Fever Moon (10 page)

She left the keys in the lock and stepped into his arms. “Time doesn’t wait for no man and neither does Florence.” His aftershave was sharp and clean like a snapped pine branch. Her cheek brushed his chest and she felt the starch in his shirt. She liked a clean man, one who took pains to show respect for her. She limbered her spine and let her groin sink against him. His response was swift, eager. She laughed, loving the power she held over him. Though folks in town said he was half dead, she knew how to bring life to him. “What kept you, baby?”

“I was out at the Bastion place and then had some things to do before I finished work.”

Florence stepped back and in the dim light saw the trouble in his face. She took his hand. “Let’s go inside.”

“I thought you were going out.”

He was teasing her, but she didn’t care. She walked backward, pulling him inside by the hand. “I changed my mind.” Once he was inside, she latched the screen.

His arms circled her from behind, pulling her against him where she felt again his desire for her. His hands gently captured her breasts, cupping them as he kissed her neck. “I would have called, but by the time I found a telephone I would have been even later.”

“You want a drink?” She caught his hands and stilled them. Most of the time she was eager for a man to finish, pay, and leave. Raymond was not a paying customer, though. She wanted to make the evening last, to savor the hours they shared. She was playing with fire, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“I’d like that.” He released her.

She went to the kitchen and got the ice she’d already chipped and made two fresh drinks. Her body felt both heavy and light. Raymond stirred emotions that she knew were best left alone. Sexual desire was acceptable. That was the boundary Raymond had set for her—clearly set—before he began to see her on a regular basis. He gratified her in a way no other man did, because he could stretch time and sensation in a way she’d never experienced. Because this was more than just sex for her. That was a secret she could not share with him, else he would leave her. In the fantasies of a future life that she wove, he played a starring role.

By the time she made the drinks her hands were shaking. She took a deep breath and forced a smile as she walked back to the front room where he stood looking out the door at the still, soft night.

He took the drink and sipped it. “Thank you, Florence.” His gaze remained out the door, at the moonlight filtering through the crooked oak limbs and draping Spanish moss. “It’s twenty-six days until the next full moon.”

She knew where his mind had gone without being told. “My granny used to tell me stories of the
loup-garou.”
She put her arm around his waist, content for the moment to drink and talk. Most men had no use for her memories or her dreams. Raymond enjoyed hearing about her past, and she wanted him to know her when she’d been innocent and untainted.

“Were you afraid of the big bad wolf?” he asked. His hand slipped down her arm, hugging her against him.

“When I was little, before Mama took a house in Baton Rouge.” She laughed. “Granny was a gifted storyteller. She would gather all of us children into bed with her, five or six of us all beneath the quilts. The house was heart pine, and the flames from the fireplace would dance on the walls and turn them red. Then Grandma would tell us about Pierre, a man who loved money more than anything else.”

“Tell me the story.”

She nestled closer to his side, inhaling his scent. “Pierre buried his money in the swamps so no one could find it. He was such a mean man that he left his wife and children hungry. When he went to work in the morning, he put the print of his hand in the flour barrel to be sure his wife used none of it to feed the children. He said they could eat acorns or catch fish, but he wasn’t going to feed them.”

“Was Pierre a real person?”

Florence shook her head. “I don’t know. I never knew him, but he could have been someone from my grandmother’s time.”

“Tell me the rest.”

“Pierre came home every evening and went by himself into the swamp to bury the money he’d made. He was late going out one night, and he traveled by the full moon, wanting to save the lantern oil. When he came to the right place he started digging, but then he heard something in the woods. He was angry because he thought one of the children had followed him to learn his secret hiding place.”

“ ‘Come out and take the beating you deserve,’ he said. The only answer was the rustling of the underbrush. He grew angry and lit the lantern and held it up. ‘Come out or I’ll beat you until you can’t move,’ he cried.

“Instead of a child, a beautiful woman stepped out of the woods. She wore a gown of white with a silver belt. A silver fur tipped in black was draped over her shoulders. He’d never seen anyone so lovely.”

“This rendition of the
loup-garou
is different from what my family told. There was no mention of a beautiful woman as I recall the story.” Raymond finished his drink and she handed him hers, swapping glasses.

“This was how Granny told it.”

A breeze shifted the tree limbs, scattering the shadows on the ground.

“What happened to Pierre and the beautiful woman?”

“Pierre was so taken with her beauty that he forgot about burying his money. He scrambled out of the hole. ‘Are you lost?’ he asked. She said no, she knew exactly where she was. She said she’d been waiting to talk to him. He turned to reach for his lantern, and when he swung the light to better see her face, in her place stood a huge gray and black wolf with a silver belt around its neck-Florence hesitated. She hadn’t thought of the story in years, but she was suddenly transfixed by the image in her mind.

“Florence?”

“I remember now that I didn’t like the end of the story.” She tried to shrug off the feeling that settled over her.

“Will you finish it? I’m taken with this beautiful woman who turns into a beast.”

“Come inside.” The moon shadows shifting on the ground disquieted her. “I’ve given myself the heebie-jeebies.” She laughed and heard the hollowness in her voice.

Raymond closed and locked the door. When he turned to her he took her glass and his and set them on a small table. With one sure movement he pulled her into his lap as he sat on the sofa. “Tell me the end.”

Florence could hear the steady beating of his heart. The sound comforted her. She was a fool to let childhood fears slip around her, she who knew so well how superstitions fed on ignorance.

“Pierre ran through the woods for his life with the wolf bounding after him. He made it home and rushed to barricade the doors, but he wasn’t fast enough. The wolf leaped into the house and attacked his wife and children, eating all of them. When it was finished, it changed back into the woman. She was covered in blood. It dripped from her mouth. She looked at Pierre and said, ‘Beware that you aren’t consumed by your own hungers.’ And then she ran out into the night.”

“That’s a twist I didn’t expect.” Raymond was amused, and that more than anything eased the dread that had built around Florence. “Your grandmamma was teaching you a moral lesson about greed, wasn’t she?”

“I haven’t thought of that story in years, but I guess I always hated it because the innocents were killed. If the
loup-garou
had eaten Pierre, it would have been justice.”

Raymond’s hands stroked her bare arms. He kissed the top of her head. “I’ve never heard an account of the
loup-garou
that comes close to that. Usually the stories are about howling and salivating wolves and lost children that disappear forever in the dark swamps.”

“Half the town believes Adele Hebert is the
loup-garou.”

His hands stopped moving on her flesh. “People are desperate for a diversion. Anything to turn their thoughts from the war and from the plague of fever. Adele has provided them delicious gossip, but I wonder if they truly believe.”

“They believe what’s convenient.”

He lifted her face so that he could look into her eyes. “You’re a bright woman, Florence. That’s why I enjoy your company. That and certain other talents.”

She touched his freshly shaved cheek. A question burned in her mouth, but she knew not to ask. If she hinted that she wanted more than what he gave her, he would be gone. She hadn’t known Raymond before he went to war, but this much she knew—his mind was as scarred by what he’d done and seen as his body. He kept both hidden from everyone.

Instead, she closed her eyes and kissed him. She let her body do the talking as she pressed into him, one hand catching a firm hold of his hair and the other working at the buttons of his shirt.

He held her with one arm while his other hand began a slow exploration up her silk-clad leg. He made a noise of appreciation deep in his throat as he found the top of her stocking and then the bare flesh of her thigh.

His fingers brushed lightly up her skin, barely grazing her pubic hairs and the bare flesh of her belly. His touch, so delicate yet so assured, turned her inside out. She arched in his lap, allowing him better access.

“Florence, you’re a woman made for pleasure,” he whispered into her hair. “Sometimes I think knowing you is the only thing that keeps me human.”

His words increased her hunger. If pleasure was what he wanted, she could give that. She was skilled in the ways of pleasing men. She kissed him deeply and then stood up. With a swift motion she reached behind her and unzipped the dress. She let it fall to the floor, revealing the black satin bra and matching garter belt she’d bought in Baton Rouge. He swallowed.

He reached for her and she stepped back, smiling. “I want you to want me more than anything else in life.”

His smile hid a near desperate need. “If I want you any more, I’ll embarrass myself here on your sofa.”

Raymond had more control than he gave himself credit. She knew from past experience. “You can touch me with your hands. Or your tongue. Nothing else.”

His answer was a groan.

She stepped close enough for his hands to grasp her right thigh, sliding up the skin, moving to a place where she could barely control her own need for him. But she locked her knees and held herself steady, letting his fingers explore. When she could stand it no longer, she took his hand and pulled him from the sofa. Once he was standing, she unzipped his pants and freed him, satisfied that her merest touch made him inhale sharply.

This was their game, to tease and tantalize each other to near torture. She liked to make it last, because it was these moments that she thought of when she surrendered her body to the lust of other men. It was Raymond she saw in her mind, replaying his touch, his caress, his teasing suggestiveness. And it made her work tolerable.

She’d never known a man who enjoyed the art of foreplay as much as Raymond. He could spend hours drawing his fingers along the quivering skin of her abdomen, circling ever closer to the place that would bring her relief—yet veering away at the last moment, laughing at the way he made her body buck and arch toward him.

And she returned the favor with her hands and lips. Until both reached the end of their endurance and the joining was all that remained to bring about the last and final pleasure.
La petite mort
was the term her mother had used. So fitting, as they lay exhausted afterward, almost too sensitive and alive for the touch of the sheet, yet exhausted to the point of near lethargy.

Whatever sexual bond connected them, Florence had never known such complete satisfaction. She loved Raymond. Had no doubt of it. She also knew that to express those three words would end their nights together. It wasn’t that she was a whore. Her occupation had nothing to do with it. Raymond’s aversion to love went much deeper. He would never allow himself to admit his feelings for her, and he would never accept the responsibility that came if she revealed what her heart felt for him.

As she smiled and led him to the bedroom, she felt the familiar stab of pain in her heart. She would satisfy herself with this moment, with this night, which was more than many women ever knew—based on her experiences with their clumsy husbands. Even if this were their last night together, she had truly loved.

She finished unbuttoning his shirt and slid it from his body, and then unbuttoned his slacks. He stepped out of his shoes and pants in one fluid motion, and as she knelt to remove his shorts, she let her fingers trace the purple scar that covered his lower back and right buttocks and made an S down the outside of his thigh. Her probing fingers felt the metal still there, and she leaned to kiss it.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he said, and she knew he lied. She kissed it lightly and then turned her attention to things that wouldn’t remind him of the war or the parts of himself he’d lost in Europe.

His fingers gripped her hair, massaging her scalp, and she felt true joy as she heard his moan of pleasure. This night would be enough for her. She would make it so.

Kay-ie!

Raymond awoke beside Florence, his heart pounding. He’d been dreaming of Antoine. He pulled the sheet over Florence’s taut hip, glad that he hadn’t awakened her. The night had grown chill, and Florence liked to sleep against him nude. At first he’d resisted staying the night, but the only sleep he achieved was beside Florence. Her warm body and the soft movement of her chest gave him more comfort than he cared to acknowledge. But not even Florence was a barrier against the past, against the man he was.

In his dream Antoine had been standing by the bed. Raymond had reached out to him to beg forgiveness, but Antoine had faded into the night. Then Raymond had heard the hawk’s cry. He sat up and in the moonlight from the window he saw that blood had soaked Florence’s pillowcase. His eardrum was bleeding. Again. She never complained, never asked, and each time he came to her, the bed linens were ironed white perfection.

He watched the rise and fall of her chest. Her breasts were lush, heavy. Made for a man. Her dark hair spread over the pillow, a froth of curls. The small scar on her face heightened her beauty. He held his hand a millimeter from her cheek, desperate to touch her. Yet he restrained himself. Sometimes, when he looked at her, he imagined he could see her as a child, a perfect, untainted beauty before life had put the pain he sometimes saw in her green eyes.