by Trish Doller
It’s been almost a year since the last time I had sex. My body has been ready, but my brain is the reluctant sex organ. I think too much. Worry it’s too soon.
“I crave you all the time,” Keane says. “I’ve imagined you naked more than once when I was—well, when I was alone with my thoughts, but—”
“Oh my God.” I laugh, my face growing warm. “How can I possibly compete with the fantasy?”
“Come here.” He extends a hand and I let him draw me onto his lap, facing him. Through the layers of fabric between us, I can feel his arousal pressing against me. His hands are big and warm on my back as he kisses me, his lips salty from sweat. “I can promise you that nothing I’ve imagined could ever be better than the real thing. You are the fantasy.”
“I’m starting to think you’re too good to be true. No one is this perfect.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m missing a leg and I’m unemployed, so you could probably do better.”
“Probably.” The scruff on his jaw is soft beneath my palms when I take his face in my hands. “But for some reason, I want you too.”
My mouth is on his when Queenie squirms between us, reminding us that we are not entirely alone. I’m slightly disappointed, slightly relieved. “I think your other girl also needs some attention.”
Keane scratches her behind the ears as he looks at me. “Would you mind if we press pause on this moment?”
“We have all the time in the world,” I say. “Maybe we should go swimming instead.”
Our bathing suits are back at the house, so we peel down to our underwear and leap off the boat. The dog barks at us.
“Queenie, jump.” I gesture for her to come into the water and her feet dance with excitement. She walks back and forth along the deck, barking as if that will bring us back out of the water. Finally she leaps. She hits the surface with an ungainly pelican splash, but paddles to me and then to Keane.
We swim to shore, where he sits at the water’s edge while Queenie and I chase each other up and down the empty beach, displacing the seabirds who swoop and cry for us to go away. When I give up the game, Queenie brings Keane a bit of driftwood that he throws into the water for her to fetch.
“This trip has spoiled me for dry land.” I drop down onto the sand beside him. “I don’t want to go back to the real world.”
He laughs. “You’re in the real world, Anna.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do,” he says. “But people opt out of a nine-to-five existence all the time. If you want to keep sailing, you’ll find a way. Or you can return to Florida and live aboard the boat. Whatever works for you.”
“What about you?”
“Wherever you are is where I want to be.”
“And the wind gods?”
He flings the stick. “Can go fuck themselves.”
I lie back on the sand, smiling. Allowing myself to imagine Keane and me living aboard the Alberg together. “It’s a pretty small boat for two people and a dog.”
“It’ll do for now.”
Once the boat is secure, we call for a cab. My underwear is damp beneath my clothes and my face pink from the sun as Keane pays the taxi driver in front of Desmond’s house. Sharon tends to a small yellow frangipani tree in the front yard and Queenie races straight to Miles, who is kicking a soccer ball. Although I loved the outdoor shower in Jost Van Dyke, there is comfort in the way Miles’s toys are tucked into the corners of the bathtub as I’m showering off sand and salt.
Desmond returns from work and drives us all to the exclusion zone in the southern part of the island. On the way, he explains that travel in Zone V—the area around the volcano where the worst of the damage occurred—is limited to scientists from the Montserrat Volcano Observatory and law enforcement. Areas farther from the volcano are open for daytime access to tour groups, island visitors, and farmers whose livestock still roams in the exclusion zone.
We are waved through the police checkpoint and Desmond drives along the ash-filled bed of the Belham River. Soon we start seeing the abandoned houses. Some look as if they could still have people living inside, while others have broken windows and weeds creeping from the outside in. Deeper into the zone, we pass a house that was flooded with mud and ash, leaving only the second floor exposed. We drive along a golf course rendered unrecognizable by lava rock and ash.
“My parents’ house in Plymouth was completely destroyed,” Sharon says. “It’s one thing to move away from your childhood home, but another thing entirely for that home to no longer exist. Sometimes I’m sad that I cannot show Miles where I lived when I was a little girl, and he will never know a Granny and Gramps who haven’t lived in Saint John’s, but it does no good to dwell in the past.”
Plymouth is a ghost town trapped in a river of rock, and the neighboring towns of Richmond Hill and Kinsale are filled with crumbling homes like broken, abandoned seashells. Over it all looms the ash cloud, dark and sulfuric.
“The volcano has been quiet,” Desmond says. “But every day there is seismic activity, tiny earthquakes that tell scientists the island is alive.”
Plymouth is not a tomb, but we are solemn on the ride back to Lookout. Miles chatters softly to Queenie as if she understands him, but there is nothing meaningful Keane or I could say about the volcano that probably hasn’t already been said. By the time we reach the house, dinner—curried goat and potatoes stewed in Sharon’s Crock-Pot—is ready. Guinness, leftover from last night’s party, cuts through our quiet and Desmond asks how Keane and I met.
As we share the story, Keane brings up Chemineau and, to my horror, starts talking about Sara. I can’t imagine he would be so insensitive as to talk about having sex with her, but he’s also honest to a fault.
“That night ranks as one of the worst of my life,” he says. “I suffered from performance anxiety because I was utterly smitten with Anna, but the final straw was when I called Sara by Anna’s name. None of you will be surprised that Sara kicked me off the boat and I did not, in fact, sleep with her.”
“Actually, I’m surprised,” I say. “When you went to confession the next day—”
“I didn’t go to confession.”
“Liar.”
“Listen, I was simply asking the deacon his professional opinion on whether what happened with Sara—or didn’t happen, as the case may be—might be a sin,” he says. “He told me my judgment probably wasn’t the most sound but gave me an unofficial blessing to be sure, and here we are.”
Sharon covers her smile with her hand, but Desmond laughs so hard that tears trickle from the corners of his eyes.
“The whole incident might have been avoided if I’d told Anna how I felt at the time,” Keane goes on. “But given we’d only known each other one week, she’d have thought me mad.”
“How would that be different from now?” I ask.
He winks. “Because now you’re stuck with me.”
The rest of our story gets lost in laughter and Sharon telling us how she was my age when she met Desmond during the Montserrat Festival, where he was competing in the Calypso Monarch singing contest. “He was a terrible singer,” she says. “But so cute, I didn’t have the heart to tell him.”
“It’s the Sullivan charm,” Desmond says. “Once you are hooked, there’s no escaping it.”
true affection (27)
Sunday feels like a leaving day.
Desmond takes us to the dive shop in Little Bay, where Keane rents a tank and spends the morning scraping barnacles from the bottom of the boat. I clean the cabin and send Happy New Year emails home, telling my mom and Carla that we are on Montserrat. But I’m not ready to share my relationship with Keane yet. It’s too new and I want to hold on to the secret a little longer. Together we take stock of our supplies, but since we’ve had most of our meals with the Sullivans or on-island, we buy only a twelve-pack of Coke and some fresh fruits.
“We should go soon.” Keane gives voice to what I’ve been thinking as we retu
rn the dive gear to the shop. “Desmond and Sharon would have us stay as long as we like, but I fear wearing out our welcome.”
“What’s next?”
“Guadeloupe, Dominica, and Martinique are all about a day’s sail apart from one another, and the weather will be with us,” he says. “We can visit any or all of them. It’s up to you.”
I don’t even consider Ben’s route anymore. We’ve blown past islands he wanted to visit and been to places that weren’t part of his plan. The only thing I regret is not helping to do the research so I would know what each island has to offer.
“What would you choose?” I ask Keane.
“Martinique is my next favorite place in the Caribbean,” he says. “I’d drop anchor for the night in both Guadeloupe and Dominica and go ashore at Martinique.”
“Let’s do that.”
We take a taxi to the house to gather our things and say goodbye to Sharon and Miles, promising we’ll return to Montserrat soon. Miles hugs Queenie until she wriggles away. At the harbor, we’re loading the dinghy with our gear when Desmond’s patrol car drives up and he gets out. I wait for him to play the Irish cliché game with Keane, but instead Desmond only says, “I wish you could stay a bit longer.”
“We could,” Keane says. “But Miles has to go back to school and Sharon to work, and we don’t want to become an imposition. Best remember us with fondness.”
“That would assume I’m fond of you.”
“Kiss my arse, Sullivan.”
Desmond grins and pulls Keane into a hug. “Farewell, my friend. Come back to us soon. And, Anna”—it’s my turn for a hug—“you are always welcome in our home.”
He watches from the dock as we pull anchor and motor away. He is a blur in my eyes as I wave goodbye.
* * *
We sail from Montserrat to Guadeloupe, where we anchor in the harbor at Deshaies. Eat. Sleep. Wake up in the morning and sail to Dominica. We spend the night in Prince Rupert Bay. Eat. Sleep. Sail. On our way to Martinique, I try my hand at fishing and land a small blackfin tuna that we eat for lunch, seared, with homemade guava salsa. As Keane predicted, the wind has been in our favor, and the only difference between these crossings and previous easy hops is that we spend less time arguing over Scrabble and more time kissing. We’ve slept together in the V-berth but haven’t had sex. At first I appreciated Keane’s patience as I got used to the idea of having an intimate connection with someone other than Ben. But … we’ve waited long enough.
In Martinique, we anchor in a harbor that looks like a postcard come to life. Where turquoise ocean touches white sand beside the red-roofed village and green mountains behind. The hills surrounding the bay are a welcoming hug and the wooden jetty appears to come straight out from the front door of the village church.
“Welcome to Les Anses d’Arlet,” Keane says. “The best place on earth.”
“Wait. I thought Montserrat was your favorite.”
“Taken as a whole, it is,” he says. “But I could easily live out the rest of my days in this village.”
“Well, my expectations suddenly got higher.”
I take the dinghy to shore and use a computer in a restaurant to clear through customs. While I have Wi-Fi, I rent a guesthouse up the hill from the beach. When I go back to the boat for Keane and Queenie, I tell him to pack an overnight bag. “I have a surprise for you.”
“As good as Puerto Rican baseball?” he asks.
“Better.”
Fifteen minutes and a steep hill later, we arrive at a small wooden cottage with an outdoor kitchen and a view of the harbor. A striped hammock big enough for two is hanging on the veranda, but the focal point of the room is the large bed with fresh white bedding and a mosquito net draped along the headboard.
Keane takes it all in, and nods. “This is most certainly going to be better than baseball.”
I laugh, shutting Queenie in the bathroom with food, water, and her favorite tennis ball. “Definitely. I mean, I figured we could go to the beach or hiking in the forest or—”
He stops me with soft kisses, one after another, a hand sliding into my hair as the other seeks out the hollow of my lower back. Soft becomes harder, more urgent, and I clutch the back of his T-shirt in my fists, my heart thumping a wild beat. It may be that I push him backward or he draws me forward, but together we find the edge of the bed. He sits and pulls me onto his lap.
He touches my cheek. “Are you ready for me, Anna?”
“Yes,” I whisper, turning to brush my lips against the inside of his wrist. “Yes.”
He works open the buttons of my shirt. Keane has seen me in my bikini and the other day in my wet pink polka-dot bra, but today I feel exposed. The glue has only just dried on my broken heart and I’m offering him a hammer. But when he kisses my skin, just there, above my heart, I feel safe.
My shirt lands on the floor as he kisses my shoulder. I tug his shirt up over his head and send it to the ground. Kiss the corner of his mouth that always lifts first whenever he grins. I stand to remove my shorts, and Keane watches as I unclasp the front of my bra and take off my underwear. I worry that my breasts are too small and my pubic hair too much, but when I hear his sharp intake of breath and my name on the exhale, I’m reassured. Need settles heavy between my thighs.
Feeling bolder, I straddle him again and follow as he moves backward on the bed, first beneath me, then above me. The sheets press cool against my back as his mouth forges a warm trail down my body. Insecurity creeps in as I feel his mouth on my inner thigh, but it’s lost to the pleasure of his tongue.
My legs are still trembling with release when he removes his prosthesis and his shorts and slips on a condom. He moves over me. Inside me. “Oh my God.” I groan into his shoulder. “You have no idea how good this feels.”
Keane rolls his eyes and shifts his hips, making me gasp. “Yeah, none at all.”
At first we’re laughing and out of sync—two bodies that have never moved together before—but once we find our rhythm, the world around us disappears. And when it’s over, our skin damp and our breath short, the words repeat in my head like a litany. I love you. I love you. I love you. I’m afraid to say them, but when I kiss them silently into his mouth, it feels as if he’s giving them right back to me.
“Jesus, Anna, that was—” He blows out a breath and presses his lips to my forehead. As much as I love the feel of his mouth on mine, forehead kisses are the Sullivan sign of true affection and they are my favorite.
“Exactly.”
He laughs, rolling off me, and raises his arm for me to fit up against him. “I reckon you’ve ruined me now.”
“I’m not even sorry.”
As we lie together, the sun casts a square on the floor, and outside, the birds squawk. A tiny green gecko scurries up the wall beside the bed, lingering to stare at us. I focus on these things. On Queenie’s short, sharp bark that demands freedom. On the steady beat of Keane’s heart beneath my ear. Anything to hold at bay the guilt that my feelings for this man might be bigger than anything I’ve ever known.
* * *
There are a lot of things we could be doing in Martinique, but the first three days we spend nearly all our time in bed, venturing out only to take Queenie for a walk or eat in the open-air kitchen. I cut Keane’s hair using a pair of scissors I found in a drawer, and he shows me his self-care routine, explaining the layers and how he maintains his prostheses. We memorize each other’s bodies like maps, learning the places to avoid and the places to linger. We sleep. Make love. Talk. Fuck. Laugh. The time is a crash course in being together—although we’ve been learning since the beginning—and we go back to the Alberg with everything we’ve discovered.
The cabin of the boat smells like the oranges hanging in the mesh bag above the galley, and I smile at the sight of my Cangrejeros hat hanging on its hook beside the companionway. The blue is already beginning to fade in the sun, and it has molded to the shape of my head. The Pig Beach starfish stand in a row on the ledge in t
he V-berth. The photo of Keane and me at the patchwork house hangs beside the photo of Ben and me. A new house rising up beside the old.
“I’ve hung the hammock,” Keane says, coming into the cabin as I’m making up the bed. He slips his arms around my waist from behind. “But sleeping naked beneath this fluffy duvet with you is going to be the best part.”
Warmth rises in my cheeks, even though we’ve been more naked than clothed over the past two days, and he laughs softly.
“I have a gift for you.” He rummages through his duffel. “I bought this in San Juan and then you gave me Ben’s mug, and I feared it was too much and not enough, but now … here.”
He thrusts a palm-size package at me, done up in Christmas wrapping. While I tear open the paper, Keane rubs a hand across the top of his head. He’s nervous. So I’m nervous too.
Inside is a pair of earrings with raw, unpolished stones set in sterling silver.
“They’re rough diamonds,” he says. “Conflict free. I saw them in a shop window in Old Town and they were just … you.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“Like I said.”
I laugh as I kiss him. “Could you be less smooth once in a while?”
“I love you,” he blurts out. “And I know I should have kept that to myself a bit longer, but it’s the truth and I am feeling particularly un-smooth at the moment.”
“I … don’t know how to respond to that.”
“Not exactly what I’d hoped you’d say, but—”
“No, I mean … I’m scared. Ready to love you, but also not. I still think about Ben sometimes and I don’t know how to stop doing that. And maybe this will blow up in our faces but … I want to try.” My shoulders sag. “That was the least romantic declaration ever.”
Keane nods a little. “I wouldn’t put it on a greeting card.”
“I love you too.” The words come out on the back of a breath and the beginning of a smile. I didn’t mean to say them out loud, but here they are. “I don’t want you to be a rebound thing, Keane Sullivan. I want you to be the real thing.”