by Jack Ketchum
If he’d asked her she’d have fucked him right there on the beach.
But he didn’t.
He wasn’t shy. It wasn’t that. He was not a man who was shy with women. She looked at his face and read pain and a reluctance to face more of it or even to bother-a kind of weariness there and knew that even though he was interested he was basically just going through the motions with her so that she would have to sink the hook fast and deep, and she did not wonder how or why he had come to be in pain but only how she could escape its consequences in him and have him now, because he was a beautiful thing and halfway hers already-and he did not even know what pain was. Not really.
DODGSON
The taverna overlooking the bay was operating on Greek time so the food was late. The first bottle of wine was gone by the time they ordered. The second disappeared with dinner and half the third as well. When that was gone they ordered a fourth out of sheer bravado and nursed the stuff.
The night was young.
From Danny’s and Michelle’s comer there was laughter and maneuverings under the table. From theirs a quiet heat. The wine augmented both. It was a rule of thumb in Greece that the wine did not depress. It elevated. Why that should be so nobody knew. Dodgson had heard it attributed to the heat, the food, the light, even to bouzouki music. His own theory was that if any place was depression-proof it was Greece. Even his own had relented-somewhat.
When finally ten o’clock rolled around the town’s sole surviving disco was open so they walked there and ordered cognac. Dodgson and Lelia watched and talked while the others danced. He thought Danny was a lousy dancer. When the cognacs were gone she squeezed his hand and they quietly slipped away.
They walked to the beach.
The night was warm, the moon waning but very nearly full. They were both a little drunk. It was impossible to fall in step together.
The beach at Matala was shaped like a horseshoe and on the left prong of the shoe was town, on the right the limestone caves high up in the cliffs that had been crypts in ancient times and then during the sixties makeshift homes for globe-trotting hippies. Behind them lay the campground. They could still hear music from town so they walked away toward the cliffs. They took off their shoes and followed the tideline.
When they were far enough away from the noise and town he turned and kissed her.
Her mouth was wonderful.
There was art there and fire in something like equal measure and even as he felt himself rising he knew that they had this in common- that neither would wholly let go just yet. That was why the art was there. It banked the fires with illusion. It teased, promised much, intimated what full abandon would be like between them. He opened his eyes and saw that hers were open too, staring not at him but at the caves, shadowed holes in the blonde moonlit rock.
Their bodies ground together. He tasted cognac. He didn't mind.
She stepped away. The heavy lips smiled.
“Do you swim?”
She walked a few steps up the beach and dropped her shoes in the sand. She turned to face him, moonlight drowning the pale irises so that for a moment her eyes held no color at all. Pinpricks of ice pointed at him.
“Sure I do.”
Linen hissed once longingly against flesh. Under the dress she was naked. He’d known she would be. She dropped it on the sand. Then she waited for him.
He undressed. He went to her and they walked side by side into the water, not touching, and he felt the cold glide of waves across his thighs, the air warm, the water cold, her pale nipples tight and darker now, small gnomic pyramids crowning the gently swaying flesh. His head felt clearer. By the time the water reached his waist he was ready for her, the heat of his erection strangely alien in the drifting chill.
She turned and wrapped her strong thin arms around his waist. They moved sideways together until the water was chest-high. She slid her hands down to his buttocks, caressing him and pressing him forward, capturing him suddenly between her legs and then moving gently back and forth.
She laughed, thin music on the still night air. She released him, grasped his shoulders and lifted herself smoothly onto him. She was warm inside and soft. He gasped at her sudden heat. Her eyes flashed at the sound and she stopped it with her mouth, tongue driving deep, lips crushing his until he thought he would taste her blood.
Inside her something tightened as she drew back over him and then slid forward again, sinking him deep, then lifted away and pumped at him, opening wide this time, pumping hard, and he met her strokes while a bright delicious fog fell over him so that all art was gone in the drugged heat of bodies and cold water and swirling white waves around them, the slide growing smoother and smoother, the woman suspended in his arms raking his shoulders with blunt hard nails-until finally her head snapped back and he felt the sudden flush of her skin and the slide go wide and soft and she grunted once, twice, mouth frozen for a moment in a wide unspoken scream that drew the lips back over her teeth and rolled the eyes while convulsions siezed her. Drawing out of her completely he plunged back in again and flooded her with sperm and seawater and then he shuddered too.
He rested. His erection would not subside.
She pressed her cheek to his shoulder and held him tight. He closed his eyes.
For a moment they were almost tender.
When they drew away they were trembling, gooseflesh covering their bodies. He saw faint blue veins in her temple and in her breasts. They walked slowly from the water. He handed her his shirt and watched her use it to pat herself dry.
She put on the linen dress. He put on his pants and shirt. They sat in the sand and soon they were lying there staring at the moon and stars. Her head rested lightly on his shoulder. The sand was fine and soft beneath him.
He felt the liquor again. A good sensation. An exhausted drifting. He fell asleep.
***
And the last thing he remembered was that she turned to him, the eyes their own true color now this close to him and said, you’ll pay for this, you know.
He smiled and said yes.
Yes I know. Yes I will.
***
When he woke up she was gone.
So was the moon. It was colder, getting on to dawn.
He called her as loudly as he dared without waking the campers on the hill. He got no answer. With the clouds drifting over the moon it was hard to see. The beach was a gray thin streak along a glittering black sea. He walked slowly, looking first to the town and then back to the cliffs.
He couldn’t find her.
He felt the beginnings of a headache.
Okay, he thought. We fell asleep. At least I did. But what about her? He thought that yes. she’d probably slept too. He could still feel some stiffness in his shoulder where she’d been lying. She must have stayed awhile.
He wondered what time it was.
No matter how he thought about it, it made no sense. If she’d gotten cold she could have told him. He’d have gone too. Why not wake him? Why just disappear?
It was damn disorienting. As though he’d dreamed the whole thing-the walk along the beach, making love, everything. He wasn’t angry-just puzzled.
He walked back to the Romantica, turning it over in his mind. What the hell?
He opened the door to his room and there was Danny asleep with Michelle in the far bed, the sheets twisted around them like snakes. He moved silently into the bathroom and took off his clothes and hung his shirt over the door to dry. He walked across the floor to his bed and slipped beneath the covers. He rolled over and slept a second time that night.
He slept late.
***
It was noon before he was out the door. By that time all the questions were merely amusing. He knew it wasn’t anything he’d done or said that had made her go. So he wondered what she was up to. Lelia? What’s the story, Lelia?
He found Danny and Michelle drinking sweet Greek coffee in the square, sitting with a pair of German girls he knew vaguely from the beach. To Dodgso
n it looked like Danny was into some serious flirting but Michelle didn’t seem to mind. Confident of him, he guessed.
They waved him over.
“Hey, Sparky. I hear you were a bitch last night.”
“You do?"
“Sure. Lelia was by.”
“Uh-huh. And?”
“She’s one angry lady, man. Says the two of you fell out on the beach a while. Then she woke up and you weren’t there. You’d skipped on her. How come?”
“Me?”
He couldn’t believe it.
“I’d skipped on her?”
Michelle smiled. She shook her head. “I don’t expect this of you, Robert. Him, maybe. Him of course. But…”
Danny poked her.
“This is too weird. I didn’t leave her. It was the other way around. I woke up and she was gone.”
“Oh yeah?”
He rolled his eyes as though Dodgson were slipping and everybody laughed. Everybody but Dodgson.
“She really told you that?”
“Sure. Stood right there and said you’d deserted her. Am I right, ladies? Am I lying?”
The German girls nodded.
“And you say she was pissed? Really angry?”
“I’d say she’d like to stuff you in a blender, make up some Skippy coladas. A woman scorned, y’know?”
“Jesus.”
“You going to the beach?”
“I was planning to.”
He nodded. “Man of Steel. Actually, I’d think about hanging around down here with us if I were you.”
He needed a cup of coffee. The headache was back. It really was too early in the morning for this shit.
“Danny, how drunk was I last night?”
He shrugged. “Light to medium. I’ve seen you worse. It really didn’t go down that way? You’re sure?”
“I swear it.”
“That’s a pretty strange lady, then. You better have some coffee. Maybe a beer or two.”
He thought about it.
“No, I think I’ll go to the beach. See what I didn’t do last night. You’re positive she wasn’t putting you on.”
“She was serious,” said Michelle.
“Sure looked serious. She has nice flary nostrils, know that?”
He turned to go. “See you later,” he said.
He started walking, then heard Danny shout behind him. “Hey, Skippy. Don't worry. She’ll forgive you!” Then there was laughter.
“I forgive you," she said.
He looked at her.
“You’re kidding.”
“No. I do.”
“For what?”
“For leaving.”
“I didn’t leave, Lelia.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Silly? I woke and you were gone. I looked for you. I called you. I couldn’t find you. Anywhere.”
“Now you’re being irritating.”
“Huh?"
“Look. We fell asleep. I woke up. You weren’t there. I had to find my own way back from the beach alone. And I was still a little drunk, too. I was angry. I’m not anymore.”
“That’s it, then.”
“What’s it?”
“You were drunk.”
“I said a little. You weren’t?”
“Well, maybe some. Not enough to…”
“Robert. Let’s not make a thing of it. I’ve long since forgiven you. I told you that!”
“You have.”
“Of course. The rest of it was lovely, wasn’t it?”
“Yes it was.”
“Well then.”
***
He sat down on the sand. It’s some sort of silly game, he thought. And if she has to win it then I suppose she has to win it.
He looked at her lying on her back, eyes closed against the sun, at the lovely easy nudity, and he couldn’t figure it. He felt the first uneasy stirrings of doubt about her.
I don’t like games, he thought.
I hope she isn’t into that.
Or it’s going to be a short relationship.
***
Yet the rest of the day passed pleasantly.
There was no more mention of the night before. The sun and sand worked on them and Dodgson relaxed again. They talked a little. She asked about his books and he told her. A serious and flawed first novel that had somehow after three long years found a publisher and which everyone-quite rightly in Dodgson’s estimation-ignored. Followed by a cynical commercial thriller that had found a home easily and, surprisingly, sold even fewer copies than the first book. He spoke of them without regret or anger.
Which was something.
***
“There are a few…perks, I guess you’d call them. I still have some of the advance money on the thriller for one thing. It got me here. And then I suppose there’s some cachet to being a published novelist. People figure you’re probably bright enough, possibly talented. So you’re accepted into circles you wouldn’t be, ordinarily. That’s sort of interesting for a while.”
“Fashionable circles?”
“Some, yes.”
“You’re handsome, you know. Your looks can’t hurt you much either.”
He shrugged.
“Anyway, I accept you.”
“Are you…fashionable?”
“You mean am I rich. Obviously I’m fashionable.”
“Obviously.”
***
He wondered if she was rich. It wouldn’t surprise him. If so that would leave him the poor relation again. Michelle had private money and so did Danny-he’d inherited his father’s pharmaceutical company. It ran itself, he said. Working it was hardly more than a hobby for him at the moment.
He wondered if he gave a damn. He didn’t think so. He worried, sometimes, what would happen after the advance ran out. He doubted that there was another book left in him-except for fee one about Margot.
And he wasn’t writing that one, not ever.
He’d probably end up teaching.
And for a moment the depression was on him again, perched like a vulture. What was the saying? Depression was nothing but anger without urgency.
You’re a bore, he thought. Cut it out.
He lay back on the sand and baked awhile and his depression lifted. Here, eventually, it always did. So much of Greece was purely physical-it was his own particular brand of Zen. Oh, there were ruins, museums, monasteries. But Greece reached Dodgson through sun and sand and sea, through the senses, through good light eating and clean air, through women, through nude bodies and hot dry days and breezy nights, through the wine and liquor and the taste of clear fresh water. If there was struggle at all it was only for more of what was good-more comfort, more wine, more long cool nights.
Even the smokes are good, he thought. They’d make you cough like hell in the long run-they were strong-but the sinuses drained. You could breathe with them.
He lit one. Smoke drifted.
They swam later and the sea was calm. He watched her dive and surface, the water rolling off her oiled naked body. She was beautiful. She swam and you could see the strength hidden in the slim graceful body, the strong shoulder muscles, the thighs, the long slender arms.
He couldn’t keep up with her. He didn’t try.
He lay back at the tideline and let the waves curl over his ankles and watched her.
She's a little strange, he thought. So what. Maybe she’d get the message now that games were out for him. He hoped so.
Seawater stung his eyes, trickling from his hair. He wiped them as he watched her dive again.
Time to towel off, he thought. He got up and walked to the wicker mats. Behind him he heard her splashing. She swims like a seal does, he thought. Mostly underwater. He dried his hair. He brushed the sand off his legs and sat down on the mat.
At first he couldn’t see her. There was too much glare off the water.
Then he did.
And it felt as though his heart had stopped for a moment.
She was float
ing.
She floated faceup, buoyant with the high salt content of the water, calves and forearms dangling limp, arms and legs spread wide so that the waves lapped over them and tossed her gently. Her head lay back, the hair completely under, completely submerged. And for a moment he thought, Dead. She's dead. My god, she’s drowned herself. How long have I not been watching?
Long enough.
He got to his feet. Impossible, he thought.
And then thought, no, it’s not.
He started forward, moving fast. Then stopped.
He saw her left hand rise and brush a long dark lock of hair off her cheek.
It made him laugh. It wasn’t pleasant laughter.
He stood there feeling foolish and relieved, feeling his heartbeat slow, the blood in his face recede. Dodgson, he thought, you’re an ass. He kicked at the sand in front of him. He watched her.
Now that he knew she was okay it was very sexy, what she was doing out there. Very sexy indeed. The languor. The wide-open spread to the arms and legs-he could see the waves lap gently at her pubic hair. It glistened in the sun. She wore a look of submission to the elements, to the air and water. He could see her body rise and fall as she breathed, lungs and liquids keeping the heavy bones afloat. And he imagined what it felt like-the air wanning her upper body, buttocks, legs and genitals colder, caressed by the cold as the body sank and rose and sank again.
He remembered what they called it now.
Dead man’s float. Or was that face down?
It was just a little too apt though and for a moment it frightened him again. He thought of Margot in a tubfull of bloody water.