Message From Viola Mari (12 page)

“We’re in the middle of nowhere, now.” Justin sat in the driver’s seat, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on his muscular thigh.

“Where no one can find us,” I said, laughing. He turned his head and his eyes flashed with intensity. Those flecks of yellow and brown I saw in his eyes were like a window into his heart and soul. I saw what he felt, like he’d just escaped with a treasure he wanted to hold onto.

Forever. You can have me forever.
I plucked his hand from his thigh and held it, weaving my fingers in around his.

“It looks like there’s a walking trail over here.” He nodded toward the right side of the road. “You want to check it out?”

“Sure, why not?”
I’m up for anything with you.

Justin pulled the car off the road and we walked along a narrow dirt path, damp from an earlier rain. The trail steepened and our feet slid as we descended a wet, earthy staircase toward pools of crystal blue water below. A trickling waterfall and bird calls echoed beneath the canopy of trees, which obscured the surrounding sunlight, making me feel as if we’d stepped inside a dark cavern.

“You up for a swim?” Justin raised one thick eyebrow suggestively.

“I am if you are.” I shrugged out of my clothes and slid one foot across the white sand into the crystal clear water. “Oooh.” This collapsed cavern must be really deep, I thought, as I gazed out at its sapphire blue center. The water chilled my toes, despite Belize’s muggy heat.

“A little cold for you?” His gaze dropped to my chilled nipples, which projected like erect pebbles.

Justin had already shucked off his clothes and submerged himself in the pool. “I’m waiting for you.” As he held his arms out to me, his well-defined biceps and triceps rippled beneath the dim light.

As I stepped in, goose bumps crawled up my arms and neck. The cool water heightened my senses, making me feel giddy, energetic, jumping-out-of-my-skin alive. I stepped into the warm expanse of his arms, titillated by the contact of his warm, contoured flesh. I shivered and pulled him in closer, kissing him on the neck and cheek.

I clasped one hand around the back of his head and ran my fingers through his long blond curls before I drew his face nearer. He kissed my face, my nipples and then lifted me gently into his arms. He walked along the sandy bottom, carried me to the edge of the pool and gently laid me onto a narrow limestone shelf. Moss grew in the rock’s fractured interstices. Lying on this jungle bed was unforgettable, partly because the colorful moss felt like soft fur against my spine, mostly because Justin slid from the water, his fingers tracing tingly shapes over my thighs before he separated them and covered me with his long lean body. He made love to me, gently, tenderly, because there was no hurry, no place we had to go—we had all afternoon to love each other in this jungle paradise.

Our days on the beach in Placencia were bliss. We splashed in the ocean, strolled along the beach holding hands, and stretched out on our towels and just talked for hours. Expressing thoughts and emotions that floated through my head felt so much better than forcing them to build up inside until I felt like I would burst. I even found myself telling him about my lifelong fear of becoming an alcoholic, and how I’d fought that genetic disposition with all my might. Justin had rubbed my arm and consoled me, saying I was too strong to succumb to alcohol. “My father wanted me to be a physician,” he said. “Whenever he’d find me in my room writing, he’d ask me if I was gay, or tell me a story about how artists all turned out to be homeless people or something similar.”

I poured some sunscreen into my hand and applied to it my face. “That’s terrible. Did he eventually come to recognize you had a gift?”

Justin leaned toward me and touched my nose, wiping away a stray glob of lotion before planting a kiss there and gazing at me. “He never did. Even my mom tried reasoning with him, but he just didn’t want to accept that I’d turned out to be someone different than the son he wanted. That really hurt.”

“Maybe it’s not too late.” I kissed him on the cheek and fastened my eyes on his.

“My dad died of lung cancer last year.” Tears filled his eyes. “I visited him several times while he lay dying in hospice, sedated with morphine. He kept saying it wasn’t too late to turn my life around. If only he could have accepted the life I’ve chosen—the one that fulfills me.”

“I’m sorry. That’s very sad. What about your mom? How does she feel?” I traced out his full lips with a fingertip and watched his frown melt away.

“She’s always valued my creativity. And she’s encouraged me to keep on trying when the rejections blew me to pieces.
The son I know would never give up,
she’d say. Publishing is a tough business. You have to really persevere if you want to make it.”

“But she knew you had it, and you must have too.”

“In the end, yes. And it was worth it to finally see my name on my first book cover.”

“I can imagine. I think you’re amazing.”

Our intimate conversation was punctuated by lovemaking. He melted into me on a narrow sandbar nearby. Later, he wrapped his legs around me on a hammock on the front porch of our bungalow. Our undulations screeched to an anticlimactic halt when a bolt pulled loose from the wooden beams, landing us in a heap on the ground. But it didn’t take us long to regain our rhythm. That evening, behind a sand dune, he traced an erotic curve from my pert nipples to my inner thighs, letting the moonlight show him the way.

Five mornings later, the alarm sounded before dawn. We reluctantly untangled our limbs. I missed the warmth of his body as I sat up and touched down on the cool tile floor with my bare feet. We groggily packed what we’d need for the week-long diving excursion. “Did you remember to pack the drops to keep our masks from fogging?” he asked.

“Got them.” I tugged the strained zipper on my dive bag shut.

“We better get out to the dock.” Justin glanced at his watch. “The boat’s supposed to be here any minute.”

I followed Justin down the stairs, across the beach and to the end of the dock. He held one duffel bag in each hand and his taut triceps rippled under the pale orange light of the early morning. The solidity of this man who made love to me, who laughed and listened to whatever I had to say, made me feel so safe and secure.
I never thought I could love anyone this much.

We stood side by side on the weathered planks and waited for the dive boat to approach. A distant shiny white image transformed into a full-size live-aboard vessel making a
V
through the water toward the dock. A dark-skinned deckhand tossed out a rope and Justin caught it before knotting it neatly around the moorings. The man leaped onto the dock and introduced himself as Michael. He shook our hands before snatching up our luggage and hopping back up on the boat.

“Please follow me,” he ordered.

Justin grasped my hand as we stepped unsteadily across the slick white boat deck.

“I’ll show you to your room,” Michael said.

Over the course of the week, our boat would anchor at various sites along the Belize reef system, the largest barrier reef in the Northern Hemisphere. The Belize atoll reefs, a colorful array of coral colonies and polyps along Glovers and Lighthouse submarine ridges, were reportedly a playground for schools of colorful fish, dolphins, sharks and manta rays.

We followed Michael down a metal staircase and along a narrow hallway. He stopped suddenly, inserting a key into a door. Our heads touched as we peered into the tiny room and one of Justin’s unruly curls tickled my face. A twin bed occupied most of the space.
It’s a good thing we like each other.
Once Michael plopped our bags onto the tiny sliver of carpet, there was no extra space. “Your shower and restroom are behind the curtain,” he said. He turned and padded back down the hallway.

“This room sure is small,” Justin said. His hand found mine and he lifted it until it brushed by my cheek.

“Yep.” I said. “In here we won’t be able to do much except sleep and…” my voice trailed off and I giggled.

“And what?” Justin asked, nuzzling my face with his early morning beard. He looked so sexy, wearing only swim trunks, which rode low on his hips. My gaze lingered over his tanned muscular chest, which narrowed to a trim waist, and then wandered down toward his pelvis. I wanted him-- all the time.

I leaned over and whispered my thoughts into his ear. “That’s what I had in mind myself.” He raised an eyebrow and pulled me into his arms. He smelled pleasantly of soap and aftershave. “But right now, they’re expecting us on deck.”

“I suppose you’re right,” I answered, reluctant to remove myself from his aromatic embrace.

He captured my lips once with his mouth before grasping my hand. The side of his body felt warm against mine, even warmer than the golden sunlight, which caressed my bare shoulders as we stepped out from beneath the deck.

We introduced ourselves to the six other divers on board. There was Bob and John, a gay couple from Amarillo, Mary and Don, two young honeymooners from Massachusetts, and Robin and Joanne, two sisters who lived on different sides of the country.

Despite the early hour, everyone conversed. “It’s so great to be away from the cold and the snow,” said Mary, tilting her head back so the sun struck her full in the face. Her skimpy bikini left little to the imagination. Don’s gaze roamed over his scantily clad bride before he placed his arm around her and pulled her against his glow-in-the-dark pale chest.

“It is really beautiful here,” I said. I loved the tropical weather. In La Jolla, even though the weather was idyllic during the day, nights and mornings were chilly. It felt like such a luxury to step outside in a swimsuit any time of the day or night.

Michael carried out a tray of coffee and tea before passing around plates of bagels and breakfast rolls.

“At least you don’t have to worry about snow in La Jolla,” said Bob, his mouth still full of Danish.

“No, our weather is great all year,” Justin said.

“So are you doctors or what?” Bob asked.

“No, actually, I’m an oceanographer and my boyfriend is a science fiction writer and teacher.” I broke off a piece of my bagel and steered it toward my mouth.

“No fucking way,” said Bob, laughing.

I looked at Justin and gave him a
what’s up with that
look.
What’s the shocker? His job or mine?

Justin smiled and shrugged.

Another man appeared from below decks. “I’m Raoul, the dive master,” he said, waving to the group. Sweaty dark hair stuck to the side of his head, his compact body was deeply tanned. He rested the edge of his clipboard on his abdomen and called out our names.

I raised my hand when I heard mine.

“Who do you plan to dive with?” he asked.

“My boyfriend, Justin, unless you want him to get jealous.” Even with sunglasses on, the sun was so bright I had to squint to see his reaction.

Everyone laughed. Raoul waited for everyone to settle down.

“I don’t always remember names the first day so I always make good notes,” Raoul answered. “After all, we don’t want to end up missing anyone at the end of the day, do we?” His thick brows drew together and his lips drew up in a smirk.

“No, um, of course not,” I stammered.

He briefed us on our dives for the day. “We’ll do the Blue Hole this morning while you’re fresh. Once you suit up, you’ll descend slowly to around a hundred and thirty feet. At that depth, we’ll only be able to stay down about ten minutes. Once we reach our final depth, I’ll point out stalactites and other limestone features in this collapsed cave, which flooded after the last ice age. You have to be cautious about buoyancy on this dive because for all practical purposes, it’s a bottomless dive. If you drop out of control to four hundred feet, no one’s going to go down to get you and you’ll end up being fish food.” While Raoul chuckled, everyone else looked pale and like maybe they’d rather stay safe on the boat.

“When I signal, we’ll ascend slowly as a group, then spend another fifteen minutes decompressing on a shallow sandbar at around twenty feet. Make sure you stay there for the duration. This is a deep dive and you need to give yourself plenty of time to outgas before you reach the surface. It’s not like there’s a decompression chamber anywhere nearby,” he said, waving his arms toward the open sea. “Once we reach the surface, we’ll decompress for two hours and do a shallow dive before lunch. After lunch, you’ll dive the wall off Half Moon Caye.” I focused on the horizon as the boat bounced up and down over fifty more miles of frothy waves. Finally, we reached Lighthouse Reef Atoll. The boat skimmed across layers of shallower turquoise water and then all at once, the Blue Hole loomed in front of us. A limestone ring formed an almost perfect circle in the middle of the sea, its midnight blue core a testimony to the water’s tremendous depth.

As everyone pulled on their wet suits, Raoul said, “Here we are. This amazing cavern we’re about to explore is more than one thousand feet in diameter.”

Justin and I attached our regulators to our tanks. I turned my back to him and asked him to zip my wet suit. His warm lips brushed against the back of my neck, leaving a residual tingle even after he zipped the suit and tucked the strap underneath the Velcro at the nape of my neck. When he finished, I turned to face him.

“Are you ready, beautiful?” He slid my sunglasses from my face.

“I just need to put a couple of fog-prevention drops into my mask.” When I finished, I passed the bottle to Justin. “Okay, I’m good to go, how about you?”

“I’m ready to hit the water. Let’s go.” He tucked the bottle in a small side pocket of my dive bag.

We made our way toward the back of the boat and took giant stride steps from the boat into the water. Once the other divers jumped in behind us, Raoul motioned for all of us to descend. Justin and I faced each other, holding hands as we descended into the deep blue water. I looked through my mask into Justin’s, captivated by his sparkling eyes. I felt ready to say
I love you
but the regulator in my mouth prevented me.