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Island Recess, Chapter 8.
Helena was more than a little aware of the warmth of Neil’s thigh pressed
against her own as she twirled a forkful of pasta against a spoon. She tried
hard not to sneak glances at what lay in the shadow of the table overhanging
Neil’s lap. Instead, she concentrated on what she usually used to sublimate her
sexual desires: food! The garlicky clam sauce tasted wonderful in combination
with the red wine Neil had decanted into a new pair of paper cups. Sighing
comfortably, Helena scooped up a lingering pool of pasta sauce and popped it
into her mouth, savoring the blend of herbs and spices. From the corner of her
eye, she caught Neil’s warmly appraising glance, and returned it with a smile.
Flushing like the proverbial school girl, she chastised herself with a grimace.
Although the moment of reckless sexual abandonment had passed like an
unfortunate hiccup, the naked longing had remained, accompanied by a strange
sense of familiarity which had Helena struggling to keep her inner romantic
firmly tethered to terra firma. Since she was already rocking on the waves, so
to speak, Helena was finding the keeping of balance more difficult than she had
imagined.
Their conversation flowed easily around islands of comfortable silence, marked
only by the scraping of cutlery as their meal drew to a close. Torn between her
desire to tear off Neal’s clothes and drag him to the bedroom, or ‘stateroom’ as
he called it, and her continuing need to unravel the mystery he presented,
Helena decided to take the platonic route. Normally somewhat reticent around
unfamiliar people, Helena found herself beginning to talk of her recent past and
of Karl and their broken engagement. While she felt ludicrously awkward even
alluding to the topic of marriage, she soon lost her shyness. Propelled onward
by Neil’s sympathetic interest, she plunged further into the tale, divulging her
uncovering of Karl’s infidelities and discovery of the true nature of her
fiancé’s business dealings. She hoped that Julie, had she been present, would
not have been making giggling comments about “verbal diarrhea” and “too much
information.” Sometimes Helena, once set in motion, had as difficult a time
reining in her words as a cowboy with a bronco.
As the conversation fell into a momentary lull, Neil ventured cautiously, “What
made you first suspect that Karl was involved in something illegal?”
Helena glanced at his face. The dim lights of the cabin cloaked his expression
in shadows.
Swallowing deeply, Helena strove for a falsely brave tone.
Tossing the words off with an attempt to be casual, she said, “He was just so
very rich, you know, and it wasn’t like his family had any money to speak of. I
never really understood precisely what he did for a living. I mean, he had an
office, and employees, and all the rest, but it seemed a bit vague, what they
all actually did. I mean, I know it sounds horribly naïve…”
She laughed falteringly.
“But I just kind of accepted that he was involved in some kind of import/export
business, which is what he called it, and closed my eyes to the things that
didn’t fit. And believe me, the things that didn’t fit suddenly became
everything he did: making late night ‘private’ phone calls, and
spur-of-the-minute trips to God-knows-where, and bizarre, seemingly paranoid
allegations of having been watched or followed wherever he, or we, went.”
Neil’s face, caught by the light, looked saddened. Helena took a deep breath and
continued.
“I suppose things finally hit rock bottom when I accessed Karl’s personal e-mail
account and realized I wasn’t in Kansas, so to speak, anymore.” She giggled
nervously. Neil laid down his fork and moved his hand to Helena’s wrist, where
he traced gentle lines over her bare skin.
“When I finally opened my eyes, I saw the things I had not seen, or had
previously chosen to deny or rationalize away. A metal briefcase handcuffed to a
late night visitor’s wrist, white powder grains continually appearing on our
glass coffee table, and Karl’s wildly erratic moods: irritable one moment, and
pumping with energy the next.”
Helena stared down at her fingers, and brought her thumb to her mouth, where she
began to bite a torn edge of nail. Neil reached toward her and gently removed
her thumb, taking her hand in his own, and lacing his fingers between hers. She
squeezed his hand gratefully.
“I had always known he had a handgun in the house, and at his office as well,
for protection he said, but when he started wearing it all the time, in a
holster under his suits, it was harder for me to accept that a businessman
needed that kind of protection. Then, there were the desk drawers I wasn’t to
open, a safe I didn’t know the combination to, and a phone with an outside line
I wasn’t to answer. The list goes on and on.”
Neil was shaking his head slowly, his mouth compressed. Helena tried to catch
his eye, looked searchingly into his face, but couldn’t read the expression she
found there. She sighed deeply.
“I really was a fool, wasn’t I?”
This time, his face seemed to open. He smiled gently and caressed the line of
her cheek with a work-roughened finger.
“Just trusting, I think, Helena. No one can judge you for being too trusting. We
all do foolish things when we think we’re in love.”
His words hung between them. The silence that descended was as gentle and easy
as the warm breeze at the open door. Inwardly, Helena was hugging herself. He
said the ’l’ word, she thought to herself with a sudden and irrational burst of
pleasure at hearing the word uttered in a companionable and comfortable space
and time.
They sat quietly for several minutes, fingers twined together. Then, Neil moved
restlessly, shifting his weight. Taking his movement as a cue, Helena released
his hand and stood to gather up the dirty dishes and cutlery. Before she could
move away, Neil put a hand against her hip and abruptly pulled her toward him.
His hand wrapped around her thigh as she stood over him, crumpled paper cups
still clenched in her hand.
“Leave those for now,” he said huskily.
She could feel the warm pressure of his kiss through her linen shift, and turned
her body toward the movement of his lips. His breath against her belly was hot
as he kissed his way gently from her navel to the junction of her thighs. Helena
gasped sharply as his mouth grazed her mound through the fabric of her dress.
Then, his hands moved lower still, caught the hem of her shift and pushed it
upward, bunching it against her waist with one hand. With his free hand, he
stroked the fabric of her panties, feeling and admiring her shape through the
silky barrier. His hand moved to her bottom, gently cupping her as his mouth
approached her bare thighs. Moaning with pleasure, Helena felt her legs pulling
apart as she arched her back, and reached for the support of the settee. His
mouth moved smoothly around the elastic of her panties, alternately licking and
kissing her damp skin. When he softly kissed her clit through the fabric, she
cried out with pleasure. Then, his hand was inside her panties, pushing them
down over her hips, leaving her exposed to the probing of his tongue. His
fingers swept gently over the flesh of her buttocks and between her thighs,
spreading her wetness over her lips, and teasing the entrance of her hole, with
tiny, delicate thrusts. Then, his tongue was between her legs, licking in long,
loving strokes, over and over until he worked his way to her swollen nub. Helena
felt her knees begin to buckle as his tongue circled her sex, lips drawing her
throbbing core into his mouth. Hands buried in the thick locks of Neil’s hair,
Helena moaned as he spun her into a vortex of pleasure. Alternately lapping at
and sucking on her clit, Neil slid a wet finger inside her and explored gently
until he was pressing on and then firmly rubbing her g-spot. Her knees began to
buckle as she felt her orgasm swiftly building. Then, with an explosive cry,
Helena’s body convulsed as Neil’s arms encircled her hips, pulling him against
her and drawing out her climax until she felt the orgasm had been completely
drained from her body. Panting, she collapsed against him.
As Neil relaxed his hold, Helena slid down onto the settee beside him. He slid
an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer to him. With his free hand, he
stroked her cheek gently. Helena was at a loss for words.
“Oh my God,” she exhaled, in what sounded like a parody of the eighties’ Valley
Girl. “Thank you…”
Helena found herself snuggling up against his chest, reveling in the tightening
of the arm embracing her.
“No need to thank,” he responded, “The pleasure is in the giving.” He smiled
down at her and kissed her softly on the top of her head.
Tilting her head, Helena sought out Neil’s mouth, and kissed him wantonly,
probing his mouth with the tip of her tongue.
“I think it’s your turn, now,” she said without a trace of coquettishness. “Or
perhaps both our turns?” She laughed softly, then placed a hand on Neil’s thigh,
passing it over the sinewy muscles to the rigid heat of his erect penis. A small
moan escaped his lips and then he said softly,
“I can’t think of anything I’d like more, but I really want this to be just for
you. It’s Helena’s night, and from what you’ve told me, you deserve to be on the
receiving end of something good.”
She was about to erupt with a hearty snicker, when she looked down at Neil’s
face and saw that he was serious. The desire to laugh at what she had perceived
to be only a corny joke was replaced with wonder. He raised her wandering hand
to his lips and kissed it gallantly, the tremor of his mouth a betrayal of his
need for her. Then he wrapped his arms more tightly around her and held her
close against the beating of his heart.
As they half-sat, half-lay together on the settee, their conversation was quiet
and slow, a gentle probing of each other’s history and dreams for the future. To
her surprise, Helena found that Neil was completely unguarded about his
upbringing. He spoke of an idyllic childhood on the Eastern seaboard, and his
earliest memories of white-washed summer cabins, creaky rowboats, and fishing
expeditions with his father.
Neil seemed to be proud of the relationship he maintained with his parents, and
honored them by conveying his admiration for their accomplishments. Despite her
best attempts not to do so, Helena was already warming to the idea of a mother
who was a master cabinet-maker and baker of chocolate chip cookies. Prospective
mother-in-law, she could imagine herself telling Julie. Helena fought to remind
herself that what she had experienced was raw sex, and most likely, only a
short-lived fling, but she could not help being caught up in the whirlwind
fantasy. Such was the stuff of romance novels, and not of real life, she
reminded herself. Certainly not the life of an almost thirty-year old school
teacher. While she listened, a tiny part of Helena’s brain was in the process of
composing her next e-email to Julie, seeking advice, and she had to admit,
permission she was not yet fully willing to grant herself. Julie would
definitely tell her to “go for it.” Unfortunately, Helena sometimes had to admit
at the end of yet another doomed relationship, that Julie had a tendency to root
for the wrong team.
Neil’s voice wound softly around her thoughts, capturing her in the portrait of
a life that reflected her most deeply rooted and embarrassing-to-admit fantasies
of wedding veils, picket-fences, two-point-something children, and matching
rocking chairs on a screened in porch. Encircled by Neil’s strong arms, she
found it difficult not to fantasize about developing a warm rapport with his
father, who had left a successful teaching career to stay home and care for his
two young sons while his wife built a fledgling business. “Already I have
something in common with his father,” she thought, hugging the image to herself
with pleasure. Then, with a guilty start, Helena realized that she had been
listening to a story that might be more fiction than fact. Hadn’t she promised
herself to take everything with the proverbial grain of salt? To find out the
identity of the man behind the mask before handing over her heart on a silver
platter? Had she gained any real insight into Neil himself? Was he really so
different from Karl? What was that that he had just said? I used to work in the
construction business…
Helena’s body was taut as she tried to focus. Tucking a strand of hair behind
her ear, she strove for a tone of innocence as she inquired, “So, what company
is it you work for now?”
The hand massaging her shoulder stopped for an instant.
“Oh, just a small one. I‘m sure you‘ve never heard of it,” was the response.
Helena fought the urge to fidget, to betray her nervousness as she honed her
investigative instincts. Remember, you have stalked this man unseen, she
reminded herself. Persisting, she tried for assertiveness.
“What exactly is it that you do?”
Neil slid his hand farther down her arm and patted it somewhat impersonally.
“Mmm, just construction work, grunt stuff, but that part of my life is over.
This is what I do now.” He concluded enigmatically.
“You mean, seduce innocent school teachers?’ Despite the queasy twist in her
stomach, the comedienne in Helena couldn’t resist the sly dig.
Neil laughed, and returned his calloused palm to her shoulder.
“Nah, I mean, what I do now is work in the islands. Doing what I can here and
there. Getting enough to get by on, and moving on when I need to.”
Helena digested this information without further comment. She couldn’t very well
probe Neil about the supposedly charitable nature of his work on the islands
when this information had come second-hand. How on earth could he manage without
a source of income? Visions of organized crime and cocaine wars took the place
of the sugar plums dancing in her head.
“Helena.” The sound of her name brought her back from her musings. “What are you
really doing here?”
“What do you mean?” She responded in surprise, guiltily reflecting on her
motives for probing Neil’s background.
“I mean, why are you really here in the islands?” He was peering down at her
inquisitively, brow furrowed and head cocked to one side. “I mean, is Karl the
only thing you’re running from?”
Helena felt her stomach lurch for an instant. She was running from Karl, she
knew it, and she was prepared to admit it. But what on earth was Neil running
from? Groping for the right words to establish trust and perhaps a reciprocal
confession, she began.
“I guess,” she stammered softly, “I’m running from a life that was beginning to
frighten me. An existence that quickly began to feel uncertain and that in
reality threatened to crush all the values and beliefs I thought were so solid.
I realize now that if I had stayed one minute longer than I had that I might
have been pulled into a life where I was compromising everything I believed to
be right just for the sense of security and peace that material wealth can seem
to provide.”
Helena’s words trailed off as she turned to look at Neil. The quiet rhythm of
his breathing had quickened, and she caught an expression she could not decipher
as he averted his gaze from hers.
“Then, I guess you’re running from the same life that I’m running from,” he said
simply.
The ambiguity of his words hung in the air, and Helena felt, once again,
unsettled. She was talking of lost illusions, illusions that had threatened to
capsize the world as she knew it. Was he speaking of the same thing? Or
something more sinister? A sudden breeze from the cockpit brought a chill to her
bare limbs and she shuddered. Just like in a bad movie she thought, with an
involuntary snort.
“Chilly?” he inquired solicitously at the noise, hugging her close to him, and
then releasing her gently and gazing at her with gentle eyes. “I guess I should
be taking you home.”
Despite her growing trepidation, Helena was loath to leave the cozy space and
intimacy of Neil’s boat, and Neil, for solitary nocturnal routines at her own
apartment. Feeling somewhat ashamed, she had to admit that she was even more
reluctant to leave their relationship still unconsummated. Nonetheless, she was
even more reluctant to linger where uninvited, and quickly gathered up her
cardigan in preparation to leave. Even now, Helena was vaguely aware that her
aesthetic presentation was not of the highest caliber. She attempted to smooth
her wrinkled skirt over her thighs, and to bring a semblance of order to her
tousled hair. Stretching and yawning surreptitiously, Helena was suddenly
acutely aware of the growing pressure in her bladder. She cleared her throat.
“Before we go,” she asked tentatively, “Do you mind if I use your facilities?”
“Oh, of course,” Neil murmured apologetically, “I guess I should have shown you
before.”
He waved a hand toward the head, and Helena, following his lead, stepped up to
the tiny cubicle and began to push the bi-fold door closed. She stared as she
realized that Neil had followed her and intersected the door’s closing with a
broad hand. Peeking around the door with a chagrined expression, he stammered
out awkwardly.
“Um, I kind of have to tell you about the head before you actually, you know,
use it.”
Despite herself, Helena grinned at the sheepish tone in his voice.
For the next few minutes, he went about explaining the procedure for flushing
the toilet, demonstrating how to open one lever and manually pump before opening
another and repeating the process. With a flush, and an attempt at delicacy, he
explained the necessity of limiting one’s use of toilet tissue. Fighting her
urge to giggle, Helena listened with an expression of rapt attention, while
taking the opportunity to subtly peruse the v-berth cabin beside the head. The
covers, which were of suspect vintage, were twisted together in disorganized
fellowship. Surely the dreamer in that bed had not slept an untroubled sleep.
Morris certainly was undisturbed, murmuring quietly as he dozed, sprawled
wantonly across the wide bed. As Neil’s tanned forearm pumped vigorously away in
demonstration at the floor pump, Helena took note of the book splayed open on a
pillow, and the brass light fixtures. This would make a cozy reading space.
Actually, a cozy anything space, she caught herself thinking, as she admired the
curve of the khaki-covered buttocks pressed against her thigh.
Demonstration concluded, Neil abandoned the head with red-faced embarrassment,
and was heard clamoring up the ladder to the cockpit.
Alone once again, Helena pulled the bi-fold door shut. She glanced around her in
the tiny space which was barely big enough for her to turn around. With a
beating heart, she felt her investigative instinct declare itself once again.
Who can resist a medicine cabinet? she rationalized, as she worked her fingers
under the clasp of the rusty-edged mirrored door. The image staring back at her
looked as frayed and frazzled as she felt, and she took an instant to
self-consciously adjust her hair. Then, with a tiny betraying squeak, the door
yielded to her touch. Inside, the cabinet held the usual collection of male
accouterments: shaving cream, razors, deodorant, and what was that? Helena eased
a finger under a plastic-wrapped bundle and tipped it toward her. Inside a
weathered plastic bag were several large roll of bills. Scarcely daring to
breathe, Helena lifted the bag from the shelf and opened it with trembling
fingers. The rolls were substantial. Lifting the first three, she glanced at the
denominations and gasped. Hundreds. What was going on? Surely she hadn’t met
another Karl? With quaking hands, Helena wrapped the bag up as it had been,
struggling to restore it to its original position in the cabinet. Then, stomach
lurching, Helena went through the motions of moving the lever and pumping the
toilet. Bladder still insistently full, she half-closed the door behind her and
glanced around the cabin with a forlorn expression. Her ambiguous discovery
seemed to mock the pleasure she had felt all evening. “Bye Morris,” she
whispered to the canine, fervently praying that the canine’s owner might still
prove to be as innocent of wrongdoing as Morris himself.
Clutching her sweater in one hand, Helena made her way awkwardly up the ladder
to the cockpit. Neil was there to assist her with a helping hand as she emerged
into the open air. A pang of regret stung her as she was hit by two simultaneous
realizations. The first was that she was falling in more than just lust. The
second was that falling in whatever-it-was could destroy her. Then, Neil’s arms
were about her, holding her as if reluctant to ever let go. Tilting her head
back, Helena felt his lips press warmly against hers. She opened her eyes as he
kissed her, and saw that his were already upon hers. Under the glow of the
moon-lit sky, his face seemed suddenly inscrutable.
Chapter. 9.
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