by David Poyer
He went by them, and found himself in the bar. It was packed with sound and bodies, Italian sailors, civilians, Pakistani and Korean hired workers spending their pay in one of the few places in the country they could get a drink.
He was standing there, thinking about finding a taxi back, when Blair Titus took his arm.
26
Regency Hotel, Bahrain
“YOU’RE Lenson, aren’t you? The one I met on the Borinquen?”
He looked not down but into a level green gaze. For a moment his mind stalled, confronted with an aquamarine silk blouse, loose, cool-looking linen slacks, and casual braided-leather pumps. It had been on other subjects: body parts, torpedoes, an unexpected patrol against an enemy primed for revenge.
Then he had it. The lingering furnace smell of a sandstorm. And from a lifting helicopter, the wave of a hand.
“Ms. Titus. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Blair still had his arm. Now she dropped it. “I was hoping I’d run into somebody I recognized. I was sitting in my room; I heard the band and thought I’d come down. Get my head out of politics.”
“I’m glad you did.” To be honest, he hadn’t thought of her since Terry Pensker had told him 421 had been shot down. But she looked awfully good to a man after months at sea: Shoulder-length blonde hair, tall and slim and clean-looking, with that easy upper-class carriage he’d always admired and wished he had himself. And just now, she was smiling in what looked like amusement—at him.
“You look so surprised. We’re not just going to stand here, are we? Where’s the party?”
“Oh, there’s no party. Just a bunch of us from the ship.”
“Is that where you’re headed, so pensive-looking?”
“Actually, I was leaving.”
“That bad?”
“No, no—” He floundered for a moment. “I was just … leaving.”
“I see. Well, want to stay a little longer and join me for a drink?”
“Uh, sure.”
The bar was too noisy with the band and sixty men, and there weren’t any seats. He suggested the pool. There were tables under the palms. A Korean waiter took their orders: a strawberry daiquiri and an orange juice and tonic.
Blair let herself down gingerly on the poolside lounger. She sighed, pushed her huaraches off, and wiggled her bare toes. It was warm and breezy, and the stars were an arm’s length away. The pool was lit with varicolored lights, an underwater show.
She’d spoken to the Navy officer on impulse, recognizing him as he stood outside the lounge with that lost expression on his face. Now that she had, in essence, picked him up, part of her still wanted to be alone. But then again, part of her didn’t. Two hours in her room with Anne Tyler had been about as much reconstructive solitude as she could take. She wanted to talk, dance, have a daiquiri or maybe even two. She wanted to relax and forget the defense of the West. If nothing clicked, there was always Saudi television, reruns of “I Love Lucy” and “Hawaii Five-O.”
The drinks came. She tasted hers and made a face. “Whew!”
“Strong?”
“They meant business when they made this. Don’t let me drink more than two or I’ll fall over backward.”
Dan decided to let that volley go by. She was damned attractive. He was thirty-five, celibate by circumstance but not by oath. His body wanted her already. But he wasn’t sure even now, sitting knee to knee with her in the half-dark, that it would be a good idea. His life was complicated enough with Shaker, Pensker, the Pasdaran, and a shipful of sailors to take care of. Maybe just this—some fresh-squeezed fruit juice, an hour by a pool with someone not Navy, not part of it all—maybe just this was enough. And anyway, he was too bone-grinding tired to stay up much longer.
She didn’t insist on an answer. Instead she said, “You don’t drink?”
He shook his head.
“Just as well. Too many men where I work—bourbon and power, that’s all they’re interested in.”
She looked up at the palm trees, remembering one of those men. They could still hear the band—“Take My Breath Away”—but it was muted, distant. The air smelled like spices.
“Did the admiral say you were from Washington?” Lenson said, startling her.
“Uh-huh. That’s where I live now, in Alexandria.”
“I was in Arlington for a couple of years. Pentagon, and school.”
“Where’d you go?”
“George Washington. Poli Sci. Part time.”
“You know Dr. Lewis? Dick Kugler? John Logsdon?”
“Yes, I had them.”
“GW has a good rep. I went to Georgetown myself.”
“Blair … I didn’t quite get what you did, when Admiral Hart introduced you. You work for Congress, he said?”
“That’s right, Senator Talmadge’s office. I’m his defense aide.”
“Senator Talmadge? His defense aide?”
“Don’t get nervous. I’m off duty now … on liberty, is that how you put it?”
“You’ve got that Navy talk down, Blair.”
They talked about Georgetown, about the bars and party joints and foreign films, and about Halloween, the throng of masquerading students, gays, and hoodlums so dense and crazy that the D.C. cops had backed off policing it. The waiter came round again and she hesitated, then ordered a second.
“That band sounds good,” she said after a while. “You game?”
“Dancing?”
“Nothing less.”
He didn’t want to, wasn’t really sure he wouldn’t fall down from sheer fatigue. But he got up and followed her in through the patio doors, back into the noise and smoke.
The floor was totally empty. The only other women in the bar were the Filipina waitresses, and of course the singer. The men at the bar turned to watch as Blair stepped out, and there was a noticeable drop in the sound level. He caught familiar faces turned his way—Charaler and Brocket; great, now he’d have to listen to their ribbing tomorrow. He wondered again whether he ought to check out early. Just say good night, thanks, and head for the ship and an early bunk. But then he caught her smiling at him. The lights glittered in her hair.
He found that he was starting to enjoy himself.
After two fast numbers, the next turned slow. He was taking her hand when he became conscious of someone behind her. They both turned. It was the front-desk messenger. “Miss Titus?”
“That’s me.”
“There’s an overseas call for you. Where would you like to take it?”
She dropped Lenson’s hand, conscious suddenly of the whole roomful of men watching her every move. “Can I take it at the front desk?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Walking quickly after him, she thought then, No, it might be Talmadge. In that case, she’d want privacy. “No, wait,” she said to the retreating uniform. “Have them put it through to my room. I’ll go up right now.”
“Well,” said Dan, “I guess I’d better be—”
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“You seem to have business. And I’ve got to get back; we’re getting under way in the morning.”
“It’s a long time till then, Commander. I have some questions for you. Grab your drink. This won’t take long.”
He stood for a moment alone on the polished marble, caught by the sweep of lights, watching her walk away. The men at the bar laughed. She glanced back, made a little impatient motion: Come on.
He grinned, took a deep breath, and followed.
* * *
It was Talmadge, as she’d expected. His wheezy voice—he’d taken a mortar fragment in the throat in Korea—ebbed and boomed through seven thousand miles of microwave and satellite links. “Hey, Blair? Where are you, honey?”
“I’m here, Bankey. In Manama.” She hesitated, then added, “This is a commercial line. It isn’t secure.”
“Uh-huh. Well, look, about what we were talking about this morning. You know?”
“I know.”
“Well, look, I just got together with the boys. Ted, Al, Claiborne, and Sam. Know what we come up with?”
He sounded well liquored, but that was no impediment to business on the Hill. She juggled time zones in her head; it was his lunchtime double she was hearing. “No, Bankey, what?”
“They liked it.” The far-off home-boy voice wheezed. “It don’t hurt none, the fuss that’s blowing up here about them shooting those boys down. In the helicopter. That got some time on the evening news and people are askin’ just what is going on.
“Course, there was some things we had to get straight. Like, that this wasn’t a blanket authorization. Didn’t want no Tonkin Gulf resolutions, we don’t want to give those boys no blank checks like last time, do we? But we kind of got an agreement banged out, an’ I think I can make it stick. Goin’ to see Bill tomorrow, get them on board, then maybe we’ll see some action.” He chuckled. “Pell, he started callin’ it the Talmadge Resolution. Kind of catchy, I thought.”
“It’s your idea, Bankey, why not take credit for it?”
“Well, it’ll bear thinking about … how you doin’ out there otherwise? Getting any answers?”
“I think I may be able to come back with some, yes.”
While she talked, Dan stood on the balcony, trying not to overhear the few words that made it through the glass. He leaned forward, looking out.
The Regency was at the northern end of Manama, and ahead and below him was the black Gulf. Far off, fifteen or twenty miles—it had been invisible from the patio, hidden by the curve of the sea’s dark breast—he could make out the electric sparkle of Ras Tanura, the big new Saudi tanker terminal. To his right, the causeway bridged blackness with yellow glare; beyond it were the gay lights of pleasure boats, yachts, and motor yachts sleeping in the lee of Al Mubarraq. The only sounds were the distant barking of dogs, the occasional whir of a late taxi, and the bass thud of the band, carried as much by the concrete against which he leaned as by the air. The sky was the color of new rose leaves, the eternal, far-off refinery flicker like a futile attempt to ignite the dawn.
On this side, light … and on the other, the eternal, hungry darkness of the empty Gulf.
For just a moment, he remembered another sea. Another balcony, and another woman—years before, and a thousand miles away.
Taormina. And Susan. He’d loved her, and in a way he always would. But she’d stopped loving him.
He’d never understood it and he couldn’t now. How could you stop loving someone? He’d accepted, at last, that she didn’t want to live with him anymore. But understand it—no.
He heard the rattle of a receiver. A few minutes later, a toilet flushed. He lingered still, though, drinking the warm, sweet air.
Blair stood just inside the plate glass, watching him. Against the flickering night, his silhouette was slim and erect. She was sure he’d heard her call his name. Yet still he leaned there, looking out.
Lieutenant Commander Daniel Lenson. He seemed so pensive, so … reluctant. Could he be married? But he’d said he wasn’t, and there was no wedding band, nor the paleness above the joint that meant one slipped off for the occasion. Only the heavy gold Annapolis ring. And she’d felt, dancing, the evidence that she interested him.
Maybe it was her imagination. And she, too, was strangely reluctant—as if this might not be something quick and clean, but something that would grow. Was she ready for that?
She thought, It is the losers in love who must comfort one another. She tugged at the glass—surprisingly heavy—and it yielded, and she said, “Dan? Are you coming in?”
She stood by the bed, saying nothing. He stopped just before her and they stood, each waiting for the other to reach out, a few inches apart. The wind breathed softly through the open window, stirring the curtains.
Suddenly, he found it hard to breathe. “So,” he said, clearing his throat. “You said, some questions—”
“I had some,” she murmured. “But I can’t remember now what they were.”
Dan saw unhappiness in her eyes, and suddenly nothing seemed more important than to make it go away. Yet still he stood apart, his legs trembling with want and fear.
Finally he said, “I want to hold you.”
“I want to be held,” she said, and stepped forward into his arms.
* * *
She lay beside him in the warm night, stroking over and over the long muscles of his naked back. He hadn’t wanted to be inside her. And she hadn’t insisted. But still they were together. And she was happy.
They’d held each other for a long time, standing by the window, and she’d felt him trembling. His hands had explored her face, her closed eyes. Then her neck, brushing back her hair to find the fine silky nape beneath the collar.
She let her eyes slip closed as he unbuttoned the blouse. His cheeks scratched her breasts. Her fingers crept inside his shirt, feeling the hard muscle, and she burrowed her face into the good smells of sweat and cotton. “It feels so good just to hold someone,” she murmured into the sparse wiring of his hair.
Dan laid his cheek against the warmth of her skin. Her breasts were small, almost boyish, a model’s breasts. Under the slipped-down and kicked-off slacks, he found her belly flat and hips flowing with the easy streamline of fine design into the long bones of thigh and shin. Her skin was white against his sea-tanned arms. His hands smoothed her like a cat, hesitated, and moved inward.
There were petals of liquid silk under his fingers, then hot honey, and last, a yielding, hungry gulf. She sucked in her breath as his fingers spread her, entered her, found the focus of her want.
On the bed, he made no move to slide over her the way most men did, eager to enter and then eager to depart. Slowly, very slowly, his hand moved and moved until her stomach tensed and she shuddered and then cried out, over and over, small sobs lost in the immense silence of the night.
* * *
“Did you ever hear about women who have multiple orgasms?”
“I’ve heard of them.”
“You just met one. I could do this all night,” she whispered. “I don’t like to do it very often. But when I do, I want it till I’m exhausted, till I’m no good for anything the next day, till I never want to have sex again. Let’s do that, let’s do it all night.”
“All right.”
“You’re not tired? You don’t want to sleep?”
“No.”
“Do you want to come inside me now?”
“No.”
“What do you want? Tell me what you want.”
“Just to lie here with you. To make you cry out. To make you scream, that’s what I’d like.”
“You want to make me scream?”
“Uh-huh.”
She grabbed his ears and forced his head down. To her opened thighs. And caught her breath as his tongue found her.
* * *
She lay near fainting. After minutes of blinding wonder, she had begun to shake, feeling it build to something tormenting and painful. Then all at once, the center ceased to hold, and she broke apart into pleasure past agony. And he kept on! Till at last, barely conscious, she closed her legs and pushed him away. Then pulled him back, pillowing his face on her belly. She pinned him there, gasping helplessly, till the waves eased and she could wet her lips and murmur, “Oh, God, Dan.”
He kissed her navel and the waves gathered again. “Oh, Jesus, stop! You’re going to make me—I don’t know what you’re going to make me do. I can’t take any more of that.”
He kissed her. His lips smelled of her and she thought, This is what I taste like. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, a starfish on an oyster, and held him helpless against her. She couldn’t let go.
She ran her tongue around his ear. “I seem to be having all the fun here,” she whispered. “What can I do for you?”
“A handjob would be nice.”
“You really don’t want to—?”
“No. Not now.”
She didn’t unders
tand, not really. Really he was strange. So she slid down him as he lay on his back, slid down him like a cat down a tree. She kissed him over and over as she descended.
“I don’t really do those very well,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
He closed his eyes as her breath stirred his hair. Then he felt her tongue, and last, the warm fluid ring of her lips. She moved with maddening slowness, stopping whenever he tensed to bite his belly and flanks, then dropping her head again. He shivered at the brink and she held him there for long minutes as he sobbed, till at last flares and star shells burst in a shuddering fusillade.
* * *
They lay together, exhausted in each other’s arms.
“What did you think when you saw me? Did you think I’d be like this?”
“No.”
“What did you think? I want to know.”
“On the tanker? I thought you looked cold. Businesslike. Tall, sensible shoes, blonde—Ice Maiden. Untouchable.”
“Good.” Her laugh was mischievous. “I want men to think that. I don’t want them to know what I’m like.”
“Why not?”
“It would be too dangerous.”
“For you?”
“No, stupid, for them. But if you thought that about me—then why did you come up here?”
“I was lonely. I didn’t think you’d be interested. But it was worth a try.”
“Are you glad you came?”
“You know I am.”
“Why didn’t you want to have intercourse?” she asked him. “Do you think this was bad? What we just did, and what we’re going to do again in a few minutes?”
He didn’t answer for a while. She stroked his hair. Short and bristly, why couldn’t the military understand how sexy hair was.… At last he said, “Well, there were worse things we could have done.”
“Don’t rationalize it,” she said. She ran her hands over his shoulders. Not bulky—she hated musclemen—but his body was hard and well defined. “Don’t. There are people who’ve been married their whole lives and who’ve never done what we just did.”