The Lover From an Icy Sea (24 page)

Kit dropped the towel. In its place, she felt the caresses of bare fingers as they slid easily back and forth, in and out, gently pinching her swelling parts. She first heard, then smelled, the pungent ripeness of her sex as it oiled his fingers. But then, finding no more skin in need of lubrication, the overflow began to drip onto the bed sheets. As if it might still be possible to elevate and expose herself more than the full extent to which she’d raised herself up only seconds earlier, she grabbed a pillow and thrust it under her belly. At some indefinable distance, she heard metallic sounds. They registered, abstractly, as Kit’s efforts to undo his belt buckle—but he was far too slow for her. She whipped around, grabbed the end of his belt and yanked it back, tearing a belt loop with the force of her pull. In almost the same motion, she pulled down his zipper, then his jeans and shorts.

Daneka spun back around and re-positioned herself as she’d been seconds earlier. As he entered her, her world went instantly black with his first thrust. She grabbed the other pillow, buried her mouth into it and screamed.

For how long she screamed, neither of them had a sufficient presence of mind to calculate. It went on and on, as did the waves of her orgasm. Kit, himself, lasted no more than thirty seconds before he, too, buried his face next to hers in the same pillow. At the instant her waves had just begun to abate, he came. She was hit by a second, even more violent orgasm that sent her over the edge and into a blacker black, practically into unconsciousness.

Kit settled his full weight on top of her, grabbed both of her hands in his, and stretched them out as if on a rack of the most exquisite torture. She reciprocated with her vaginal muscles, holding him immobile inside her. They lay together in a flesh-lock for five long minutes before Kit pulled out and stood up.

“
Did I say something about a fire?” he asked. Daneka turned over slowly, the delicious exhaustion in all of her muscles rendering any real exertion virtually impossible. Even raising her head seemed to be an impossibility, though she somehow managed a smile.

“
You did, darling. And a quick shower. I think we just had a bit of both.” The two of them shared a conspiratorial chuckle.

Kit walked into the living room, brushed the spent wood and ashes aside, set down wads of newspaper and a small collection of twigs. Once the fire had taken hold of the paper and kindling, he added a few larger branches. These in turn caught fire, and then he carefully loaded a few logs. He had a good fire burning in no time when he returned to the bedroom. Daneka was lying in the same position in which he’d left her, and with her eyes wide open. Kit noticed the dreamy expression on her face and wondered whether he or their love-making were any part of it. He didn’t ask. Instead, he went into the bathroom, turned on the shower and stepped into the stall.

When he stepped back out ten minutes later to dry off, he noticed Daneka through the open bathroom door. She was seated at the vanity applying her make-up and wearing the same dress she’d worn when she’d first come to visit him at his apartment. He loved the dress and he loved her in it: it showed everything about her in all the right places. He might not particularly like that other men’s eyes would see the same thing and probably think some of his same thoughts. But so long as she’d take it off only for him, what did it really matter? Hers was a body too good to “waste” on one man’s eyes—even he knew that. She was a creation of nature that belonged to the entire natural world to ogle; to fantasize about; to imagine in positions he’d happily put her in—as if any other man had sufficient imagination even to conjure up the image of some of those positions.

“
Almost ready, Daneka?” he asked. If not, he thought, he’d willingly stand and watch her for another hour or two. She finished applying her lipstick with a flourish; pursed her lips once; put the cap back on and stood up from the vanity.

“
Yes,” she said. “Unless, of course, there’s something you’d like me to change.” Kit could see that she was braless and, from the absence of a discernable panty line, wearing nothing else beneath the sheerest of possible materials that could still be called a covering. If he thought she might ever emerge from home that way except in his company, the knowledge, he knew, would drive him insane. But here? Now? With him present? Why not?

“
Not a thing, darling. Just don’t lose me—or it might be the last I’ll ever see of you!”

Kit quickly put on his jeans and a shirt, then threw on a jacket as concession to the fog and possible chill. He didn’t realize that Daneka had been watching him the entire time.

“
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr,” she muttered. “I don’t know whether I prefer you in clothes or out. Either way, you’re a tasty little package! So don’t lose me, either. Or even the sight of me. I don’t want some Portuguese shepherdess herding you off with her flock.”

Kit was quietly ecstatic. This was the first time she’d openly acknowledged she liked what she saw. It was also the first time he was allowed to understand that yes, even Daneka could feel something like jealousy and the urge to possess where he was concerned.

Kit stepped up to Daneka and put his hands on her shoulders. “You, Daneka, are the only shepherdess I’ve ever wanted and will ever want.” He waited, perhaps, a beat or two longer than he should have for a response. There was none.

“
Let’s go to dinner, shall we?”

Chapter 32

When they reached the same restaurant where they’d dined the evening before, it was as Kit had suspected: plenty of patrons, and all of them indoors. As Kit hesitated—wondering whether he, with his Spanish, or Daneka, with her Portuguese, should take the lead—the same hostess greeted them at the reception desk, this time in flawless English. Kit was dumfounded; Daneka was not. For all of his travels, Kit was still naïvely American and would never really know Europeans and their peculiar ways.

Daneka, however, did—as she now proved and would prove over and over again. The previous night, she knew, had simply been a test to determine whether these two people cared enough to make an effort—or whether they, like so many others before and after, would be content with a Polaroid, a silly trinket or memento, an experience of no account, an empty exploit.

As the hostess led them to a corner table next to one of three roaring fireplaces in the main room of the restaurant, all heads swiveled to look at Daneka. Just as she’d once taken command of Kit’s street on a sunny, early-spring Sunday afternoon in New York, she now took command of a restaurant half a world away. Kit noted familiar faces from the night before, faces that had apparently taken no notice of them then, nodding, smiling, greeting them as if they were old acquaintances. There was nothing lewd or lascivious in the men’s looks; there was also nothing of envy or jealousy in the looks of their dinner companions. Rather, both men and women stared openly, like guileless children, as Daneka and Kit walked through. They were curious and appreciative, but they were also respectful. Theirs was a quiet admiration of a natural wonder, of a thing of consummate beauty, of a woman who, in their eyes, was clearly the personification of grace—even if that grace was Nordic rather than Iberian.

More wise than vain, Daneka registered every glance. She was the sun they’d all longed for behind the fog they’d all lived with—not just that day, but for days and months and years of their lives. She radiated for them not out of vainglory, but out of generosity—and because, quite simply, she could. It was as much a pleasure for her to give light and warmth as it was for them to bathe in it, though there was no hubris or condescension either in her gait or in her demeanor.

The hostess seated them, though without menus. Before Kit could signal to her, they were surrounded by waiters and even a wine steward who immediately opened two bottles—one of red wine and a second of white—of an unknown house and vintage. From the look of the labels and the crusty exterior of the bottle of red, it was clear to Kit that these were no ordinary wines, but something very old and possibly very rare. The wine steward didn’t, as would’ve been the custom under other circumstances, invite Kit to taste the wine. Instead, he tried it himself with his own heavy, silver tâte-vin. He pronounced it satisfactory not with a word, but with an understated Portuguese nod of approval, then poured both white and red into a pair of glasses he’d set down in front of Kit and Daneka.

Kit and Daneka looked at each other with eyes that registered pure delight—even if Kit’s mien still registered the suggestion of a question mark at the end. Just as Kit thought once again that it might be expedient to request menus, a flurry of waiters appeared at their table with small plates of appetizers—olives, sardines, anchovies, raw vegetables, small slices of hard-ribbed bread baked in rosemary, marjoram, thyme or sage. No fewer than three little dishes of olive oil of ostensibly different grades, consistency and colors took their place among the plates of appetizers. All of this was accomplished without the exchange of a single word—as was each subsequent visit from their wine steward, who never once thought to save himself an extra trip to their table by filling their glasses more than three-quarters full.

As soon as they’d finished their first course, hands appeared almost out of nowhere to chase their plates away. New plates appeared with tiny morsels of grilled fish, octopus, shrimp and squid—and alongside these, ice-packed earthenware tureens of oysters and clams, more shrimp, squid and octopus. There were no fewer than six different sauces ranging from tangy to sublimely sweet—none of them familiar-tasting to either Kit or Daneka, but all of them exquisite. Again—and repeatedly—the wine-steward made a timely visit to their table. Again—and without a whisper—empty plates and dishes were removed.

Both Kit and Daneka were beginning to feel supremely satisfied when a third course arrived. This time, and once again cut into tiny, bite-sized morsels, grilled meats: lamb and beef, goat and veal, venison, partridge and quail. Additionally, small, white potatoes cut into ovals and sautéed in butter and parsley; broccoli florets and asparagus spears; buttered carrots, more sauces—and all of it delivered to their table in silence.

Kit began to wonder what kind of a tribute would be exacted of them, and whether or not they could pay it. Daneka, however, appeared to take it all in stride, perfectly willing and able to pay whatever price their headwaiter might name. Both of them marveled, to themselves only, that such a nondescript restaurant could provide comparable fare.

At the conclusion of what Kit hoped was their main and final course, hands reappeared, plates disappeared, wine glasses and bottles with them. The wine steward returned with two port glasses and a bottle he carried like a new-born. He put one glass down in front of each of them, then signaled to the waiters in the background, who promptly arrived with a dish of walnuts, another of almonds, a third of cashews, a fourth of radishes, and a cutting board with at least half a dozen cheeses, some soft and buttery, others hard and scaly. Kit looked at the rinds of the hard cheeses and thought he’d never seen such subtle hues of gray and brown—colors that reflected the earth tones and rocky ridges of the coastline. What he would’ve given for a light-pack and his camera at this moment!  The colors of the rinds and of the cheeses themselves, the
Rachel
-rich clarity of the port and, in the background, Daneka in her dress—but also the fire’s flames dancing deliciously, deliriously through the transparency of it and around the firmness of her. It would be a portrait of edibles and potables—he smiled to himself—to end all portraits.

As the wait-staff and wine steward withdrew from their table, Kit noted the arrival of the same group of musicians who’d played outside in the garden the night before. He presently had a better opportunity to study them and their instruments close up, and he saw that they were indeed mandolins—if a local variation which he’d not, until the night before, ever seen. The musicians themselves were dressed in a rustic fashion, though without a too-obvious bow to costumes or anything that could be called even remotely folkloric. They look simply natural, Kit thought—like the rinds of the local cheeses. When she finally appeared, Kit could see at a glance why Portuguese women could not claim any of that reputation for oxygen-sucking beauty that some of their Mediterranean sisters were heir to. There was something a bit too masculine about her, a bit too rough around the edges. Consequently, Kit understood immediately why the men in the room had reacted as they had when Daneka had brushed through. Hers was a beauty—and not only to Kit’s eyes—to suck more than air out of a room. If the women hadn’t reacted with jealousy or envy, Kit thought, it was only because they lacked a language of comparison, a syntax to give any real definition or meaning to sentiments of jealousy or envy of a beauty like hers.

As if by way of compensation for her lack of physical beauty, however, this woman had a voice whose sound to his ears—and apparently to every other pair of ears present—was a thing that could rival what Daneka’s face and body could do to his and their eyes. As she began to sing the same series of fados she’d sung the night before, he leaned forward as if reeled in by the same thread Daneka had been tied to the previous night—and now began to hear the sadness that had brought Daneka to tears. He reflected on their love-making of only a couple of hours earlier. And then, as if running the film backwards and in deliciously slow motion, he reflected upon all of their love-making: place, time of day and circumstances, since the first time near the Boathouse. Finally, he reflected upon the first time he’d seen her nude, in his own apartment, and on how he’d studied the curves and contours of her as she slept.