by Q. Zayne
Isabella’s gift of this vacation on her island made me think of a broader terrain for myself. There were parts of the world that didn’t worship skeletal beauty as though it were the only kind, where men prized voluptuous women. I didn’t have to remain in San Francisco. There was nothing to keep me there. When I got back, I’d cast my net wider, seek a suitable job, geography no limit. I’d embrace a simple life in a less expensive country. Sacrifices in lifestyle would be worth it. I needed to live a more meaningful life, even if that meant living alone and reading. A bare bones existence would be rich to me if I didn’t have to spend hours a day mired in stupidity.
I rounded a curve in the maze and drew in my breath. The Minotaur’s tortured face glowed at me. The moonlight’s harsh shadows heightened his powerful, cursed body.
We were so alike. I supposed that’s why I cleaved to myths. They showed my true nature. I felt less alone, kept company by archetypes that mirrored my psyche.
I circled the Minotaur. His splendid bunched muscles and anguished face entranced me. I ran my hand down his back to his rump. Facing him, I sought his eyes. Such torment in them, the suffering of the ostracized. On impulse, I gripped him and rose up on my toes, kissed his face.
Most of my life I knew I wanted a life of the mind. It seemed pretentious when I thought it to myself. Of course, I could give no practical answer when anyone asked about my choice of Classics for my studies. Nothing I did made sense to my family, my supposed peers, nor to the morons with whom I had to work. I learned to say little about my true interests. I managed well without other people, to an extent.
I didn’t need the criticism and disapproval. Mom supplied years of that about my body, my imagination, my interests. It was enough to last a lifetime.
Voices made me stop. I stepped back by reflex, and the sharp texture of the pruned hedge pricked at my back and ass. Although startled, I registered it was a sexy place for kissing. I wished Marcus was there. I wanted him backing me against the sharp bushes. I wanted him tormenting me with his passionate mouth and his heavy cock pushing against my belly. Damn, I needed him.
His voice shocked me. He was here. I couldn’t mistake his low, sexy laugh for anyone else. He had such a deep, masculine voice. I made myself as still as possible. Who accompanied him? Would they think I was spying? I wasn’t sure why I felt guilty, but I did.
The woman’s laughter surprised me as much as Marcus’ presence did. It was a full, pealing laugh and the voice following it told me it belonged to Isabella. I couldn’t make out her words. I didn’t want to know what she said. It surprised me she had such a free laugh in her. She struck me as being on the edge of melancholy. In an earlier era, she’d wear widows weeds. Of course, Marcus could charm joy from a stone.
I had to get out of there. My ankle-length black dress kept part of me out of sight. My pale face, cleavage and hands shone as bright as the moon flowers.
Curtaining my face with my hair, I walked back the way I came. I envisioned myself levitating without a sound. My hair caressed my cheeks like a vampire’s cape. My heart thudded when I confronted a hedge blocking the path. The voices sounded closer. I turned in each direction, wild to escape before they saw me. The path veered around the hedge and released me from the maze. Panting, I rushed away from the labyrinth into the darkest tree shadow.
I headed for the thick growth between the labyrinth and the house, aiming to get out of their sight. I hoped they were on the other side of the tall hedges where they couldn’t see me. My toe caught at my skirt. I tripped, bunched up my dress and ran. I refused to fall like a heroine in a horror movie.
With my arms around myself to support my bra-less breasts, I sprinted for a hiding place. I’d come close to becoming trapped. How had that happened? I hadn’t turned. The sense that an intelligence affected things on the island tugged at me, though that made no sense. I had Stephen King to blame for thoughts of shrubbery that could move.
I took cover in the bushes. The stabbing thorns of the bougainvillea didn’t bother me. I welcomed the pain for maintaining alertness. I imagined Marcus might see the tiny stab wounds on my buttocks and be jealous.
The boiling heat rising through my torso like lava must be that, my own green monster coming to life. My exit was in time.
They emerged from the labyrinth, Isabella slender and regal as a fairy tale queen. She wore a scarlet gown and a splendid diamond choker, a throat-hiding accessory for a woman of a certain age.
Marcus held her elbow and she looked up at him, her face glowing. His impressive physique made even the statuesque island owner crane her neck.
He wore an elegant evening suit with a red cravat. A gem, no doubt real, sparkled in its folds. He took my breath away.
His low whisper made Isabella laugh again. She slid her arm around his waist.
“My dear, my dear,” she whispered. “You’re the only one who makes me laugh this way.”
“I must make sure to do it more often.” He slid his thumb across her lovely cheekbone, as though wiping away a tear.
His tenderness ripped my heart open.
I burned for him. I wanted to be the one he touched like that, the only one. I backed away. A stick cracked under my shoe.
His fine head rose. He looked like a jaguar scenting the air for prey.
“Wait here!” He started toward me.
“Marcus, be careful,” Isabella cried.
I fled.
Time’s Folds
I shut my suite’s door and stood panting from my rush to elude Marcus’ search.
Listening while standing as still as a statue, I made sure I wasn’t followed. What could I have said to him if he caught me? ‘I’m a fool, I hoped you might love me?’ I couldn’t stand saying it to myself. I’d never say it to him.
I paced, pushing my thumb into the middle of my palm. Focusing on the pressure, I willed myself to stop the churning inside, the undertow of loss.
This was a vacation. Crazy things happened on vacations. It was one of the seductions of travel. Being a different self seemed possible. Seductions were acceptable. One Bastille Day, a pub owner banged me against the wall in his wine cellar. I came hard, my skirt up, my hands gripping the old stones. Our stealthy pleasure stayed with me as a secret. I never saw him again and felt only heat at the memory. The only rule of travel sex was to recognize the pleasures were for the moment. They existed in a passage of time, the way a story existed within a book. It wasn’t anything that extended into ordinary life.
This was my chance to experience magic. I could even—. I squared my shoulders. Yes, I dared imagine continuing to enjoy Marcus’ attentions. I wanted to surrender myself to his mastery. I’d ignore reality for these halcyon days on Submission Island.
I stalked across the room and stared at myself in the mirror. Time already stamped itself on my face, the lines extending around my eyes and between my brows. I was 28. Past my youth, my use-by date, by the standards of my culture. My cousin Steffani sent me scathing send ups about modeling. Her best years were behind her at 26. She hadn’t made it big enough to succeed with a clothing line, perfumes, or the other fall backs of the top beauties. She was, like so many women in our youth-obsessed consumer culture, expendable. Her scathing humor buffered the often disheartening search for a second career. I missed her scorching messages. This was the longest I’d gone in years without being online.
'My beauty,' Marcus’ voice followed me into my private thoughts. I pushed it away and paced the suite.
I steered Steffani to an online university, in hopes she might expand her options. No progress there. She still lived the glamorous life, always another party, another shoot. Her life reminded me you could meet all the narrow standards of beauty of our world and still not succeed. Like me, she was achingly lonely. Perhaps one day we’d share an apartment in a country where the dollar went much further. We’d hire a succession of gardeners and masseurs to have good-looking men with good hands on the premises.
I’d have my own moo
n garden and take consolation in it at night, During the day, we’d watch shirtless men tend it in the tropical sun.
I strode back to the door and latched it.
The prospect of a strapping hunk in Mexico or Costa Rica riding me in my garden under a pregnant moon made me want to ensure privacy. I yanked off my dress, sling-shotted my bra, pulled off my flats, and peeled off my panties. The welcoming bed with its billowing canopy was the stuff of my early fantasies. All it needed was a sheik to ride me into sunrise.
Instead, I got my fingers busy with the thought of the strong gardener crooning to me in Spanish and pounding me in the shade. I didn’t need a wealthy, dominant man, just one who’d fuck me hard and go away.
The gardener did. He crooned to me, holding me down on the ground and banging me me with all the power coiled in his narrow hips.
I came hard on my fingers.
The tears came after my imagined lover left me.
It seemed plausible there could be folds in time, corridors to walk down where time slowed. I willed it to be so.
I wanted my last days on Submission Island to extend beyond the temporal world as I knew it. If a bridge into an alternate reality allowed me to stay with Marcus, I’d walk that bridge over a chasm of magma.
It didn’t matter if he belonged to Isabella. It did, but I couldn’t let it ruin my vacation.
I held myself. My life's bullet train rush stemmed from my longing for Marcus. My sense of him filled every moment with such potency. The world had to split us apart before I transformed into the kind of woman I’d never been out of longing for him. I found the man-pleasing woman Mom raised to meet Egypt's dictates that formed her and her mother.
I wanted to slap myself, snap out of it. Instead, I hugged the luxurious pillow with its fine Egyptian cotton slip and cried some more.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
The next morning, I felt renewed. Sunlight made the walls and fresh sheets glow. Nothing like being cried out to make life look better. Orchids I hadn’t noticed the previous day adorned the dresser. Life here was too luxurious to allow wallowing in sadness.
I got out of bed and showered. The big massaging shower head brought me back to life. I started with warm water to melt my knotted muscles. My long-unused belly dance muscles griped at me. Time to dance more in my life. I’d missed it, without knowing it. Jen would join me for a class. We'd do it before I took a job offer in an affordable country and left California forever. Hell, maybe I’d sell everything and take off without a job. I had to change my life. I turned the water to cold to refresh myself before facing the day.
I luxuriated in drying off, feeling like I was patting myself with a big powder puff. The plush towels were one of many things I’d miss. I padded into the bedroom in the nude and rifled through my cosmetics.
With a light touch, I made up my face. The climate made makeup slide off, and kept my cheeks pink. I skipped everything except Kohl, waterproof mascara, and long-lasting scarlet lipstick. I censored my usual assessment of age signs. As much as mine bothered me, Marcus must not be immune to musing on the effects of time.
I suspected, though he didn’t say it right out, that Marcus was sensitive about the difference in our ages. It didn’t bother me, but he was of a different generation. While some people might applaud him, others were likely to mistake me for his daughter or be critical of him. At least I was out of college. My 28 to his—I wasn’t sure how old he was, forties I guessed—wasn’t as thorny than if I were younger. No doubt some people would cast him as a dirty old man even so.
I shook myself. I kept thinking of us as though we had a future. Even if Isabella didn’t mind him being with another woman, being any man’s second choice wasn’t a life I wanted for myself. It was the seduction of the island. It kept creeping over me and convincing me things were real when they couldn’t be.
Against expectations, Marcus had feelings for me and an intense sexual response. He gave me credit for opening his heart after his devastating loss of his wife and daughter. That was only here and now.
Basking in his mastery and praise for the time we had together would have to be enough. ‘I treasure the gift of your submission.’ I wanted to write Jen. It was amazing to feel beautiful and cherished. The lack of wifi grated on me. It might be best not to admit to anyone how taken in I was by this roleplay, how gone over this man.
I wound up my hair and pinned it, catching all the strands that would otherwise stick to my neck like water snakes.
This was a travel romance. The affair existed in its place and time. It couldn't continue in the reality of our separate lives. Like the timeless woman of Shangri La, it couldnt't survive outside its paradise.
I stuck in the last pin too hard and winced.
I needed Marcus, I wanted him, but life wasn’t fair. Whatever his life was outside of the island, there’d be no place in it for me. The sooner I accepted that, the less devastated I’d be when we parted. My time at Submission Island would be over all too soon.
I made myself straighten up and stop fussing with my hair. I wasn’t going to spend my last days in paradise mourning a relationship I was blessed to have for the short term. I caressed my dress over my hips, adjusted the wrap to reveal more cleavage. Many people lived their entire lives without feeling so treasured. Women outside the range of mass-media attractiveness didn't get the hero. I wasn’t supposed to win love, unless I paired with someone else considered undesirable. I took a deep breath. For these halcyon days, I got to feel loved by a stunning and worthy man. I needed to enjoy it with every cell of my being.
I stepped into a pair of sparkling sandals and headed for the Mansion of Desire.
Else-when
Marcus was in the Spanker room waiting for me, but didn’t act aloof. He rose when I entered and swept me into his arms. I clung to him as he swung me in a circle, my body light as air. He spun me dizzy. I dropped my fears and laughed. The man was magic. He knew how to make me feel better.
In the dim room, neither of us looked our ages.
He set me down and paced in front of me.
I couldn’t stop smiling from the joy of seeing him. My fears evaporated in the strength of his presence.
He captured me. My body felt every movement of his. My heart longed to beat in time with him, the way it did when he took me.
“Who are you? Why did you come here?” His piercing dark eyes compelled me. He lifted my chin and kissed me before I could answer. His lips tasted mine, savored them, licking and seducing my mouth so I opened for him. Caressing my face with both hands he gave me the deep, claiming kiss only he could give. My world spun. He released me. I rocked back onto my heels, gasping.
The corner of his mouth rose.
“Sadist.”
“Yes.” He laughed. “Now answer.”
It took me a moment to recall the question. I knew he didn’t want my name or a mundane line. I plumbed for the truth.
“I’m an explorer. A researcher. I'm more connected to the past than the present, the ancient dead than the living. I don’t belong here and in this time. I’ve had a deep disconnection since early in life. I sensed my parents weren’t my parents.” I took a breath and forced the truth out in a rush. “If you’re asking why I came to Submission Island, I came to escape my life. I suppose to become more of myself, go deeper into what I want. In a sense, desire defines us. I’ve been working at a job I detest, surrounded by morons. Aside from a couple of friends who find humor sanity-saving, I have no social life. I stopped dating months ago. Most of my time, my real life, exists within daydreams and ancient stories.” I stared at him, noticing my old defiance from the few occasions I was the genuine me with my parents. Did I see Marcus as an authority because he was older? Were my feelings for him transference, or father issues not love? Years of therapy left me questioning everything. Having a suicide mom did that.
“Good. Good answers.” He looked surprised and pleased, as though I were a student who exceeded expectations.
I treasured the comfort of the student-professor relationship. It was the only kind of connection with other human beings that made sense to me. Marcus could be my master in so many things if he wanted to be. I’d teach him things, too.
He smiled. I had the disquieting sense that he saw right into me. I blushed.
“You’re perceptive and self-aware. To move forward, you’ll need to release some of your self-consciousness. One of the most difficult things about maturing is realizing that many things aren’t about us. We start our lives aware of ourselves, our needs, me, me, me. Our culture has veered to a sickening extent into prolonging the selfish ego state. People stay fixated on oral wants and the desire for immediate gratification. It’s the foundation of consumer culture. Without maturing and learning to exercise their minds, people accept low standards and conformity. They accept commercial messages and social media manipulation, buying into nonsense such as ‘reality’ TV. Morons is too mild a word for the present and future generations of the U.S. It’s pathetic. Each year education becomes poorer. People who can think for themselves aren’t an asset.” He waved his hand. “These are ugly times. If honor and compassion return as national values, people will look back at this passage in history with shame. I don’t blame you for spending as much time as possible else-when.”
Else-when. I took the term like a magpie, to enjoy its shine later.
“You understand.”
“Don’t be so surprised. I’m not a total fossil.”
“I never thought—.” I blushed. I did think of our age difference. I thought of him too much. I glanced up at him, longing for another kiss. I felt exposed, vulnerable, talking to another person about such private things.
“Are you finding what you wanted here?”
I bit my lip. “Yes.”
“That sounds, like ‘yes but.’”