Dream Man (16 page)

“You're right, I guess.” She swallowed her disappointment. But she wasn't quite ready to give up. “Max… heat rises. Maybe if our fire was hot enough, the gases would go out too. Are you sure about the danger of gases?”

He hesitated. “Not absolutely. But sure enough that I'm not willing to risk it. If there was another source of air coming in, or a place for what's coming in to go out, then I'd go for it like a shot. But I don't think there is.”

“But there must be a place for it to go out. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a draft.”

He sighed. “You're right about that, of course, but it's not a very big draft. And don't forget, there's probably just impenetrable forest up there. Even if it was safe for us to make smoke signals, nobody would see them.”

This time, she sighed. She knew he was right on all counts. The risks far outweighed any possible benefits to building a coal fire. She briefly considered that they start piling rocks in the middle of the cave to get to a point high enough to reach out, but recognized that as another desperate act, perfectly useless. So was damming the stream's outlet and floating up as the cave filled. Clearly, she'd read too many comic books as a child. She patted Jason's little pile. Lord, but she hoped he was curled up safely at home reading comic books. But if he was, why hadn't he told anybody about his cave? Why hadn't he suggested that his aunt might have found it and been lost inside it?

What if he had and no one believed him? What if …

There were too many what-ifs. She shivered and pulled her down jacket more tightly around her.

Max turned on the light and got to his feet. “And now, since you're so clean and pink and not suffering visibly from hypothermia, I'm going to avail myself of your bathtub too.”

She looked down at her hands. “All I am is just a little bit cleaner and sort of dingy gray. It'll take several hot water tanks worth of showers and five or six bars of soap to get me clean and pink again.”

“Whatever,” he said. “It's good enough for me.”

That night, as they lay on the sleeping bag under the blanket, Max thought he heard Jeanie weeping softly.

He held her, as he had every night they had spent in the cave, and said, “Are you crying, sweetheart?”

“No. Of course not. Well, maybe just a little.” Her laugh was uncertain. “Funny, I don't recall the last time I really cried.”

“Why is that?”

“Why? I don't know. Lousy memory, I guess.”

“Dope.” His tone and the hand that stroked her hair were both tender. “I meant, why do you cry so seldom that you can't recall the last time? I thought tears were considered a legitimate form of female emotional release.”

“I believe they're considered a legitimate form of male emotional release sometimes, too.”

He huffed with mock indignation. “That's a filthy rumor, put about by feminists who don't know anything at all about real men.”

She smiled in the dark, remembering all of a sudden that it hadn't been so long ago that she'd cried for that kind of release. It had been the night he'd walked out on her after reading that sexy letter he'd been writing. Then, she'd from disappointment, frustration, and rage. Or so she'd told herself.

“For release of tension, I run,” she said. “What do you do?”

“Pummel a punching bag.”

There was a long silence before he said, “What would you most like to see right now, besides the outside of this cave?”

“Daffodils,” she replied without hesitation. “A field full of daffodils all bright and yellow with the sun shining down on them. Green spears of leaves, the first drowsy bumblebees of the year coating their legs with golden pollen. I love daffodils so much. They speak of February, and tell me winter's over. They're so bright and lively and have such a delicate scent, I'd like to roll in them, only it would break them. I wish, just once more, I could see and smell a daffodil.”

He wished that, just once, he could give her a hundred dozen daffodils. He said nothing, only held her tighter.

“I wonder why they haven't found the rockfall from the outside yet?”

He had to tell her then about the tape he hadn't had to tie to the cedar bough. After a long silence during which she simply clung to him, she asked, “We're going to die in here, aren't we, Max?”

He longed to be able to lie to her about that too, but the time for lies, even lies of kindness, was over. “I think we could, honey.” Searches, he knew, couldn't be kept up forever. The cost in time and manpower was too great. He only hoped, for her poor sister's sake, that she hadn't lost her son permanently as well. Jeanie rarely mentioned Jason now, but on the occasions when she did, it was with such certainty of his safety that he was touched by her faith. He wondered why she didn't have that same blind faith in her own invincibility.

“I'm so sorry I got you into this. If it hadn't been for me, you'd never have been here.”

“If I have to die, Jeanie, don't you realize I'd rather do it with you in my arms than anyone else?”

She lifted herself up on an elbow and found his face with her hand. His beard was growing soft now, and she liked to stroke it. “Max? Will you make love with me? I don't want to die never having known what it's like to love you.”

He didn't reply, just reached up and slowly slid the blanket back. Just as slowly, he found the tab on the zipper of her jacket and pulled it down, then laid her on her back. His hand softly encircled her throat, then he cradled her chin. Tilting her face up to his, he brought their mouths together, sweetly, seekingly, lovingly.

“I don't know if I can, sweetheart,” he said softly, “but I sure want to give it a try.”

When his rough, abraded hand slid under her sweatshirt, moved gently over her bony rib cage and covered a breast that had been much fuller five—or was it six—days before, Max wanted to weep for the losses they had both sustained. If he had been a praying man, he'd have prayed for the strength to give her all the power of the physical love he had wanted to share with her for so long. But now he wasn't certain be could do more than caress her, pleasure her with his hands and mouth. She sighed, and he knew he was succeeding at least in part.

“Be careful,” she whispered. “Your poor hands are so sore.”

“Never too sore to touch you,” he murmured against the soft skin of her neck, “never could I pass up an opportunity to give you pleasure. But if they're too rough for you, I'll just love you with my mouth.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “With everything, Max. Everything you can. I want all of you in every way.”

It broke his heart, but he had to warn her. “Sweetheart, I'm weak. I may not be able to—”

She stopped him with her mouth over his, a long, deep kiss that made him doubtful that over-exertion and lack of real food for however long it had been would cause the problems he anticipated. “Max, my darling, I know that and I don't care! Just being with you like this, holding you, kissing you, hearing your voice is enough. There are many ways of making love, and what we're doing is just one of them. Tell me … talk to me the way you did in those letters you wrote. They drove me so crazy with wanting you, I nearly came just listening to your voice.”

“Writing them was almost as sweet a torture as knowing what they were doing to you.” She felt the warmth of his soft laughter against her chest and rejoiced that they could still have fun together, even though it might be all they'd ever have.

He began to speak as he had written, telling her all the things he planned to do to her, everything he wanted her to do to him, the way he would make her feel, the sensations her touches would arouse in him, did arouse in him, were arousing in him.

“Max!” she gasped as her nipple peaked hard into his palm. He found the other with his lips, sucked on it, and was delighted by her moan of pleasure. She said his name in that soft, husky, sexy voice that had been one of the first things about her to attract him. Strength he'd thought long since played out with escape attempts came flooding back, and he hardened within the confines of his jeans. She moved her hips against his, and he knew she felt it, exulted in it as much as he did. She parted the front of his jacket, slipped her hands under his sweater, and ran her fingers into the hair on his chest, finding his nipples and teasing them as he teased hers.

“Max … please, no clothes between us.” Her voice was ragged, urgent.

“Jeanie, I don't want you to be cold,” he protested, but she shrugged out of her jacket, peeled her sweatshirt off over her head, and even in the utter darkness, he knew exactly how lovely she must look. He felt her slither out of her jeans, and then he capitulated, stripping himself as swiftly as she had.

When their naked bodies came together, there was no more thought of cold or worries of impotence. Heat grew, spread, sparked between them and flared. Hands explored rigid flesh, soft, moist hollows. Tongues entwined, limbs tangled, bodies strained, and two voices called out low as he lunged inside her, unable to wait, to prolong the foreplay. Her silken thighs wrapped tightly around his hips as she accepted him gladly with a little cry of welcome, drawing him deep within.

“Ah, Jeanie, baby, beautiful!” He pulled almost out of her with tantalizing slowness that forced her to thrust her hips up to him, wordlessly begging for more. Once again, he withdrew, paused, then slowly, inch by teasing inch, reentered her pulsating folds, feeling her quivering anticipation of the moment when they would be fully joined again. It was as he had known it would be, exquisite torture for both of them and he never wanted it to stop. But she had other ideas, more urgent needs, if that were possible, and she dug her fingers hard into his taut buttocks, rocking strongly against him.

“Max! Max! Don't stop now. I need you so much!”

He called out her name, driving into her again and again, feeling her legs tighten around him, her blunt, broken nails scraping against his back, her whole body arch into a taut bow reaching for that one, seemingly impossible goal.

High-pitched, keening wails emanated from her. Her muscles tightened around him, triggering his own climax. It came with a rush, draining him, until he collapsed atop her, as her spasms subsided too. Like hers, his breath sobbed in and out, but he was more satisfied than he had ever been in his entire life. And more spent.

Sometime later her realized they were both shivering in the cold. Waking her gently, he tugged her down jacket around her, pulled his own back on and drew the blanket over their bodies again. Their own heat trapped there, around them, they slept again, exhausted. But as daylight sent its one little finger into the crack high overhead, they awoke, opened their eyes and smiled at each other, expressions full of joyous memories of what they had discovered together deep inside a cave that might well become their tomb.

Beside them, the little stream played its tinkling morning music that sounded strangely to Jeanie like the jingling of golden bangles, and she was happy.

Every night after their day's attempts at freeing themselves, they lay still and listened in vain for the sound of voices, the sound of traffic, even the dull rumble of a passing jet to let them know that others humans still lived on the surface of the earth they were trapped within. But all they heard was the gentle, musical tune of the busy little stream as it came from one seam in the rock, crossed their cavern, and slipped away into another small crack.

But still, the musical creek was a pleasant melody to fall asleep to, and exhaustion kept them from staying awake too long brooding.

“There are twenty-eight mints left,” Jeanie said looking up from the ledge where she knelt, “a handful of raisins and six dried apricots. What would you like for dinner?”

“One apricot, six raisins, and a mint.”

“Sounds good to me too,” she said, carrying him his share, making sure he got the larger of the two apricots. Carefully, she fed him. His hands were too swollen and torn for him to do much for himself. Since they had entered the larger cave, and all of their shouting had shown no results, they had gone back into the first cavern and tried again and again in the dark to dislodge that immovable slab.

They had taken apart the two backpacks, straightened the aluminum frames as best they could and tied them together with strips of cloth. But even with Jeanie standing on Max's shoulders, their rod was still a good twenty feet short of reaching the slit in the roof. As each night fell, they bathed together in the pool, dried each other, and then cuddled together on Jason's sleeping bag, covered with their coats and the blanket.

When their strength permitted it, they awoke, stroked each other, nibbled a few bites of their remaining supplies, and sometimes, but not always, made love. Often, it was simply enough to lie together, naked under the blanket and touch, talk, whisper secrets no one else would ever know, of hopes and dreams and memories. Their strength waned daily, and they both knew it, but whenever they awoke and there was light coming from the outer world, there was a moment to rejoice in another day of life, another day when they might be found. At night, they knew there was no possibility of discovery, so the dark hours were theirs, and in them they shared a gentle, weary kind of loving.

“Good morning,” he said on what Jeanie thought was the beginning of their sixth day in the larger cavern.

“Good morning,” she responded.
Good morning, my love
, she added silently, wondering if he could read the words in her eyes.

“Did you sleep well?”

“I had the craziest dream about a blue-eyed hero,” she told him. “It seems he undressed me, made the most exquisite love to me, then held me in his arms all night long.”

“That's funny,” he said. “I had a similar dream. But in mine, the most beautiful woman sat up beside me in the dark and took off all her clothes, then attacked me. I fought, of course, but she's a witch and was able to overcome my objections with no difficulty.”