“That one.” I pointed a finger attached to the hand that had my hospital ID tag around the wrist.
My naked forearms had goose bumps running all the way up them. The room was cool, but that wasn’t the reason. Sarah was right next to me. My arm hair bristled and stood on end, almost as if it was trying to reach out and touch her.
I watched Sarah move the mouse and click on the link to a website called “GarboForever.com” when a strange sensation overcame me. I felt a heightened awareness to her presence. A sense that I was experiencing something new and exciting, yet oddly familiar. Sarah radiated déjà vu from every pore. We were in this together now.
The sensation lingered. The simplest movement of her bare arm next to mine gave me an adrenaline rush. A glance of her color-contrasted black bra, visible underneath her white scrubs had the same effect. I crossed my legs, highly aware that I wasn’t wearing anything under my hospital gown. I had to get a grip.
Her eyes watched the progress bar while the web page slowly loaded. Smokey cool hazel eyes. Sarah’s eyes were the star attraction. Making this the only time in my memory I was happy to have a bad internet connection. Time to watch and prepare myself for engagement.
We huddled together in the glow of the computer screen as if for warmth. A strand of Sarah’s long black hair danced in the electricity-charged air between us. I moved in to smell her lavender scent, mindful of our reflection in the computer monitor. I didn’t want to give away my exact location. Didn’t want to give the impression I was ogling and sniffing her like a desperate, amorous hound dog. I stifled a whimper.
The website finally came up. Reluctantly, I dragged my eyeballs back toward the monitor and feigned enough self-control to instruct Sarah to scroll down the fan site’s home page to the quotes section. A gorgeous portrait of Garbo came into view and stared back at us. Taken during her silent-film period, the movie star was approximately Sarah’s age in the picture. My eyes wandered from one beautiful face to the other. One made of black and white pixels, the other flesh and blood. While Sarah looked for the quote I wanted, I stared at her profile bathed in the light of the computer screen against the darkened room.
“Hitler was a big fan of mine,” Sarah read aloud. “He kept writing and inviting me to come to Germany. And if the war hadn’t started when it did, I would have gone, and I would have taken a gun out of my purse and shot him, because I’m the only person who would not have been searched.”
I watched Sarah while Garbo’s words echoed in my mind. Watched her eyes gaze at the screen. Her lips moved while she silently reread the quote.
Now I knew why it was so important when the war had started. Sarah knew it too. It’s because Garbo had been on the Athenia when Seth said she had been. On the eve of another world war.
“I never knew,” Sarah said and turned to me, excitement shining in her eyes, her lips just inches from mine. “Then is what Seth is saying true?”
I looked at Sarah’s mouth while the rush of pounding blood filled my ears. My heart pumped faster and faster as my senses cried out for release. A collision was now inevitable. This was no longer about Seth. Or even Garbo. I braced myself for impact. I was going in.
“James?” The word was a whisper and it came to my ears out of sync with those lips, the distance between us closing fast. I was either going to stick the landing or die on impact. My kiss cut Sarah’s next words off. Her beautiful lips conformed to mine. Her sweet breath escaped into me. Filled me up. While Garbo stared out at us from the monitor, I kissed Sarah as if my life depended upon it.
Then she pulled away. We stared into each other’s eyes. She grabbed my hand. Steadied me. And I closed my eyes and fell back in.
Now Sarah was kissing me back. My ears rang with the sound of castle walls crumbling, freeing me from the claustrophobic weight of my armor, enabling me to hold her with no self-imposed barriers between us.
Sarah led me by the hand to the deserted third floor of Mercy Hospital, but she may as well transported me up the stairway to heaven. I had no idea there was a deserted third floor to the hospital and didn’t think to ask what had been there before or why it even existed. I couldn’t think of anything at all, except for what was happening in the moment.
We walked down a long hallway, and I looked in one empty room after another. Our hands playfully intertwined, then untwined over and over as we walked. The feeling of walking beside Sarah made me warm with the feeling of belonging. I felt her presence next to me and gazed into the empty rooms and started seeing ghosts. People from my past, the present, and even a few strangers now populated these rooms, staring at me as I passed by. Me and Sarah holding hands.
I found myself in a room looking out a window at a lamppost illuminating a large triangle-shaped beam of falling snow. I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. How peaceful and quiet. Sarah put her arm around my waist and pulled me close. Then she snuggled her head in the nook of my neck, watched the snow with me. My reflection in the window broke out in a shit-eating grin. All of the sudden, I was one lucky bastard.
“I’ll bet you’re good with the ladies. Bet you’re wicked,” she whispered. Wow. What a line. The guy in the window winked at me. Some lucky bastard, alright.
As far as wish-fulfillment, this was stacking up to be the best day of my goddamn life. Sarah was gorgeous. The most beautiful woman in the world as far as I was concerned. Her sheer physical attraction was so intense, I could feel it pulling on me. I was in her orbit, for sure.
Suddenly, I couldn’t get the original Sea of Love song out of my mind. Mom had played the original, 1959 Phil Phillips’ version for me on her old .45 record player to get me to fall asleep. Sarah caught my eye while I stared straight out the window, listening.
“You okay, Romeo?”
I looked over at her, refocused on the cluster of freckles bridging her nose while my internal soundtrack played. I hummed along with the tune while I gazed at her.
“Never better.”
Then I pulled away from the window. Backed away and sat on the bed. Stared over at Sarah standing in silhouette in front of the window. I soaked in her essence while she turned to me. The storm raged outside, swirling around her lithe frame from behind. I stared at Sarah intensely, registering her every move. I instinctually knew I would be spending many a daydream in this room and wanted to get every little detail right.
She came to me, her silhouette casting me in shadow while the snow continued its silent descent behind her. I pulled her in by her hips, until they hit me mid-chest. She ran the tips of her fingers through my hair as I looked up at her, her beautiful breasts at eye-level.
“What if someone comes?” I said.
Sarah she pulled back, the light from the lamppost—diffused by the swirling snow—made her nurses’ uniform glow around the edges. “That’s the entire point, sport.”
“I mean, ‘somebody’.”
“Then you’ll just have to contain yourself, won’t you. That means no screaming.” She kicked off her shoes and slowly pulled off her scrubs, letting them drop to the floor and pool around her ankles. Then she shimmied her cotton panties off and unfastened her lacy, black bra. She stood there for a moment as the lamplight created a halo around her, as if she was a gift from the gods, then she stepped past me, leaving her clothes in a heap on the floor, pulled down the quilt, and slipped into bed. “Remember, No screaming.”
She rolled to her side facing me. If she minded me glaring at her, she didn’t let on. Instead, she propped her head on one hand and absently ran the other over her bare, curving hips, and across her stomach. The hand finally rested cupping her right breast.
I gulped. “I can’t make any promises.”
“Your turn.” She gestured with the hand atop her breast to lift up my hospital gown.
A feeling of heady, lazy warmth moved through me. I slowly got up off the bed until my shadow overtook the bed, casting her in shades of silver and blue. I reached around to the back of my gown and pulled the knot I had
made of the strings. Sarah smiled up at me as I tugged and tugged—but the damn thing wouldn’t come undone.
“Uh, I think I’m stuck.”
“Turn around,” she said with a smile as she got up on her knees. I sucked in my breath and did as I was told.
“Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
Her hands caressed my butt while they made their way up to the strings of my hospital gown. My skin sizzled and cracked in the cool air. I stared off into the snow falling outside the window and watched her reflection in the glass.
“Her lover, tall as the town tower clock,” Sarah said behind me. “Samson-syrup-gold-maned, whacking thighed and piping hot.”
“Who’s that?” I said, half-dreaming at the snow.
“Dylan Thomas,” she said and pulled the knot out. “You need to read more. But for now, turn around, tiger.”
When I did, Sarah pulled off my gown in one quick gesture and I found myself naked before her. Her face a head above mine, she pressed her body into me and everyplace fit tight and true, like two lovemaking peas in a perfect pod.
She leaned down, cast her beautiful face in shadow, as her lips met mine. She kissed me deep. Tantric deep. The snowflakes falling outside the window blurred. I fought to keep my balance on the floor.
Sarah fell back, and I joined her on the hospital bed. She pulled me under the covers and the warmth our bodies made instantly sent electric charges straight to my groin. Sarah had shot any performance anxiety straight out of me in one magical thunderbolt. Something clicked and our bodies began to move together. Effortlessly.
I touched her lightly on the hip and an electric charge jumped between us like one of those lightening machines in a carny funhouse. A smile plastered itself permanently on my face while Sarah played with my chest hairs. I could barely breathe, her touch felt so good.
I stroked the small of her back then came around to the front and flicked my finger tips across her stomach. I had no idea what made me do it, but she shivered in response. We kissed long and sweet and deep. I pressed the length of my body against hers, cupped her buttocks, my dick pressed hard against her thighs.
Sarah groaned, opened her eyes wide in the dark and gave me a blazing stare, straight into me. That was love wasn’t it? When someone looks at you and sees you. Sees past all the insecurities and neuroses, all the defenses to the bare, exposed and vulnerable inner-self. I was sure of it.
The next few moments I felt more connected to her than I had to anyone or anything in the last two decades. My nerve endings sizzled with undulating waves of intense pleasure as I slid my hands over her breasts and she arched her back towards me. Then she lay back as I kissed her neck and nipples. Sarah pushed her body against mine, wanting more, but I kept my rhythm. Until it became her own. Until we breathed with the same little gasps.
I was nothing but nerve endings, blazing with urgent energy when she reached down and guided me inside her. A momentary panic came over me, an overstimulation of pleasure, and I felt my consciousness dissolving. Sarah craned her face towards me, hands tight around my head, fingers pressing sharp to my scalp, and then laid her cheek against mine for a mooring. Was she coming undone as well? Breaking apart, shattering into particles, the same waves shuddering through her?
She heaved against me with crazy strength, hips pushing hard against mine, legs wrapping tight around my buttocks while I thrust deeper and deeper inside her. Her breasts pressed into me, mashed against my chest until there was no space left between us.
Then she tightened her grip even more. Crushed me to her tighter, pulling me into her until I felt her body shudder with pleasure. Then the wave washed over me, a riptide that pulled me under and then released me in a thunderous crash of warmth and pulsing release. Soon after, Sarah’s strength deserted her and her arms fell back limply on the bed. The fierceness of her lovemaking was spent.
After a time, I rolled onto my side and lay facing her. I gave her little kisses all over her smiling face and closed eyes. Sarah turned over and with the flat of my warm hand, I tracked a route across her shoulders down her back and over the rise of her buttocks. I moved back to the small of her back, a slow circle, my touch never leaving her skin. Traced the route again and again while Sarah let out little giggles.
“That tickles,” she said.
“In a bad way?”
“No. In a great way.”
I gazed at her face, her beautiful, perfect face and thought of Garbo. Thought of the movie goddess as a real woman for the very first time. I thought of the screen queen giving and receiving carnal pleasure. My hand came to a stop in the small of Sarah’s back and lay there.
Sarah opened her eyes and stared up at me.
“You alright, tiger?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was just thinking.”
“Thinking about what?”
“About how it might have been with Seth and Garbo aboard the Athenia.”
Sarah turned toward me and leaned up on an elbow, the white of her eyes glowing in my shadow.
“Don’t tell me you’re finally starting to believe the old man?”
“Do you believe him?”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” she said, “but what you believe to be true.”
“I want to believe.” I looked at Sarah, my beautiful Sarah mere inches from me and felt myself pull back. She must have seen the expression on my face because she put a hand out to my cheek. Gently caressed the side of my face while we stared at each other in the snowy twilight.
“What is it?” she said. “What’s holding you back?”
I searched for words to explain what was going on inside my mind and heart in that moment. I wanted to tell Sarah how I felt but had no idea where to begin. How to explain away in a few sentences what had taken decades to be created. The quest I had been on for so long, for what I did not know.
“I … I …”
“It’s okay,” she said. “You can tell momma.”
I looked into her eyes, caught the reflection of snow falling within her dark pupils like obsidian with snowflake. I was about to speak, when a sound came from outside our door. A dull, thud of a sound but one that startled us both.
Sarah blinked and sat upright. I stared up at her nakedness as she turned her head toward the door to listen. The sound came again, this time a little closer and more distinct. A squishy smack and then a rubbing sound with a squeak mixed in for good measure. Sarah looked back down at me.
“It’s Harold,” she whispered.
“Who?”
“The night janitor. He must be mopping the floor.”
“I thought you said no one comes up here?”
“Almost no one,” she said and admonished me with hushes. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Then she bolted buck naked from our bed and raced silently around to where she’d left her clothes on the floor. Meanwhile, I slid from between the warm cocoon of covers of our secret trysting place and scouted in the shadows for my own sliver of clothing. I never felt more naked in my life.
Minutes later we were both clothed and at the door of the room, listening. Sarah had her back to me as I stood there half-terrified and half-exhilarated. Half of me wanted Harold to catch us in the act. It was the heterosexual male in me, the proud peacock with his tail-feathers sticking out for everyone to see.
We waited until the swish and thwack of the mop grew fainter, abated. Sarah opened the door a crack and looked out on the dimly-lit hallway. She turned back in the room and looked at me—now all business.
“Okay, I’m going,” she said. “You wait here for a minute and then you can go back down to your room.”
I stared at Sarah, suddenly lovesick by the notion we’d be separated. She gave me a glare that smacked me back into reality, but quick.
“Are you listening?
“Uh-huh.”
Sarah gave me a skeptical look, then turned and opened the door. The next second, she was gone and I was alone. I turned and leaned my b
ack against the door. I stared at the shadowy hospital room, the falling snowflakes outside the window, the bed where Sarah and I had laid naked and entwined mere moments before. The daydream was already playing in my head.
Why couldn’t anything beautiful ever last?
13. TO LIVE ONE MORE DAY SETH
I looked up at Big Nazi Monkey towering over me and knew there wasn’t much time. If I was ever going to get to the bottom of how Garbo and I had crossed paths on the Athenia, let alone bumped fuzzies, I’d have to stop dancing with the gorilla. But escaping King Kong was going to be a trick. The hardest kind of trick. The kind I had only one shot at pulling off.
I’ll admit I’d been slow on the uptick with this one. Kong had caught me unawares when I was still woozy from Garbo’s spell. He’d manhandled me into a tough spot, established his physical dominance. But now it was my turn to show off. Show him and his Master watching somewhere off-stage, that Seth Moseley gave as good as he got. And then some.
I’d learned two universal truths working the newsbeat back in the Bronx. First, if it bleeds it leads. Second, money talked and bullshit walked. Thugs were thugs, no matter what team they played for. I had to believe the same held true for the tower of brute power looming above me. Show them something sparkly and watch them go all soft in the head. But first things first. I had to see if Kong responded to verbal commands.
“Hey, you up there,” I said. “You got a name?”
A bold gamble but a necessary one. I knew people. Knew how they thought, most of them. Learned from interviewing thousands of them, that everyone liked to be called by their first name. Even the crazies. Especially the crazies. Nevertheless, I braced for another kick in the ribs while Big Nazi Monkey looked down at me.
“Heinrich,” he said simply.
He relaxed his mitts from rock-hard fists to rub his palms on the sides of his trousers. A good sign. The giant was bashful after all. I slowly raised up my right hand to Heinrich. He looked at my extended digits with a puzzled expression on his mug.
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