Heat

by Lis Lucassen

  “Penny for your thoughts.” Dan briefly glanced at her before focusing on the road again.

  “I’m thinking about everything. And nothing.” The answer couldn’t be closer to the truth. Esmee had been everything to her. And now? Her life seemed empty, as though nothing mattered anymore. As though the Lynn she’d always known had died after Esmee was gone. Who was she without Esmee? She didn’t know. But she did know that being the old Lynn no longer made sense.

  Dan kept quiet, and for that she was thankful. Other people asked too many questions, and too often. How are you doing? How are you feeling? And all the well-meant counsel, wrapped in subtle encouragement to start picking up the pieces again. “Esmee wouldn’t have wanted this for you.” That was the worst thing she’d heard.

  Lynn raised her hands. A warm breeze zigzagged through her spread-out fingers. The late afternoon sun was still as hot as ever, and it made the thin fabric of her dress stick to her back in no time. For a while, she closed her eyes and inhaled. The sweet scent of the ever-present flowers mixed with the tangy smell of the sea. The jeep slowed down and struggled with bumps in the road, tossing her from left to right in her seat. After a while, the car stopped. Lynn opened her eyes. In front of her, a deserted beach revealed itself to her, shaped like a crescent moon. Yellow ran into azure blue. Even though she’d been on the island for a few weeks now, she’d never known this place existed. In a way, it surprised her that there was still a beach here that wasn’t crammed full of lounge chairs and tourists. It was only when she got up to get out of the jeep and looked left that she spotted the sign saying ‘Private Property.’

  “We’re here.” Dan got out too and opened the trunk. “You coming? Or you want some help getting out?”

  “But this is a private beach. We can’t just…”

  “No one ever comes here,” Dan interrupted her. She wondered how he could be so sure of that, but he already gave her the answer. “As a child, I used to come to this place. And in all those years, nobody ever showed up to kick me off this beach. So I’m going to assume that won’t happen now either. And even if someone does show up, so what?”

  Lynn bit her lip. So what? All kinds of doom scenarios flashed through her mind, but she stubbornly dismissed them. Esmee would have loved this. What about herself? Her heart leapt up at the thought of throwing her usual qualms overboard. Wasn’t that what she’d been trying to do for weeks now? Wasn’t that what the new Lynn was all about?

  As elegantly as possible, she scrambled out of the jeep and made sure her dress stayed down this time. Dan had already partly picked his way down a steep, rocky path in the meantime, carrying a picnic basket in one hand and a checkered blanket in the other.

  Carefully, she followed him down and planted her feet on the slippery rocks with some apprehension. When she finally got to the beach, she kicked off her slippers and enjoyed the feeling of the warm sand under her bare feet as she walked over to Dan. He’d spread out the picnic blanket behind a protruding rock. Lynn threw her slippers down and took a seat, her gaze fixed on the sea.

  Dan joined her, his knee brushing against hers. A pleasant feeling spread throughout her body. A languorous summer breeze – only this time, the warm wind was blowing on the inside.

  “So this is your way of saying sorry,” she said, without looking at him.

  Dan remained quiet for a few seconds before he moved. His arm touched her waist as he leaned away from her, then turned back holding a bottle. The label told her it was wine. “Nope. This is how I say sorry.”

  Lynn took the bottle from him and screwed off the cap. “No glasses?”

  “No, this is as far as I’ll go to say sorry.” Again, his arm brushed against her. This time, he held up some packed sandwiches. “But I did bring some food. I guess it’d be too easy to get you hammered otherwise.”

  Quickly, she took a drink of the wine, the meaning of his words slowly sinking in. “You mean that’s what you want to do? Get me hammered, I mean?” Her voice sounded panicked and she wondered why that was. Was it because she was scared, or was she hoping for something to happen? If so, what was she hoping for? The summer breeze in her body just wouldn’t abate. Every one of Dan’s touches, accidental or not, only stirred up the wind even more.

  “Maybe.”

  Lynn gulped down another swig. She almost choked on it but thankfully, she kept it down, minimizing the risk of looking like a complete idiot with a coughing fit. A modest little cough was all she allowed herself before putting the bottle down in the sand and accepting the wrapped sandwich from Dan. She unfolded the paper. It looked delicious, and it made her realize just how hungry she was. It was anything but charming, the way she gobbled down the bread, washing it down with another couple sips of wine, before she devoured the second sandwich Dan gave her with just as much gusto. Before she knew it, she let out a satisfied sigh.

  “Apology accepted?”

  “Yeah.” She turned toward Dan, catching his amused look in her direction. He cocked an eyebrow and held up his own half-eaten sandwich for her to take.

  Embarrassed, she shook her head. What had she been thinking? She’d been pigging out right in front of him… The familiar blush crept up, heating the skin of her neck and her cheeks. Dan held her gaze as he slowly ate his own meal. She felt the urgent need to look away, toward the blue water stretching out endlessly in front of them, but Dan’s eyes held hers captive. It was him who finally broke eye contact and turned away from her to grab a bottle of soda. Lynn watched him drink, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down with every swallow. He planted the empty bottle in the sand.

  “So what about messages in bottles? You think people are only allowed to use glass bottles for those? I mean, it seems really bad for the environment to chuck one of those plastic things into the sea. Then again, glass isn’t exactly bio-degradable either. And what if plastic and glass are the only two options you have? If you can call sending a message in a bottle an option at all, of course.” Dan shot her an expectant look.

  “I’m sorry?” Lynn narrowed her eyes. Was that a serious question? Or was he… He answered her question by letting out a loud laugh.

  Dan playfully slapped her bare arm. “Has anybody ever told you that you get an enormous wrinkle between your eyebrows when you’re pondering the hard questions?”

  Yes. Someone had. Esmee had always thought she looked way too pensive. “It makes you look ugly, Lynnie.” Absently, she rubbed her forehead.

  “Has anybody ever told you that it’s very hard to read you?” she retorted a bit softly.

  Dan nodded. “Sure. My parents. My little brother. Oh, did I mention my parents yet?” He shook his head. “Oh, yeah. And my parents.” His tone changed, getting more serious. “Look, it really bothers me that I’ve been such a dick to you. You don’t deserve that, and I’m truly sorry.”

  Lynn scanned his face, half-expecting his comment to be another joke. He seemed to look right through her, the brown in his eyes turning darker. “So why were you being like that?” She wanted to understand. She wanted to understand him. How he could go from being such a nice guy, like he was in this moment, to a guy whose anger flared up and erupted like an unpredictable volcano the next.

  Dan looked away. She followed his gaze toward the sea. In a continuous motion, the water washed over the sand, only to be pulled back seconds later, stretching its blue and foamy fingers out to grab at the beach again before being beckoned back to the horizon once more.

  Silently, they sat next to each other. It dawned on Lynn that he wasn’t about to answer her question. She drank from the bottle of wine, the buzz of the alcohol turning her thoughts somehow less complicated.

  “In a few more weeks, I’ll be living in an apartment all by myself, in a city where I don’t know a soul, to be a student at a college that wasn’t even my own choice.”

  The truth poured from her lips, planting its long fingers in the sand to stay there with her. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t take the wor
ds back. She lay down on the picnic blanket on her back, her face turned skyward. It glowed with a different shade of blue.

  “Why?” Dan stretched out next to her. She looked at him. He was on his side, his arm folded under his head. He was so close. The summer breeze in her body stirred, developing into the onset of a heavy storm.

  “Because Esmee is dead.”

  It felt strange to say Esmee’s name to someone who had never known her. Somehow, it was less pregnant with meaning. There were no expectations, no connections. No sadness. The fact that Dan kept quiet allowed her to let the words out. It was a good kind of silence, a silence she wanted to fill with words because she knew he was really hearing them. He was really listening, without judgment or his own interpretation colored by memories of Esmee.

  Stating the facts was simple. Thinking back to the moment her mother had walked into her bedroom in the middle of the night, drowning in tears. How she’d finally managed to stop crying in order to tell her that Esmee had been hit by a car. Her uncle Josh and her aunt Elsie, sitting on plastic chairs in the waiting area of the hospital. The doctor coming to collect them, inviting them to walk with him to the family room. The black car that didn’t stop after hitting an innocent girl. Esmee’s bike, crashed into the soft shoulder of the road a few yards down the road.

  Those memories. Those secrets. They were unbearable.

  21

  Dan

  “Esmee is – was my cousin. She had an accident. Half a year ago.” Lynn looked up as she spoke. Dan followed her gaze. A cloud drifted by, a solitary traveler tracing a path in the otherwise clear blue sky. He tried to discern a shape, but it didn’t work. The cloud just stayed a cloud. Unsure of how to ask the next question, but certain he had to ask it in order to get Lynn to talk more, Dan turned his face toward her and took the only step that seemed logical at this point.

  “How?”

  Lynn rolled onto her side to face him. He was still in the same position, his arm folded to support his head. The tension in his body built up with every breath she took, with every word that caused her to wrestle with herself.

  “She was cycling back home after clubbing. And then a drunk driver hit her when she was crossing the road near a traffic circle.” She waited a few beats, then apologized. “I know it sounds dramatic, but Esmee was my best friend, and I miss her so much.”

  “That must have been awful.”

  “It is. Without her, I no longer know even who I am.”

  He took in her face, looking for something that would betray her. Telling him that she was lying.

  Nothing. There was nothing at all, except the fact that he recognized himself in her words. He suppressed the urge to scratch at his arms, to tear the sense of pain from his own skin. This moment wasn’t about him – it was about her. About her pain, which was so different and yet so similar to his own.

  “Maybe you don’t even need to know who you are. You change all the time. Because of things happening in your life. Things that – stop you from ever going back to your former self.” Dan pushed himself up and leaned on his knees. “And sometimes, you do go back to the person you once were, even if only for a short time.” He didn’t expect her to understand. He hardly understood it himself.

  Lynn sighed and he was surprised by the urge he felt in himself to make things better for her. He wanted to make things right, he had to. Dan ignored his fears and moved in, hovering over her without letting their bodies touch. Slowly, he bridged the short distance between their faces and pressed his lips to hers. Gently at first, then more insistent. His tongue asked permission to explore her, which she granted. He slipped into her mouth, tenderly, then confidently.

  He wanted to make things better. For her. For himself. And this was the only way he could think of. To lose himself in the moment, to lose himself in her. It was a cry for help he could no longer ignore, and he didn’t even know who’d uttered it.

  22

  Lynn

  The kiss was everything that Dan had warned her about. When he finally pulled back, no words were left. No language. No memories of sadness and regret. Just a raging need for more. A hurricane had taken over Lynn’s body. Dan hovered over her and placed his arms on either side of her head. He flung one leg across hers and was on top of her now. He kissed her again, first on her lips, then along her jaw line and in her neck. She felt the whirlwind roll around inside her, and her body followed the movement of the relentless wind. Dan kissed the bare skin of her cleavage, then found her lips again and swept her up in his passion.

  She wanted to feel him, the way he was feeling her. He was so close. Her hands found his hips and Lynn slipped her fingers under the hem of shirt, to…

  Dan sat up with a start. He grabbed her wrists and pushed them down in the sand. His hold on her hands was so strong that it hurt her. She tensed up. Because of him, because of the whole situation, and because she’d been about to do things she’d never done before. He probably noticed her panic, because he loosened his grip.

  “You can’t – you can’t touch me.” Dan’s voice sounded ragged and breathless. It obviously took him great pains to say the words.

  “Dan! Let go of me.” Lynn tried to pull away, but Dan was stronger. Panic bubbled up inside of her until she looked into his eyes. He was just as scared as she was, in this moment.

  “Please. I want to. But you can’t touch me. Please. Don’t…” He bent over and captured her mouth with his once more. This kiss was harder and more desperate. Dan claimed her unabashedly. His tongue searched and found what he was looking for. And all this time, he was holding her wrists, pinning her hands to the ground. Lynn had no choice but to give in. She wanted to follow him. Slowly, her fear faded away to make place for a new storm building up within her.

  Dan tugged her arms upward and pressed her hands down in the sand above her head. “You can’t touch me,” he repeated, his lips mumbling the words against her mouth. “Promise me.” She responded with a nod and Dan’s fingers slipped off her wrists one by one. His hands then trailed down to the buttons of her dress and his eyes asked for her permission. Again, she nodded. There was no doubt. No fear. He unbuttoned the top of her dress so skillfully that she wondered how many times before he’d undressed girls. Actually, she didn’t want to think about that.

  The fabric fell away and revealed the white lace of her bra. Dan traced the contours of her breasts with his thumbs, then hooked one thumb under the underwire of her cup and moved it up. Lynn inhaled sharply. She wanted to touch him, caress his shoulders, his chest. She wanted to feel his skin too, the sensation of her hands in his hair as he…

  Dan kissed her breast, locking his lips around her nipple. The cyclone within her erupted for real this time as it destroyed everything on its way out. The sensation was too much and not nearly enough, all at once. She grabbed his upper arms, which caused Dan to let go of her and sit up yet again. He took her hands off his arms and trapped them above her head once more.

  “I swear I don’t want to stop.” His words were breathless. “But I told you, you can’t – or I’ll stop.” He waited for a few beats, but when she didn’t reply and just looked at him, he moved his hands away from her wrists to push down the straps of her dress and bra. Dan rolled onto his side and used his free hand to spread her legs. Her dress rode up as he did. Still lying on his side, Dan proceeded to unbutton the rest of her dress. She looked down at her own body – her breasts, no longer trapped by the bra, her stomach, and the butterfly tattoo peeking out from the top of her panties.

  Dan traced the contours of the colored wings with his finger. He sought her eyes, his brown irises sparkling. “Why a butterfly?”

  “Because of…” Lynn heard her own choked answer. “Because of Esmee.”

  Esmee had had the same tattoo, in the same spot. At the time, Lynn hadn’t had the guts to get one too, not even when her cousin had repeatedly called her scaredy-pants. One week after Esmee’s funeral, she’d made an appointment at the shop and gotten the same bu
tterfly. It hadn’t really hurt – or maybe it had been because she was already smarting too much from everything else to allow the pain in.

  Dan hitched up his left sleeve and showed her his wrist. Or actually, he showed her a moth tattoo, colored in black and brown. Then, he rolled his sleeve down again and bent down to kiss the butterfly on her stomach. He kissed the wings, then moved up again to kiss her breasts, her nipples, her neck, and her mouth. Dan’s body partly covered hers. He used one hand to support himself and the other to trail a path downward, slipping it into her underwear to stroke her. There. Where the hurricane seemed to originate. Slowly, he slid one finger inside, carefully at first. Lynn moaned and he caught the sound with his mouth and his tongue, which moved in and out of her mouth in the same rhythm. Slow. Then faster, and faster still, encouraged by the bucking of her hips as she raised them up from the ground to meet him. She wanted more. She wanted everything. Her breathing sped up and the hurricane finally lifted her up, carrying her into the air and whirling her around. Eventually she got back on solid ground.

  And all this time, her hands had been above her head.

  All this time, she hadn’t been allowed to touch Dan.

  23

  Lynn

  Dan disentangled himself from her. He traced slow patterns on her stomach. Lynn closed her eyes and listened to Dan breathing next to her and the sound of the sea.

  Once she felt like she’d come down again from what felt like cloud nine, she turned her face to Dan. He was just looking at her, that teasing half-grin around his mouth. She bit her lip. She had to know, but she didn’t know how to ask him.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”His hand slid off her body and Dan sat up. She watched his back.

  “Why won’t you let me touch you?”

  Dan got up and started to put the trash in the now empty picnic basket. He walked around the blanket and picked up the wine bottle from the sand. Using his feet, he dug a small hole and poured the remaining liquid into it. Then, he put the empty bottle in the basket too.