Crook & Flail

by Maira Isabel Pita

  “Look at me,” he commands.

  She obeys him of course, and his unrelenting stare seems to open her body up for him even more. Lifting her hips slightly off the bed, he sinks in all the way, planting himself so deep in her cleft she can hardly bear how good it feels. Then he begins grinding against her, wetting his balls with the juice flowing from her pussy blooming open around his long, hard stamen. He is fulfilling her completely and yet also torturing her because she doesn’t want to climax yet. She wants to come with him as he pumps in and out of her, giving her pussy the full glorious experience of his cock caressing her innermost flesh. Yet the deep, violent stabs he subjects her to kill her resistance. She simply can’t stop herself from working her mound against him. She whimpers in mingled ecstasy and despair as her clit responds as much to the mysterious pressure of his stare as to his excruciatingly delicious massage. She can’t possibly resist this double penetration.

  “Stop!” she pleads. “I don’t want to come without you!”

  “Did you come for that boy?”

  “Just once.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Just once?” The expression on this mouth whips her soul.

  “And only because I thought of you!”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes!” She gasps, desperately fighting an orgasm. She has just reached the point of no return when he suddenly straightens up and pulls out of her, plunging her body into despair as he abandons her right on the brink.

  “Turn around,” he says.

  She drags herself up a little farther onto the bed and rolls over onto her stomach.

  He grabs both her hips and jerks her up onto her hands and knees. “Did he fuck your ass too?” He smacks one of her cheeks with his unbelievably hard open palm.

  “Yes!”

  “And I’ll bet you loved it.”

  Her voice drops to a shamed whisper. “Yes.”

  Digging his thumbs into her soft skin, he pulls her buttocks open and lets the mouth of her anus feel the threat of his head. She is bracing herself for pain, so when his cock surges back into her cunt pleasure flows through her like a divine blessing.

  He drives into her without mercy, fucking her violently from behind. Then he pulls her remorselessly hard up against him and stops moving, suspending her on his erection. It pulses like a second heart deep inside her, telling her how close he is to coming inside her and she simply can’t take anymore. She reaches beneath her with one hand and crushes her clit beneath her fingertips, rubbing it furiously. “Oh yes,” she cries. “Oh God, yes!” An explosive orgasm lays waste to her insides with its searing power as she feels his flesh join hers in the ascent and her second, equally intense climax is stoked by the breathless sounds he makes as he pumps his sperm into her, his fingers branding themselves into her skin.

  * * * * *

  They don’t emerge from their cabin until twilight.

  She felt it in her body when they set sail that morning yet it still comes as a slight shock to see nothing but empty, cultivated fields all along both shores.

  Mark is far behind her in Cairo, out of her life forever. He gave her the chance to choose and she chose her husband.

  Bon Voyage.

  She walks over to the railing.

  The setting sun is about to dip into the silver water which looks more like liquid mercury, mysteriously deadly in its beauty. For a few moments the glowing red sphere touching the straight line of the river forms a living hieroglyph spelling the ancient Egyptian word for eternity.

  She expects Richard to step up beside her but he doesn’t and after a moment standing there by herself feels too much like being back on the balcony of the hotel, longing for him, and she turns around anxiously.

  He is still standing in front of their cabin, staring at her, his hands in his pockets.

  “I should hate you,” she says mildly.

  He shifts his weight onto one foot and leans against the doorframe. “But you don’t. Instead you love me even more for using you the way you were made to be used, body and soul. Your feelings are the ultimate mixed media, my love.”

  “I need a drink.”

  “I’d like one myself. Come,” he takes her arm like a gentleman, “let’s go meet our fellow passengers.”

  The high heels he insisted she wear make her grateful for his support. “I’m not feeling very sociable right now and I feel cheap in this dress.”

  “On the contrary, you look very expensive.”

  “I do hate you.”

  “It’s classic Egyptian. It clings beautifully to your curves and the straps barely cover your lovely breasts.”

  “The Egyptians didn’t wear black.”

  “Wrong. Haven’t you seen those statues of Tutankhamon with his skin painted black? It was a symbol of the divine, which is how you look in that dress.”

  * * * * *

  “Our first stop is…what was that place called, Adam?”

  “Beni Hassan, dear.”

  “Oh yes, that’s it, Beni Hassan! What does the guidebook say about it?”

  “Middle Kingdom tombs,” Lucia replies, plucking the olive from her martini and savoring it.

  “Middle Kingdom, that’s right!”

  “The age of the Nomarch,” Richard throws in. “Men who enjoyed all the power of feudal lords.”

  “Nomarchs?” Ellen looks at him expectantly.

  “The men in charge of the provinces into which Egypt was divided,” Lucia explains. “They were considered the physical embodiment of their Nome, you know, like Arthur, the land and the king are one and all that. They cut their eternal homes straight into the limestone cliffs at Beni Hassan. The tombs are not in very good condition but they’re still supposed to be very impressive.” She finishes her drink. “They’re full of scenes of daily life just like Old Kingdom tombs but they’re also full of metaphysical material like wrestling scenes between men painted black and white to represent the eternal battle of light and dark, good and evil.”

  “Love and desire,” Richard adds helpfully.

  “Oh, Mr. Taylor!” Ellen giggles.

  Considering the fact that she is not attractive and at least fifteen years older than him, Lucia forgives her for so obviously flirting with her husband.

  “Well, you certainly seem to know what you’re talking about, Lucia.” Ellen’s husband Adam is a retired divorce attorney.

  “That’s because my wife thinks and feels like an ancient Egyptian,” Richard explains. “Metaphysically.”

  “Metaphysically?” Ellen stares at him, ostensibly lost in admiration of his mind.

  “One definition of meta is beyond or transcending,” he kindly elaborates. “Thus metaphysics is the study of the first principles of being and the essential nature of reality.”

  “God came before the physical universe,” Adam states, as if he tried the case of Creation himself.

  Lucia pushes her empty glass away. “You mean an old man with a white beard?” she asks sweetly.

  Richard strokes her hair like a cat’s back. “It’s not wise to get her started on this subject,” he warns.

  “I thought we were talking about Beni Hassan,” Ellen declares.

  Adam says, “Didn’t the Egyptians worship animals, which constitute part of the physical world? So I don’t see what you mean, Lucia, when you say they were metaphysical.”

  “They didn’t actually worship the animals.” She has no desire to pursue the conversation but two martinis have effectively sabotaged her self-control. “They used animals to express—”

  “Used them?” Ellen’s eyes widen. “You don’t mean…?”

  Richard laughs.

  “To express metaphysical principles!” Lucia snaps.

  “Oh my, there’s that word again.”

  “I think what my wife is trying to say, Ellen, is, for example, that the cat goddess Bastet stood for the pleasure of the senses, for the mystery of spirit taking form or, in more contemporary terms, of energy becoming matter.”


  Adam adjusts his glasses. “They saw all that in a dumb cat?”

  “All that and much, much more,” Richard assures him. “I wonder how our little adopted one is doing, my love?”

  “Oh,” Ellen exclaims, “you’ve adopted a baby?”

  Lucia pushes her chair back. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’d like to take a walk on deck before dinner.”

  Richard follows her up. “I think I’ll join you.”

  She hisses under cover of the wind outside, “I’m not sitting with them at dinner!”

  “Of course not, we still have three other charming couples to meet.”

  “I don’t feel like meeting anyone else. I’m also freezing. I’m going back to the cabin to change.”

  “It’s not cold in the dining room and you’re staying in that dress. It’s simple form-fitting cut and thin straps are completely ancient Egyptian. I like you looking like a priestess of Hathor.”

  She turns away.

  Romantic gaslights have been lit along the deck but the breeze that seems to be coming from every direction easily finds a way into their glass armor, forcing the flames to struggle for life and to give birth to a host of shadows. She walks defiantly away from her husband as quickly as she can in her torturous high heels, all the time hoping he will follow her and knowing that he won’t. She has a key to their cabin. She doesn’t need him to come with her. She doesn’t want him to come. Yet the silence and emptiness behind her is the pressure of a vacuum forcing her to keep moving away from it so he won’t see how it tears her apart inside. The way he behaves sometimes makes her feels as though the atmosphere is being sucked away. She can hardly breathe and it makes her furious with herself, how vulnerable she is to the weather of his moods.

  “Hey, what’s the rush?” a relaxed male voice inquires from the direction of the water.

  Surprised, she stops and looks toward the railing but all she can make out through the dancing shadows is what appears to be the sun’s spectral afterglow.

  “Beautiful night.”

  “Yes,” she agrees and lets herself be drawn toward the quiet voice. What she mistook for remains of the sunset is really shoulder-length red hair. The rest of him remains invisible in an ankle-length black coat, an unlikely garment to come across in Egypt but stylish nonetheless.

  “You look like you were running from something,” he comments.

  The struggle between light and dark on the deck behind her lets up for a breathless moment during which his smiling face comes into focus. “I was,” she admits.

  “You have to be Lucia.”

  Her breath catches. “How did you…?”

  “We need to talk.” He looks quickly up and down the deck. “In private.”

  “I was just on my way to my cabin to get a sweater.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  She suffers a disturbing feeling of déjà vu, unlocking a room with a strange man standing behind her, and guilt begins nibbling through the alcohol’s pleasant haze. It sinks its teeth into her womb in earnest when he closes the door behind them.

  She moves away from him to the center of the room, illuminated by the soft glow of a brass lamp on the Edwardian desk.

  “As you’ve probably guessed, Lucia,” he looks carefully around him, “I’m a friend of Mark’s.” He moves over to the desk. “You’re here with your husband, Richard Taylor?”

  “Yes.”

  He lightly touches the marbled red pen resting on top of a black leather journal and then abruptly slips his hands into his coat pockets, as if resisting the urge to look inside the book.

  “What did Mark say to you?”

  He turns to face her and his smile tells her the cursive of her figure in the ink-black dress is more interesting than anything the journal might contain. “Mark called me last night and told me an incredible story. I see now that he wasn’t exaggerating when he described you, so maybe it’s all true.”

  “Why don’t you just tell me what he said?”

  His eyes are an impenetrably dark green. “He says he loves you.”

  A sweet rush of triumph makes her feel weak. “Is that all?”

  “I’m a reporter, Lucia.”

  “A reporter,” she repeats flatly.

  “If what Mark said is true, this is a great story and a hell of a lot more interesting than an election in Cairo.”

  “Get out, please. I’d like to change.”

  His tone is so coolly objective it is almost intimate, “He told me everything, Lucia.”

  “And I don’t even know your name.”

  “Ian McNeil and it’s a pleasure to meet you, Lucia. I’ll leave now but I’ll be around.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  When she returned to the dining room after changing into a less revealing dress, Ian was not there. Nor did he make an appearance at breakfast the next morning, where she brought up the subject of his worldwide resurrection with her husband.

  He promptly shot it down. “This cruise is about us, Lucia. How you feel about my being alive is all that really matters right now.”

  After breakfast the Sistrum’s handful of passengers assembles on deck. They are docked at Beni Hassan, where arrangements were made in advance for a bus that will drive them to the tombs.

  “We could rough it and ride donkeys over,” Richard suggests.

  Ellen giggles again and smiles at him as if they just shared a delicious secret.

  “I’m sure Lucia wouldn’t mind,” he adds. “She likes doing things the rough way. Don’t you, my love?” he throws the conversational ball at her.

  “Actually, stubborn asses don’t much turn me on.” She tosses it right back.

  Adam clears his throat. “What the devil’s the delay?” he glances at his huge, space-age watch yet again. “We should get going before it gets hotter than hell out there.”

  “Watch your language, dear. Oh.”

  Longing for the chance to lose everyone deep inside a tomb and surround herself with the powerful figures of Nomarchs in scanty loincloths, Lucia follows the direction of Ellen’s gaze.

  Ian is walking along the deck toward them. The soft morning sunlight brings out the gold in his red hair, a stunning contrast to his light-blue button-down shirt with elbow-length sleeves and cream-colored khaki slacks.

  “Who is that?” Ellen wonders out loud.

  “His name is Ian McNeil,” Lucia has the satisfaction of informing her, “and he’s a reporter.”

  “A reporter?” Adam looks skeptical. “What’s there to report about around here?”

  Ian casually changes course and wanders over to the railing. His hands in his pockets, he stands gazing out at the forbiddingly arid shore.

  “He wasn’t at dinner, or at breakfast,” Ellen states the obvious. “Where did you meet him?”

  Lucia looks at her husband. “I ran into him last night on my way back to our cabin to change.”

  He smiles grimly. “So your handsome little stray has claws after all.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

  “Sorry because he’s fighting dirty for you?” he says just as softly. “Introduce us to him, please.”

  “Ian!” she calls.

  He looks her way, smiles and approaches their little group.

  “Ian, I’d like you to meet Adam and Ellen Steinberg. And this is my husband.” She doesn’t need to mention his name.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you all.” Ian shakes Adam’s hand, kisses the back of Ellen’s hand like an old-fashioned gentleman then focuses on Richard with a transparent smile in which she senses a powerful current of determination.

  Adam removes his neon-orange baseball cap. “Who do you work for, young man? Lucia tells us you’re a reporter.” He wipes his bald scalp before slapping his hat back on with a self-conscious frown.

  “The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, sir,” Ian replies with a pleasant drawl in his voice.

  “Oh, then you’re a southern boy,” Ellen exclaims, fondling the petal-shaped t
rim of her low neckline.

  “I was born in Charleston, madam, but my family’s from Ireland.”

  “It could be worse,” Richard mutters.

  “Now, Mr. Taylor, what is the matter with you this morning?” Ellen’s pale chest resembles a slice of turkey breast served up well beyond its expiration date.

  “Nothing at all.” His smile is as dazzling as a baby’s.

  “He was just born again,” Lucia thinks, feasting on the sight of him.

  “Why don’t you join our little group, Ian?” Richard suggests.

  “Thanks,” his smile at once deepens and softens as he looks at Lucia, “don’t mind if I do.”

  The Sistrum’s captain, a tall, fine-featured Egyptian, probably a Copt, finally appears on deck to supervise their brief journey off the boat into the waiting bus.

  Walking beside Richard, Lucia wonders why he chose the Steinbergs as their companions, although admittedly there wasn’t much of a selection. Disembarking along with them now is a prim old couple from London, retired professors of science and mathematics and a younger, big-boned German twosome who speak not a word of English. At least with them they could simply have grunted and smiled and not been forced to make superficial conversation. Apparently Richard finds Ellen’s girlish behavior morbidly amusing and he is punishing her for Mark by forcing her to endure Adam’s company. The addition of Ian to the group is a little too stimulating for comfort however. The specter of Mark walks beside him and the desert’s sun-scorched heat combined with Richard’s smoldering jealousy is not an enjoyable prospect for the day.

  “We should have gone home,” she tells him. Adam and Ellen have fallen behind with Ian, who as a reporter deserves to be condemned to their meaningless banter for a while. “I’m sick of Egypt.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “How do you know how I feel?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that?”

  “No. I realize you think my feelings are an open book to you.”

  “Ah, but the plot keeps thickening.”

  “It’s not my fault Mark called a reporter. Yet he seems nice enough and you can’t stay dead forever.”

  “Do you have any idea how much your boyfriend told him?”