by Dan Pollock
It was a little scary. She’d never experienced anything quite like it. Not even way back, during her wild sophomore summer in the Caribbean. And as devoted and energetic a lover as Taras had been, their early days together had been quite different. There had been so many other facets to their twoness. The long walks and endless conversation. Restaurants and movies. Sharing and comparing childhood memories. There’d been precious little of that with Jack. He didn’t seem to have a large fund of conversation. If Charlotte had wanted a vacation from her mind, she was damn well getting it. He was more of, well, a blunt instrument, and a relentless one.
And they were insatiable. They’d done almost no sight-seeing. They hadn’t visited Bormes, the offshore islands, or even the lovely neighboring coves of La Fossette. They ate, slept and made love. No, that wasn’t right. You couldn’t call it love. They ate, slept and fucked. Watched French-dubbed Hawaii-Five-O reruns on TV. When they got tired of the pastel walls and ordering in, they’d venture out briefly, prowl a few shops, lie in the sun. He bought her a lavender sachet, a Lavandou trademark. They’d posed for a cartoon portrait on the beachfront and bought two color Xeroxes of it, one of which was taped to the dresser mirror. It showed them with huge heads, decent likenesses, and tiny cartoon bodies riding twin surfboards and holding hands. It should have shown them fastened in sexual combat, Charlie thought.
So how did she get over this? How should she go about purging the X-rated images from her mind and getting on with her life? Thank God, there was no emotional attachment. But the physical side had become addictive, and she knew it. She recognized the flaccid overtones of the unregenerate addict in her latest rationalization: You’re just not ready to give him up. Why not give it a few more days, and really get him out of your system?
She waited till her last scheduled night at the Auberge to decide. They were on the terrace, watching the sheen and shimmer of the marina lights on the water. The next day she was supposed to take the bus back to Toulon, the TGV to Paris, Air France to Berlin. She had a room reserved at the Kempinski. Jack had been trying all day to talk her into putting off her departure, since the conference didn’t actually start for four more days. Charlotte had pretended to be adamant, but she was weakening, and they both knew it.
“Well?” he had said. “What’s the verdict?”
“How can a girl make up her mind when she’s being end-lessly fondled?”
“All right. Look, no hands.”
Charlie snorted. She wore only a cotton knit tank top, Jack was nude, and she was sitting on his lap facing him, with him deep inside her. They were being discreet about it, since there was a couple dining on an adjoining terrace, the candlelight flickering through the pebbled glass partition.
She whispered in his ear. “Hmm. Jack, I just had a thought.”
“You keep doing that.”
“Why don’t you come with me?”
“I’ve been trying. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. That’s why we have to keep practicing.”
“Be serious. You know what I’m talking about. Come with me to Berlin.”
“To the conference?”
“Just for the first few days. I have to check in and get credentialed, and so on. But I won’t have to really start hustling till the main event on Friday.”
“Well, what would I do there, while you’re out getting ‘credentialed’?”
“You’d wait for me. Tied to the bedframe, maybe. Jesus, I don’t know, we’ll find something for your, um, peculiar talents. As often as I can get free. What do you think?”
“Well, what am I supposed to say? Hell yes, it sounds fine.”
“But you have to understand, Jack, seriously, it would only be three more days at the most. When the real media circus starts, yours truly will be running her little ass ragged, and won’t have any time for fun and games.”
“Hey, I won’t make trouble. Jack Sanderson takes what he can get on this deal, and not an hour more. Three days, and I’m history. However, I have a proposition of my own to make.”
“Which is?”
“That we stop jiggling around out here wasting precious time, and get into some heavy action.”
“I kind of like this, if you want to know the truth.”
“But my ass is getting cold.”
She sighed. “All right, if you must. Take me inside then, and have your way with me.”
He rose carefully up from the chair, still wearing her. She was a big girl, but he managed to breath normally as he carried her inside to the bed and toppled slowly sideways, holding her close and twisting so they landed on the mattress side by side, still locked together.
Then the telephone rang.
Twenty-Eight
“Charlie?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Taras.”
“Taras, where are you? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Charlie. No. Actually I’m miserable. I want to come back to you. More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. You were right... about everything.”
“Taras, listen, where are you calling from?”
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“Of course I did. Taras, I’m sorry, but you’ll have toforgive me if I sound a little... confused.” Jack was now on top of her, grinning playfully and refusing to disengage. Ignoring her gestured protests, he began to caress her breasts. “You disappear without telling me where, now you call me out of the blue telling me you want to come back, and I still don’t know where you are.”
“I’m in Washington. At the Holiday Inn on Connecticut Avenue.”
“Oh.”
“I’m quitting the Agency. I told John Tully to give you the message. Did you get it?”
“I’ve been away a couple days... visiting friends in St. Tropez. I got the slips that he called, but I haven’t had the chance to get back to him. Did he give you my number?”
“After I threatened to burn down his building. Or maybe he finally took pity on me. Charlie, I’ve got to talk to you.”
“And I want to talk to you, Taras. But right now I can’t.”
“Didn’t you hear what I’m saying? Doesn’t it mean anything to you?”
“Of course it does. But you can’t expect me—”
“It’s not too late, Charlie. We have the rest of our lives. There’s still time for everything. Charlie. Are you alone? Is there somebody else?”
Jack had wrestled them sideways together, palming her ass cheeks as he moved slowly and rhythmically inside her. His mouth slid down to her right nipple. Christ, what if Taras heard the sucking sound! Sara tried to fend the man off, but he wouldn’t budge.
“No. I mean, yes, of course I’m alone, and no, there’s nobody else. How could there be? It’s a working vacation... I’m... I’m surrounded by books and magazines and newspapers in three languages, one of which I can’t understand. I’ve got mountains of dull homework to get ready for Potsdam... Which is why I just don’t have time to get into all this with you now, Taras. When the conference wraps in a couple weeks, I’ll be making a quick visit to Paris and London, then I’ll be back, and we can—”
“You’re talking about three weeks! Listen to me, please. I want to fly over there now, wherever you’re going to be, and...we can talk. Have dinner. That’s all. One evening is all I’m asking.”
“I don’t have one evening.” Jack’s grinning face popped back up, hovering over hers, his ice-blue eyes mocking. Then, still massaging her breasts, he began to lick her face like a cat—her chin, her cheek, the ear opposite the phone. “Taras... I want to see you… but this week and next are crazy... and the week after is worse. There’s the usual nonsense… of official receptions... dinners... editorial meetings, briefings... maybe a couple of TV guest shots, if it works out. You know how it gets... Taras?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t walk out on you. You walked out on me, after I begged you to stay, because of your damn cloak-and-dagger games. I’m glad you’ve changed your
mind, but… I… I can’t just drop everything I’m doing and ignore my career… you understand?”
“I know, it’s not fair.”
“It’s not!”
“Charlie, John Tully told me you may be leaving Le Lavandou tomorrow. That’s why I had to call, even though I knew it wouldn’t work over the phone. I’m getting bananas, Charlie—”
“Going bananas. You can go crazy or get crazy, but you only go bananas.”
“You see, not only is my heart breaking, my idioms are going to shit without you—”
“Going to hell, you mean, or full of shit. Not—”
“I know, I did that on purpose. To hear you laugh. Please, Charlie, if you don’t want me to jump on the next plane, pleasegive me a phone number in Berlin, so I can at least reach you. Don’t cut meoff.”
Jack, obviously gauging her mind’s weakening resistance and her body’s unmistakably growing response to his erotic offensive, had begun to accelerate his thrusting. Charlotte found herself straining to keep her breathing under control, her voice unaffected. She was desperate to get Taras off the phone. And even if she could, she no longer wanted to stop Jack. Incredibly, in spite of her stubborn resolve and mild outrage at his chauvinistic conduct, she was shuddering rapidly toward what felt like being a major seismic event.
“Look, Taras, please! I have to think about this. Give me a day or two. And let’s leave it that I call you, okay?”
“Charlie, you know I love you.”
“I believe you, Tarushka. And I’m glad you called. But... but... I’ll call you. Take care. Bye.” She replaced the phone quietly, then cursed the grinning face above her: “You bastard!”
They were the last coherent sounds she made for the next several minutes, though her abandoned cries continued to fill the little room.
Later, when she was able to speak and moderate her thoughts and feelings, she took a more restrained tone:
“That wasn’t very nice, Jack.”
“I thought it was fantastic.”
“You know what I’m talking about. I asked you to stop, and you didn’t. At the least, you owe me an apology. If it happens again, I’ll ask you to leave.”
“Okay, I’m sorry.”
“Taras is an old friend. I had to take the call.”
“So I gathered. Maybe I was jealous.”
“Well, you don’t—” she stopped herself from saying “need to be.” She didn’t need to say that; besides, she didn’t know if it was true. She lightened her tone instead: “It was an embarrassing situation all around. I don’t exactly know what the etiquette is, Jack, but it sure as hell wasn’t what you were doing. It’s damned difficult to carry on a coherent phone conversation when your brains are being turned to jelly.”
The truth was, Charlotte wanted badly to call Taras back now, to reassure him, even agree to meet with him. But she dare not—not now, not with Jack Sanderson so prominently in the picture for the next several days. If having Taras on the phone and Jack in her bed just now had been awkward, imagine if Taras had been right outside, pounding on the door!
Suddenly she realized it would be impossible for her to take Jack with her to Berlin as she had agreed. For how could she keep Taras away? He’d pry the name of her hotel out of Jack Tully, just as he had the number of the Auberge. Taras was a hotblooded Cossack, capable of anything, especially now, especiallywith that desperate edge in his voice.
What should she do? Bring Jack with her and thereby jeopardize any future with Taras? Or the obvious and rational course: Say goodby to Jack tomorrow morning, go on to Berlin alone, immerse herself in work—and, if need be, cold showers? As she began to weigh these alternatives in the darkness, Jack’s fingers announced his wakefulness upon her flank, then circled down to slowly trace the satin slopes of her inner thighs. She quite lost her train of thought, and when at some length she recovered it, she found the debate had been resolved in her mind’s absence. She damn well wasn’t ready to give him up.
*
For Marcus, the phone call had been an exquisite miniature of revenge—actually to hear the diminished and entreating voice of his rival in the earpiece, while Marcus was in the very act of possessing her. And nearly—oh, so nearly—forcing her to climax while she was still denying Taras’ pleas! Come what might in the protracted duel between them, the Cossack would never be able to equal this. Twice now Marcus had brought it off, appropriating Taras’ lovers for his own. And this time Marcus had done it with the breathless consent of the lady in question.
A thoroughly delicious encounter, that phone call, one he would savor again and again. And, he suspected, a disturbing one for the Cossack on the other end of the transatlantic connection. For Charlotte had sounded a surprisingly maladroit liar, certainly not up to the level of dissembling Marcus had expected from an experienced reporter and woman of the world. But, of course, she had been slightly distracted.
What must the Cossack be thinking now? And what would he think when the next little phase of Marcus’ plan unfolded?
*
Taras had indeed sensed something peculiar in Charlie’s reaction. Had she exploded in bitterness or feigned cold indifference, he would have understood and yet tried to plead his case. He had been prepared as well for righteous eloquence or simply to have her hang up on him. He had even imagined, in a forgivable transport of euphoria, how her voice would sound delivering a tearful come-back-all-is-forgiven speech.
But he had heard none of these. Instead Charlotte had sounded hesitant, confused, uncertain—all emotions uncharac-teristic of her. And in this odd metamorphosis Taras had felt the shadowy presence of a rival.
Certainly he couldn’t sit by the phone, waiting “a day or two” for her to think it over and then to call him back. He could not endure it; he must act. If there was another man, Taras’ pride demanded to know it as soon as possible and to force Charlie to choose between them. Perhaps, as he prayed, there was no one else. Then whatever the source of Charlie’s uncertainty toward him, Taras would better be able to overcome it in person and, as his own ambassador, to convince her of his sincerity.
And he was still packed.
*
Two hours later, at six p.m., he was strapped into an Air France 747 nonstop from Dulles to De Gaulle. He dozed on and off over the Atlantic, through an exhaustive article about the leisure pursuits of Fortune 500 CEOs and a movie with no discernible plot but in which an astonishing number of police cars were crumpled. He was awakened from a final siege of pressurized stupor by the lilting French of a passing stewardess:
“Rebouclez vos ceintures, s’il vous plaît.” They were landing; it was 7:30 in the morning, Paris time.
By nine, after an airport croissant and coffee, he was strapped into another seat, a 737 this time, droning south by southeast toward the Mediterranean. An hour and a half later the city of Nice was rushing below the wing in a blur of red rooftops, followed by the long seaside runways of the Aéroport Nice Côte d’Azur. With just a carryall, Taras managed to grab a taxi and reach the Gare Centrale by 10:45, but was dismayed to find he’d have to wait till noon for the next train to Saint-Raphaël or Toulon, from either of which he could rent a car and drive to Le Lavandou. Taras strode back and forth along the trackside, cursing himself. To hell with the cost, he should have tried to charter a small plane from the airport direct to Le Lavandou, or as close as he could get.
Instead, he pulled into Le Lavandou in a rental Ford Fiesta around two in the afternoon, then wasted fifteen priceless minutes driving in scenic circles before locating the Auberge de la Calanque terraced on a steep hillside overlooking the marina. A minute later he was standing in the cool, comfortable reception hall and being politely informed that Mademoiselle Walsh had just checked out.
How long, exactly? Might she still be in the area, on the beach, in a local restaurant, perhaps even in the hotel dining room?
The charming young thing behind the desk was certain mademoiselle was not in the hotel; beyond this she wouldn’
t venture a guess. When, now quite desperate, Taras produced his Agency credentials and voiced veiled concerns for Mademoiselle Walsh’s safety, the girl located the manager. This dapper young man listened to Taras with a sympathetic gaze and slight inclinations of his head, then went off to make inquiries of his own. He returned ten minutes later with the information that Mademoiselle Walsh had departed around midday in the company of a young man with an American accent, in a small rental car that was not listed on her registration. The Auberge had no record of her destination.
Would it be possible for Taras to see her room?
It would. A moment later he was ushered into a long, cool room with eggshell walls, teal blue carpet, streamlined white furnishings. The maid had already tidied up. Taras walked through, his pulse reacting predictably as he pictured Charlie lounging on the queen-size bed, holding that bedside phone to her cheek as she talked to him last night. What had she said? “You’ll have to forgive me if I sound a little confused.” But why confused?
Taras moved past the bed, opened the double glass terrace doors and stepped into the panoramic dazzle of marina, bright bay and encircling hills. The little balcony was a skillet now at two-thirty, but would be an idyllic spot for breakfast, an aperitif at sunset, or champagne under the stars.
Oh God, I hope she was alone here! But then, who the hell was this young American? Some journalist of her acquaintance, dropping by to give her a lift back to Toulon or Marseille? Taras couldn’t bear to imagine otherwise, to visualize her in this romantic hideaway with any man but himself.
He went back inside, glanced briefly into the wardrobe and the tiled bathroom.
“Ça suffit, monsieur?”
“Yes, thank you. I appreciate your cooperation.”