The Lover From an Icy Sea (47 page)

“
Please don’t apologize. I understand. I, too, have parents. Or rather, they have me.”

“
Yes, and I’m sure you’re a source of unending pleasure to them.”

“
Well—.”

“
I’m sure of it. Okay—go now. You probably already know Daneka doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” They exchanged a quick glance of shared understanding. It was obviously something they both knew all too well.

Chapter 58

Kit walked out to the car and found Daneka already seated and belted in. He could see she was trying desperately not to cry, but quick swipes to both cheeks told him she wasn’t having much success.

“
Daneka, come over here,” Kit said and pulled her to him once he’d settled into his seat. As she scooched over, she made some effort to restrain her sobs, but otherwise none to conceal the hurt behind them.

Kit knew his greatest use to her right then would simply be to be—not to withdraw; not to tell her it was all right; not to insist the pain would go away. He knew that nothing would be worse at that moment than withdrawal; that it would never just be ‘all right’; and that the pain would have to recede into some quiet place where pain lives in all of us. But he also knew it would never simply go away.

They sat for a good five minutes. Kit could imagine the same scenario right inside Mrs. Sørensen’s front door, though without benefit of a comforter. He wished he could split himself in half—but he couldn’t, and so he had to choose. However much he might have wanted to comfort her mother, Kit’s allegiance at that moment had to be to Daneka.

Eventually, she stopped. As she rummaged unsuccessfully through her purse for a tissue, Kit put his hand inside his shirt, bunched the material together in five fingers and offered it up to Daneka without a word. His gesture this time needed no instruction set. She put her nose down and blew. Then she laughed and threw her arms around his neck.

“
I love you, darling. You and your snotty shirt.”

“
Just don’t ever mistake it for a potty shirt,” he said. “I’ll wipe your nose anyday of the week. But don’t ask me to wipe your ass. At least not with my shirt.”

“
No. I won’t. However, I wouldn’t mind in the least if you kissed it once in a while,” she said, smirking.

“
Bare it.”

“
Here? In front of my mother’s house? Are you kidding?”

“
Okay. Not here. But just as soon as we get back to your place. Deal?”

“
I’m not sure I can wait that long.”

“
I’m not sure I can, either. What do you suggest?”

“
Drive!” Daneka said. “Drive on, Charon.”

“
Where to, my lovely?”

“
To Hades. Where else? To burn. Though not just yet.”

Kit stared at Daneka. She stared back, then slowly undid the top three buttons of her blouse, reached in and pushed the strap of her bra off one shoulder. “Fuel for your fire, fireman.”

He leaned down and opened his mouth. Daneka took her breast out and teased his lips with the nipple. Each time Kit lunged forward, she retreated—but not too far. Not too far at all. Only far enough, really, to keep her nipple poised on his lips. He eventually closed his eyes and stopped lunging. She continued to hold up one breast and move the nipple back and forth across his lips until it hardened. Meanwhile, her breath began to come in little bursts.

“
Now, drive like the devil!” she said as she put her breast back inside her bra.

Kit made a U-turn and accelerated up the country lane—conscientiously on the look-out, however, for errant tractors or hopscotchers in pinafores. Once they reached the town’s main road, she gave him further instructions.

“
Let’s not go home just yet. Let’s go to my special place.”

At that precise moment, the sun came out—apparently also in the mood to play. Daneka directed Kit this time not around the periphery of the island, but rather straight across it. Cow pastures and open fields ceded in short order to ever denser foliage. The sun would occasionally peek through the overstory, but only for a quick burst.

“
Will you at least tell me what this special place we’re going to is called?”

“
Of course, darling. We’re in it. It’s called the forest of Almendingen.”

“
You want to do evil in a forest primeaval?” Kit snickered.

“
Only if you do it first. You show me yours. Then I’ll show you mine.”

“
Is there any special place within this special place?” Daneka was about to answer, but stopped herself when another, more mischevious idea occurred to her.

“
Yes, darling,” she cooed. Let me show you.” She took Kit’s hand and guided it slowly up the inside of her thigh. Today, and quite by coincidence, she was wearing silk. She next reached between her legs with her other hand in anticipation of the arrival of Kit’s hand and pulled the crotch of her panties to one side. Today, she thought to herself, there would be no impasse. They were way past discovery. If Kit was going to stake her for his queen, he would find her an obliging guide, a grateful slave even. As she considered the notion of herself as a slave to Kit’s passions, she felt his fingers move snail-like up her thigh. Even before she felt her wetness, she could smell herself in the car. Kit could, too.

As his fingers reached that spot she’d wanted them to reach, she lay back against the car door and spread her legs. She guided one finger in; then another; then a third. Kit was content. She, however, was not. She pressed in a fourth, then grabbed his wrist and fixed his hand to the spot. With her free hand, she began to caress herself. She closed her eyes and leaned her head out the window. Little darts of sunlight would occasionally strike her face.  The quick warmth of those darts was easily upstaged by the slow glow she felt burning between her legs. She was now, she knew, on fire.

She climaxed—this time, without shame. They’d come far since their first day in Positano. As if to reinforce the point, Kit slowly withdrew his hand and put it into his mouth, one finger at a time. He next reached out, took her hand, and placed her index finger in his mouth. At the sight of him sucking on the finger she’d used to caress herself, she did something she’d never achieved through a simple visual stimulus: she came again. Instantly.

*  *  *

When Daneka regained her composure, she looked out the front window and realized they’d driven past the point at which she’d meant them to stop and get out. She giggled.

“
Sorry, darling. I guess I got a little distracted. That, or too much sun.”

“
Yes. Probably too much sun.”

“
Would you mind turning around?”

“
Not in the least.” Kit brought the car to a stop and executed a three-point turn. Once he’d brought the car back up to full speed again, he turned to Daneka.

“
Oh, it’s not more than a mile or two back. I’ll let you know when we’re getting close,” she said as she reached over and put her hand between his legs. “Are you feeling terribly frustrated, darling?”

Kit didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“
Oh, my darling. I’m so sorry.”

“
Will you make it up to me?”

“
I will—promise. Oh, it’s just up there on the right, darling,” she said as she pointed out through Kit’s half of the windshield. “But let’s not park directly in front. I don’t want anybody else to discover my little secret. Instead, why don’t you pull up about a hundred yards and park on the left-hand side of the road?”

“
Yes, ma’am,” Kit said and started to tip an imaginary cap. Daneka, however, arrested his arm in mid-salute.

“
Oh, stop that! Are you making fun of Ron?”

“
Well, maybe just a little. But that’s only because I like him,” Kit said as he brought the car to a halt and turned off the engine.

“
Good. Then you like both Ron and Estrella and you clearly like my mother. Now if it turns out you also like Annemette and Grace, we’re home free.”

Kit had apparently missed the mention of ‘Annemette.’ “Grace? Who’s Grace?”

“
She’s my closest female friend,” Daneka said opening her car door. You absolutely have to like Grace. If not, well, I’m afraid there’s no hope for you, no love for me, and no charity for either of us.”

“
I’ll do my best—even if I have to pretend.”

“
Thank you, darling. I knew I could count on you.” They walked across the road into a clearing, then started out down a rough path.

“
What does she do, your Grace? Is she a work buddy? A colleague?”

“
Oh, no, darling. Grace doesn’t work. She doesn’t have to. She married well.”

“
Lucky girl. What, then, does her husband do?”

“
He doesn’t. He did once. Just enough to leave her with a small fortune. But he’s dead.”

“
Did she marry him for love or money?”

“
Why does it always have to be one or the other? Can’t a girl just fall in love in spite of a guy’s money. You know, just ignore the diamonds as he’s picking a big one out.”

“
What’s up with diamonds, anyway?” Kit asked as he glanced down and noticed mushrooms, the occasional fern, and mounds of emerald green moss to either side of the footpath. “Why not a lichen—for instance?”

“
A lichen? What’s up with lichens?”

“
Look right here, Daneka. Look around you. What do you see?” Daneka scanned the panorama but offered no comment. As they walked on in silence, Kit began to wonder whether he’d made a serious error in judgment in his choice of a gift for her from California. Clearly, she hadn’t noticed it on the coffee table before they’d left New York. Maybe he could just quietly sneak it out when they got back.

*  *  *

At the instant he saw it, he realized that her designation of the spot as her ‘special place’ had been an understatement. He didn’t have a word in his vocabulary to describe it. It was almost too perfect to be natural.

In a clearing of not much more than two or three body lengths in any direction, a bed of velvet-soft moss—pure
Polytrichum
—tiptoed up to a sheer and jagged granite wall. Here and there in the moss carpet, tiny poppies peeked through. Map lichen—
Rhizocarpon geographicu
m—spotted the granite wall like forests made for Lilliputians. Water dropped down the face of the wall and dripped into a tiny pool. Kit looked into the pool to gauge its depth, but couldn’t discern a bottom. The water was blacker than any black he’d ever known. Emerald bridal gowns of liverwort—
Conocephalum conicum
—covered trunks of trees surrounding the clearing, while their branches wrestled in wraiths of
Isotheciium stoloniferum
, the color and texture of lime-green lace.  Oddly, a single piece of lava rock—covered in dark green Grimmia moss—was lodged in among the granite boulders.

Kit saw how the various greens played with the sunlight, which by some uncanny trick of nature managed to penetrate the overstory here and nowhere else—and then descend, thanks to airborne spors or perhaps just dust particles, like golden spotlights.

He turned to Daneka. The smile on her lips as she regarded him admiring the location told him she wouldn’t need to ask him this time whether or not he liked it.

“
I used to come here as a little girl and dream. I’ve never brought anyone here before.” She turned and faced him squarely. “And even when I was a little girl—well, maybe no longer so little—one of my dreams was that I’d one day do what we’re about to do. I just didn’t know with whom—until the Boathouse, that is. Until that first kiss—or maybe only the second.”

“
You knew that long ago?”

“
I strongly suspected it. And the reason I ran from you that night was that it scared me. I’d never felt that way, that quickly, before. Do you remember what I said to you when we made love that night?”

“
I do. It was the first Danish word I’d ever heard.”

Daneka smiled. “Yes. And it was the only time in my life I ever said it … in that context. And do you know what I was thinking when I said it?”

“
No.”

“
I was thinking of this space—and of both of us in it. Doing what we’re—.”

Before he’d even had time to savor the thought, Kit watched as Daneka kicked off her shoes; pulled her dress over her head; unsnapped and threw down her bra; stepped out of her panties. She then just as efficiently unbuttoned and took off his shirt; untied his laces and removed his shoes and socks; unbuckled his belt and removed his jeans and shorts—the last in one smooth yank.