Remember Me – Part 2

Here’s The Whole Thing.

We made love for hours. The tiny cubbyhole she took me to had a bed pushed against one wall and a rustic, crude nightstand, an ancient oval braided rug and a sink in one corner. A ragged curtain covered an alcove that served as a closet in the distant past.

She astounded me. I spent myself on her and she reciprocated, both of us collapsing, panting and sweating and groaning. When I thought I couldn’t respond to her anymore she found new ways — probing, sucking, kissing, caressing, kneading, licking. We went for each other again, raw and untamed, like wild animals frothing and screaming. I pounded her and the pleasure was so intense it burned the tip of me, the shaft, a clenching in my loins pulsing and throbbing as I exploded in her again and again. The guttural shouts were torn from me and her carnal screams joined them while she convulsed and spasmed on me in her climax, a cacophony of ecstasy and flesh. My muscles cramped and I fell on her, explored, felt the surface of her like a blind man, memorized her terrain. I kissed soft, on every part of her I could reach, and she tasted of saline, smelled of a coastal flower. I gently sank my teeth into her tender flesh and a moment later she was ready again, taking me to new sexual places I’d never known before and may never visit again. No orifice was off limits, no position untried; she did things to me I didn’t know could be done, showed me things I never knew existed. Finally we slept, bodies entwined and exhausted, glazed with fluid and perspiration.

Later, I discovered a window well cut around a pane in the wall when sunlight trickled into our den of iniquity around its shutters. The shutters were heavy slats and cleats, roughly nailed together, as if made from lumber left over from the lighthouse’s construction. Light spilled delicate through the gaps around them, and I saw her in clarity for the first time as she slept. Her hair spilled over the pillow in a pool and ran down her back. She had a rough woolen blanket pulled over her against the damp of the musty cavern-room.

The sun poured onto the bed just beyond her, and she faced the wall on her side. She seemed like a shadow at dusk — almost gray-blue, like the dingy sheets and charcoal blanket tinted her skin.

I smiled, and the sensations of her rushed back to my memory. I rummaged for my clothes, finally found my jeans and pulled them on. Then a sound sent a shiver down my spine.

I was sure she made it, but … it was choked, strangled as if…

I turned to her. It sounded like she was drowning.

I went to see if she was all right. I touched her shoulder and yanked my hand back as if bitten by a viper.

She was cold. Ice cold. Cold as a puddle in a mausoleum, cold as a frozen lake. My retreating grasp pulled her and she rolled onto her back.

She stared with unseeing eyes, a white cataract over them, her lips black and purple, her swollen blue tongue lolling in her gaping mouth, teeth jaundiced against her grayness. A flaccid strand of kelp twined like a gruesome ribbon through her hair, and movement in her mouth, deep within, sent me scuttling toward the wall as I fell, movement from clicking, hard-shell scavengers, clawing and digging at the flesh of her mouth, feelers wiggling and legs clacking…

I opened my mouth to scream but terror took the wind from my lungs. My blood ran icy and I shut my eyes, cringed away, shielded my face from the mask of death, and then —

I heard the music again, the lilting melody of her voice.

“What’s wrong? What is it?”

I forced my eyes open, forced my face to her, and it was her. Just her, more beautiful for the diffused light in the dust-mote clouded room, propped on one elbow, full breasts against the mattress, her voluptuous curves raising rolling hills under the ratty, thread-bare blanket.

Lines in her face showed worry, fear. I let my breath out slow, but the shiver twisting down my spine made it come out in spurts and gasps. She sat up, radiant and picturesque, like the brush strokes of a great master. She pushed the blanket away, her nakedness vulnerable as she came and hunched before me, took my face in her hands.

“What is it? What’s the matter? Tell me.”

It was just her. Gorgeous, warm, soft, desirable. I threw my arms around her neck and pulled her to me, enfolded her and clung, buried my face in her sweet, flowery hair.

“Nothing,” I whispered. “It was only a dream. A bad dream.”

She held me, her hand stroked the back of my head, her arm crushed me to her. We sat that way for a time, my heartbeat slowed, my breath became calm at last. She pulled away.

“Tell me your dream,” she sang to me, and I almost did. Almost. But I caught myself before it spilled from me under her spell.

“It’s nothing. I’ve already forgotten it.”

“You’re not telling the truth.”

“I am, I promise. It was nothing.”

“Don’t you dream of me?”

I managed a smile and prayed it reached my eyes. “I will forever now.”

Her fingertips traced my cheek. “Where are you going?”

“Going?”

“You’re getting dressed.”

“I’m hungry. You must be too.”

She sighed, laid her head on my chest. “Not now. Maybe later. Will you be gone long?”

“I hoped you’d come with me.”

“No. I’m tired. Do you mind if I rest while you’re gone?”

I stroked her hair, my fingertips light as a zephyr on her skin, I moved my hand until gooseflesh raised on her.

“No, I don’t mind. I’ll be back soon, unless …”

She waited for me to finish. “Unless …?”

“Come home with me.”

She was quiet. I thought I’d made a mistake.

“I-I’m sorry … I meant if you want to.”

She put her fingers to my lips. “Shh. So tired now. Come back to me. Here. We can go home later.”

I nodded and kissed the pads of her fingers as they rested on my lips. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Will you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

“What’s your name? I don’t even know your name.”

“Does it matter?”

“What do you mean? Of course it matters. I … how will I know what to call you?”

“If you never leave me, you won’t need to call me.”

I chuckled. “You won’t tell me your name?”

“There’s time for that later. For now, hurry back. I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too.”

She got up and made her way to the bed, her body swayed like the dance she’d done the night before. She was weary and her walk was heavier, as if she’d collapse under a stiff breeze. She laid down and moaned, and it was the sigh of a storm coming in from the sea.

I waited until her breathing was rhythmic and steady before I gathered the rest of my clothes and dressed. I slipped quietly from the tiny room, our little love nest, and realized I’d have to get off the lighthouse grounds without being seen.

It was easier than I thought. There was no one around. The lighthouse keeper’s residence was quiet, shut up, like it was abandoned. I made my way down the rocks and across the beach. I passed through a shady stand of trees where the forest stretched a finger around the cove, and over the pine-needle bed to the road winding past. I traversed the short distance to town lost in thought.

The image of her as a corpse stayed with me. I don’t know why. I tried to force it from my mind, push it from memory by recalling the incredible passion, the raw physicality of our lovemaking. When I came back to the present, I stood outside a tiny Chinese take-out store front. I lazed in and placed an order for two.

The petite Asian lady behind the counter told me in broken English it would be twenty minutes, and I should come back. I thanked her and went out to the busy little main drag, the day’s brightness warming my skin. I looked up the street and a swinging sign beneath the eaves of one of the ancient buildings caught my attention.

It read, USED BOOKS.

It was all the invitation I needed to kill twenty minutes.

The paned glass wooden door swung easily aside and rang a bell on a curled wrought iron hanger above it. I noted the books, propped and displayed in neat stacks on tables near the entrance. Old biographies, worn and cracked leather editions of classics, tattered and ragged paperbacks packed shelves that lined the rest of the store.

Nautical-themed signs designed to look like nameplates from old ships designated the store sections: Fiction, History, Reference, Non-Fiction. I wandered among the aged, dark wood shelf rows and let my fingers brush the weathered spines.

I don’t know where I drifted to — History? Non-Fiction? — but one of the books caught my eye. My finger lighted on it instinctively, and tapped it.

It was a coffee table book, large and square, and stuck proud of the other books on the shelf. I took it down, hefted its weight in my palm. The white-lettered title on the cover broke a lead-gray sky background, a lighthouse silhouette perched on a craggy outcropping stark against it.

LIGHTHOUSE MYSTERIES AND LEGENDS.

I flipped the pages, thumbed through them, and found stories of lighthouse keepers disappearing, storms sweeping ghost ships in from the sea, widows watching in rain from the tops of those beacons waiting for husbands that never returned. In those tales and legends, one caught my attention. The story of a lighthouse couple and their only daughter, a tragic love affair and her disappearance. I only glanced through it, scanning, not reading. I checked my watch; time to pick up the Chinese. The minutes flew away from me. But something about that story, that legend … I couldn’t put the book down. I paid for it and a mousy woman with half-glasses roosted at the end of her narrow nose rang it up. The ruffles on her jabot waggled when she told me to have a nice day. I said I would, and went out with the book tucked in a plastic bag bearing the store’s logo laced over my wrist.

I don’t remember the trip to the cove. When I got back to the lighthouse, the sun was sinking. No wonder I was hungry; the whole day’d gone by while I was with her. I wouldn’t have traded it for anything on Earth, but concern about finding her again, trespassing on the lighthouse grounds, gnawed at me.

I waited for the sun to settle farther, and decided to peruse my book and still had enough daylight to read. I thumbed through it distracted, though. In a moment, I set it aside.

But the legend of the missing daughter and the lighthouse keepers kept calling me. I wanted to read it, but the fast-fading light was too weak now. I’d kept her waiting longer than I planned, too.

Why wouldn’t she tell me her name?

Finally, I dared not let it darken further before I stumbled over the ragged crag to the lighthouse’s little basement chamber. I didn’t have the surety of her steps to lead me this time. The trees surrounding the cove deepened toward a uniform black with the orange sun dying in the west. The lighthouse stood majestic and stoic over the cove’s point, its bright beacon eye still dark.

The lighthouse keeper’s domicile still looked empty. The windows were dark despite the impending night. No smoke rose from the chimney even with the crisp snap in the air. I kept one eye on the house as I minced across the rough surface toward the stairs in the niche, shrouded in dark in the waning light. Stars winked on above me. The moon, just a sliver past full, rose over the sea, fat and silver, the reflection shimmering over the cove’s waves until they broke over the sand.

I turned the knob of the room’s door.

It was locked. The knob spun perhaps a quarter turn, but no farther. I rattled it, then tapped the door with my knuckles. I was afraid of who else would hear my request for entrance, and my eyes roamed and twitched over the beach and trees for signs of detection.

No response.

I knocked again, harder. Nothing.

I looked around one more time, and banged on the door with the side of my fist. I thought residents in town heard it, was certain the lighthouse keeper did. Still, the residence stayed quiet and dark.

And she didn’t open the door.

I tried to calculate where the tiny window might be, and thought I might work my way around the lighthouse to knock there. I sighed when I remembered the shutters.

I didn’t know her name to call out to her.

I ascended back to the rock’s surface, and stepped clear of the lighthouse. The day was gone to dusk, and only a faint orange band of light swathed the horizon. The cove was a collection of silhouettes with white, blue, and green stars above it, the silver moon swashed over the water’s surface. I stared at the beach, wondering what to do, and saw it.

A tiny black dot on the water, less reflective in the middle of the moon’s white splash on the surface. Just beyond the combers, it rose from the waves. The familiar shape, the seductive feline movements toward the beach.

It was her.

I smiled, and worked my way down the crag, to the beach. I walked over the sand with the now-cold Chinese food in a soggy paper bag, and saw her on the sand, dancing. The silken, almost reptilian motions of the dance she’d done for me the night before, beneath the full moon. An eternity later, I reached her, as she continued to pulse and swing like the tide behind her, arms overhead, hands cloying and stroking the air over her. When she came around to face me again, she smiled. She stopped her rotation, but kept the movement of her hips and midriff, swinging them to and fro, hypnotizing me again. I realized my desire for her raged in my jeans again, and the mysterious glow radiated from her eyes under the moonlight.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello there,” she traced her smile with her tongue.

“What are you doing out here?” I knew a stupid grin had pasted itself on my lips.

“Dancing,” she answered, her voice patient and warm.

“I mean … I thought you were going to wait in the lighthouse and rest.”

“Did you? How could I resist the music?” She lowered in a graceful gyrated bend of her elegant knees, then rose fluid and slow, never breaking the rhythmic motion of her hips and shoulders, her head held still and tantalizing. I stepped forward before I knew I had, and had to snap my hand back from touching her. I wanted to — oh, how I wanted to! — but I didn’t want to stop the dance. I could hear my heart pound; it made my ear drums hiss.

“We should go. Someone may not want us here.”

“Soon. Not now.”

I found myself chuckling. “Everything is ‘soon-not-now’ with you.”

She smiled at me. “Now is everything. There is nothing else.”

“What’s your name?”

“Why?”

“I want to know.”

“Does it change how you feel?”

I shook my head. I didn’t care if her name was Pippy Longstocking. I just wanted something I could call her.

“Then why wonder?”

“I want to know. I want something to call you.”

“Call me yours.”

I laughed. “That’d make for interesting looks in public, don’t you think?”

She moved into a graceful ball and lowered her head into it. Like a swan, tucked beneath its wing, she held the pose a moment before she spiraled to her feet again, and continued her writhing hypnosis. Her hands lowered and stroked my chest, then my abdomen, then lower. I shuddered at her touch.

“We should go home,” I said, my jaw bordering on slack. Every muscle turned jelly-soft. “You’re driving me crazy.”

She laughed, and the sound was godly. “Patience. First the dance. Then you can take me home.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “I want you to.”

“You do?”

She nodded again. “I want to be with you. Don’t you know? I want to share forever with you. And we will. Soon.”

I tried to speak, to say something, but nothing happened. I could only watch her grind and pulse, my mind saw only sexual images of her and the indescribably delicious things she would do to me again.