her body with another short, powerful thrust. “You need that?”
“Yes, I do…” He wasn’t getting her at all, but that didn’t matter.
He held her head and spoke in her ear as he ground into her. He taunted her with his words and claimed her with the thrust of his body and the surge of his penis. He drove her into the bedhead and through several deep, thumping orgasms, but none of that registered as Clair’s heart exploded in a burst of tingling ecstasy and ripped her right out of her body.
What Clair felt while making love that night took her somewhere she had never been before. It took her to a place filled with trust and giving, a place where she could give of herself. It took her to a place where letting go meant that she was empty, and therefore open to be filled with the most amazing rush of yummy, sweet, utterly mind-blowing indulgence.
“You alright?” the hunky, sweaty gardener asked her. He had rolled off. She was still floating around the ceiling like a helium filled balloon.
“I’m good,” Clair said. Her body was actually just lying there as he had left it.
It clicked in her mind. She was an intelligent woman. She rationalised things. She got that it was the flashes of childhood memory that had opened her and penetrated her stonewalls. She understood that the Gold Coast only ever required an unfeeling response. There was nothing there demanding anything deeper. She could live her stripper life only ever utilising the outer layers of her skin, parting her legs for some physical pleasure at the depth of the guy’s penis.
“I’m better than good,” she said, rolling over to cuddle up. “This is amazing.”
“What is, the room or the sex?”
“You are… I am!” Clair said unabashedly. Being a whole person was amazing. “This is different for me,” she went on, lifting to seek David’s eyes. “I know this is only rebound sex for you, but I really like you, and this feels so nice.”
His eyes changed. Tarzan vanished.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to get all serious,” she added quickly.
He was quiet for a while. He had an arm over his eyes as she fiddled with his chest hair, regretting having let her thoughts go vocal. It felt good to talk, though. She wanted to.
“I don’t really know what rebound sex is,” he said, swallowing. “I’ve been trying to think no strings all the time, like we said.” His hand moved from her hip with his fingers lightly running up her back then down again. “I don’t think I’m very good at no strings,” he said with a chuckle.
Clair smiled without letting him see. “That’s okay… I’m unravelling here, so there’s probably strings all over me.”
He kissed her hair. “Why are you unravelling?”
“Because I can’t close the door.” It was the way it occurred to her just then. “It’s like someone shoved their foot in the door, and I can’t close it. But it’s actually good stuff rushing in. Only, I usually slam the door on any good stuff.”
He was still stroking her back. His breath was in her hair. “Why shut the door on good stuff?”
And that was the sixty-four thousand dollar question.
“I don’t know,” Clair said. She didn’t know.
“Is it like you said before, about being scared and excited at the same time?”
“Yes.”
“So, if it’s just happening now it might be to do with when you were little,” David ventured.
He was a smart gardener.
“Maybe,” Clair agreed, evasively. She didn’t want to go there. She reasoned that and didn’t understand it, but she really didn’t want to talk about her childhood at all. “Anyway, we can just see what happens, can’t we? We don’t have to worry about strings and labels, do we?” She had lifted to find his eyes again. She kissed him.
“What?” he said quizzically. He had a funny look on his face. “What—you want Tarzan now?” he challenged her playfully. “You want more, eh?”
“Yes! I want more… I want Tarzan!” Clair squealed as he tickled her. And she laughed and ended up grinding back against him as he pulled the covers up and hugged her from behind. She gave herself to him again, opening to the frightening depths their lovemaking had already touched that night. She gave of herself completely and was ravaged and bitten and sucked on until she was blotchy and sticky all over.
In the morning she woke with a familiar menstrual cramp that put the brakes on the physical side of the rather stringy little romance she and David were then rolling around in.
They cruised around the island the next day, finding a small village and a weathered little shop with the most amazing shell ornaments and jewellery. It was tended by a shrivelled old woman with grey hair to her waist and a face of deep lines.
“That must have been the witch.” Amanda had heard a story about an old woman who was reputed to have mystical powers. She was apparently from a strange religious sect where, many years ago, she had lost her young children and gone crazy with grief.
“Didn’t see a witch’s broom.” David shrugged to Brent.
“Or a pointy black hat,” Brent offered.
“I didn’t see any other people,” Clair said, looking back at the tiny village. The old woman had come from a sweet smelling room adjoining the small shop. There was smoke rising from that wooden house and there were three other houses visible amongst the trees.
The village was the only other development on the small island, it seemed, and was soon lost in the distance as they cruised around the northern most point. That brought them back to the resort in time to dress up for dinner and a dance at the piano bar again.
The balmy, early-spring weather ended on the Tuesday morning with clouds rolling in and the wind gusting from the south. The ocean was rough and choppy on the way back to The Cove. Clair was sitting next to David under a canvas sheet protecting them from sea spray and the drizzling rain. She was cuddled up with quite severe cramps and feeling decidedly sorry for herself. The headlands had been in view for a while. The mansion and lighthouse looked bright in spite of the gloomy sky. She was looking from one to the other and at each tall headland. She was staring at the rock faces—at the faces in the rock. She remembered Princess Veil and Princess Song.
“What is it?” David asked her. The darkness descending upon her must have been evident. There was something terrifying in that vague memory.
“I used to play a game up there… I was a princess and there was an evil king.” There were actually two evil kings, Clair recalled. Each face of rock was an evil king. The thought of that gripped her and made her feel sick. She almost vomited, but the feeling swept onward and abandoned her as they passed between the headlands and entered the cove.
“Are you alright?” David checked with concern.
She nodded. “It’s just this,” she lied, indicating her menstrual discomfort, although it was that too.
She looked back at the headlands and pieced that frightening sensation she had briefly experienced with the feeling she always woke up with after one of her nightmares. She saw the towering pillars of rock and s
aw herself running from them and unable to get away. She thought of Princess Song. She had dark hair and lived in the mansion. An exciting yet incredibly uneasy feeling swept over Clair as she thought of the girl locked up in that mansion right then, of a girl about her age who would have been there when she was staying next door. She thought again of the marble floor and the paint brush, but concluding that memory evaded her reach. She couldn’t see beyond the small foyer. She didn’t know what she was doing there.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” David asked again. The boat was stationary.
Clair shook off the weirdness of all that. She made a sad face. “A cup of tea and a lie down, please?”
“We can do that,” David said.
“And can I have another rainwater bath?” she tried sweetly. “Please?”
“We can do that too.”
Clair was taken back to that cosy little house with the high ceilings and small rooms. She was given tea and made to lie down for an hour while her bath was being boiled up. She then soaked for another hour and moaned and groaned her way through an evening watching television and being cuddled in front of a fire. She often had to work at a strip joint on a bad cramp day, so it was quite a novelty being able to laze around playing up for attention. The big gardener she was playing up to was attentive, racking up lots of nice-guy points that Clair would be happy to repay later. She imagined taking care of him if he got sick sometime, liking the thought of doing that.
“You’re like a big teddy bear,” she said, snuggling up to him. “Do you treat all your girlfriends like this?”
“Told you before, I can’t remember any of them,” he replied offhandedly. “Girlfriend, eh?” he added.
Clair didn’t respond to that. She let it slide for now.
“I want to go and check out a little shop for rent tomorrow. Will you come with me?” she asked.
He took a moment to respond. “You’re going to rent a shop here?”
“Maybe… What do you think?”