Dance For Me Savannah

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  “Michael, you’re what I’ve wanted.”

  “Not Guillaume?”

  “We both know what Guillaume means to me.”

  “Do we? You tell me.”

  She thought a minute.

  “He’s the momentum, what drove me.

  “I suppose he’ll miss you,” Michael said.

  “Miss me, why?”

  “You don’t need him, darling. I think we’ve already covered that territory.”

  “But what if he’s still there?”

  “You don’t have to respond to him.”

  “I’m not sure that it’s possible not to.” She looked thoughtful even though she was very tried.

  “Do what you have to,” Michael said. He was sleepy himself, worn out, in fact. In the morning he’d get real with her about other lovers, just so she completely understood. Until then, he’d be drifting happily into other worlds, and she would be too. Maybe they’d meet there, in those other lands, maybe in those places they could unravel the mysteries that baffled them both. They fell asleep in each other’s arms, and remained there until nearly noon the next day.

  Michael was tender with her as they opened their eyes, and he planted a new day’s erection in her mellow warm home. Like dew and wine and the remnants of a warm summer bath, this making love was like a subtle wave washing over them, cool and refreshing, while warm and fiery all in the same instant. After making love at noon, they were ready to begin the relationship that was never meant to be; one that accidentally fell upon them while they were playing out another man’s fantasies.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Savannah surrendered to me all winter long. There was an intimate bonding between us that took us on as many bizarre turns as during the first days of our affair, before it was an affair at all. I never ceased to be amazed the many ways I could photograph my raunchy girlfriend. My coup, the day I arrived at her university office and demanded she take me through the old edifices of the campus so I could take provocative pictures of her—not unlike our day traipsing through the city through garages and empty storefronts. However this time, she was furious with me for insisting on using her sacred turf as a backdrop for her exhibitionist lust. I had my own reasons, like the need to see her integrating her professional life with the woman she was with me. I didn’t like having to be two different people in her company depending on where we were. My intuition suggested that she didn’t need the painful breach between the two sides of herself anymore than I did; it was a death sentence for her psyche. I wanted her whole.

  When we were at the top of the bell tower I had a field day with her. Made her strip nude and recline against the old stone, finally masturbating for me as she lay on the inner ledge. She was so hot by that time, her body seemed to burn from the heat of herself, even though it was a chilly spring 55 degrees. The sun made a difference that day, warming her skin. I discovered what she’d known for sometime, that she was easily aroused by that bright orb, its beams an aphrodisiac readily igniting the desire between her thighs. She sweat before the camera as if she was in the studio under lights.

  As wild as these shots of her were, I think I was most pleased by the camera work I did of her in her own office. Then too she was naked, with a bustling history department outside. Students knocked at her door, even Mack Brundage wanted entry. But she held them off while I silently snapped pictures of her posed atop her desk, inserting into her vagina a phallic shaped artifact she’d found on some excursion to Europe. The carved wood piece was suppose to be centuries old, but it was nothing but a dildo for her that day.

  At the very end of the session, she wiggled her fanny for me while some student knocked at the door. By then, I was finished taking pictures. But I wasn’t about to leave without getting some benefit for my time. I entered her ass. That kind of fornication kept her humble and relenting, even though she was usually angry with me when it was done, and would try to dismiss me. Oh, I’d leave her. But she’d pay the price for her nastiness later in the evening when I’d take up my cause with a paddle in hand, or use the dreaded baton. That was even better revenge. I loved photographing her ass end with stripes. She may have told me she hated the pictures, but I knew otherwise. She always wanted copies, and those copies of her marked behind were usually in her bedside table.

  Savannah was often irascible when I demanded she stretch her limits. To her protest, I kept threatening to punish her in her office. I told her I’d chastise her so hard that she couldn’t help but cry out and let the whole world know the kind of woman she really was. She knew I’d never do that, but it was a good threat. It always won her compliance and that was all that was necessary.

  Just for good measure, several photographs of Savannah ended up at the erotic arts showing. I teased her that it would be a full frontal nude with her saucy eyes shining and her delicious smile beholding the camera’s lens straight on. For nearly a week I had her frightened half out of her wits. She actually thought the shots I’d submitted of her were tasteful, neither full frontal nudity or the brash photographs of her punished behind that I had hanging on the walls of the my bedroom. Savannah balked at those photographs of her red striped ass the first time she saw them. And I believe she even avoided making love in that room for some days. But one Sunday afternoon, I hauled her into my apartment determined to get her over her reservations. Taking her down into the same submissive place she was when I took the pictures, she got nasty with the sex. She begged for an anal rape and spread out for it nicely on the bed, ass end high. All the veneer of respectability vanished as though it had never been there. I knew that she’d pick it up again when we were finished, as easily as she’d pick up her clothes and put them back on. But at least for this brief hour we could play with the foul desires of our souls and be supremely happy.

  I asked her once about Guillaume, had she heard anything from him?

  “No,” she said.

  “Do you think about him?” I queried.

  “Only when I’m feeling lonely.”

  “And I suppose you’re feeling a lot less lonely now?”

  “You suppose right,” she replied.

  That was the way our relationship proceeded and I had no idea that anything would change. Eventually I thought we’d even broach the subject of marriage, but at least for a time, it didn’t seem to be important to either one of us. We had a good deal of sexual territory to cover and enjoyed exploring it day by day. We explored other things as well, like affection and those areas of normal life that we had in common, like our love for theatre, movies and delicious food. We made it a point of spicing up all those activities with our sexual imagination, making every opportunity we had together one fraught with erotic possibilities.

  After months of being lovers in our curious fashion, I was forced to go on a business trip for two weeks. The sight was a lovely spot at a Canadian resort that I initially thought was the perfect getaway for Savannah and me. Unfortunately her schedule was booked the entire time with university lectures, classes and a symposium for which she was a major contributor. I didn’t like leaving her any better than she did. Although I know my fears were irrational, I was still afraid to leave her alone for that length of time. There were gaps in our relationship that sometimes lasted many days, but there were always phone calls. We were always within reach. This trip would be a different story. Almost before I left I worried that she’d slip through my fingers.

  Savannah shrugged off my concerns, being bubbly and talkative the night before I left. The sex was bittersweet and we talked intimately in bed, our conversation interspersed with delicate kisses. I don’t remember when I felt closer to her, the way her heart opened to me. A glorious contentment pervaded the night with a peace I rarely felt with Savannah. Always something at the edge, always something raw about to happen, this night was different. There was no covert agenda in her fair head, just matter of fact affection pouring from her to me, which I gratefully returned.

  Based on that night, I was sure that my retu
rn from Canada would be met with the same constancy we enjoyed before I left.

  “Savannah, you’re actually there?” I declared when I finally heard her soft voice. I’d had a terrible time getting through the switchboard operator into the right number. I was relieved and exhilarated.

  “Of course I am,” she replied. “You must be back.”

  I expected a little more enthusiasm than what I got, but maybe it was something about her day. She’d told me how busy she’d be while I was gone—nothing better to while away the hours alone than hard work.

  “So how about tonight? I’m anxious,” I told her.

  “Oh, Michael no,” she droned unhappily. “Tonight won’t work.”

  “Oh?” I said surprised.

  “I’m going out of town,” she explained.

  “I didn’t know. When did this come up?”

  “On the spur of the moment.”

  “I see. Anything that I’d be interested in?” I didn’t like to pry, but then I didn’t like her not volunteering more information.

  “Actually I’m going to the beach place.”

  “Where’s that?” It was the first I’d heard about any beach place, and she spoke as if I’d know exactly what she was talking about.

  “Boothby Bay,” she answered.

  “You’re driving a hundred miles tonight?”

  “It doesn’t take that long. The coast highway should be rather pretty that time of day.”

  “And when are you coming home?”

  “Tomorrow,” she replied.

  “A short stay,” I observed.

  “I need to tie up some old business.”

  “Something I should know about?”

  “It’s inconsequential,” she replied. I detected a degree of nervousness in her voice, as though she was anxious for the conversation to end. “You know, I think there’s a student at the door, I’ve got to go. I’ll call.” After the brisk goodbye, I held the phone looking at it puzzled.

  Never in my life have I been paranoid of anything, least of all something cooked up in the mind of a woman like Savannah. Her reasons for going to Boothby Bay were to remain undisclosed, but something about that location rattled about in my head for some hours while I tried to remember why that little town rang a bell. In the middle of afternoon while photographing a pair of high school students all decked out for senior pictures, Boothby Bay came roaring back into my consciousness. From out of the blue I was sure why the name had made such an impression on me. Excusing myself from the session, I went to my office and rifled through my messy desk drawers looking for the envelope I remembered so clearly in my mind. Buff-colored stock, neat typing, and a floral stamp canceled with a Boothby Bay postmark. At the bottom of a stack of papers in my center drawer, I finally discovered the envelope from where it was stuck in the crack between the desk insert and the side of the desk. A good tug and I had it lose.

  Feeling it in my hand I recalled Guillaume. He’d sent this letter to me: my first explicit instructions from his own hand delivered to me, not through Savannah where they might get mistaken, but directly for my eyes where I could see exactly what he wanted. His instructions had done a great deal to change the nature of our relationship. As a result of his requests, I’d first realized my dominant desires and the ready willingness I had to see them acted out on Savannah’s flesh.

  And now, Savannah was going to Boothby Bay to meet him again? I could come to no other conclusion. Here I’d thought the man had disappeared, both he and his curious beauty losing interest in their weird affair. And then, I’m gone for two weeks and she’s ready to knock at his door again? How many times had they communicated while I was away? My thoughts went crazy. Racing to jealous conclusions that had no factual basis, I was not about to give up Savannah to Guillaume without a fight.

  At five that evening, I closed the studio, canceling my last appointment. I’d tried calling Savannah at the office late, but she’d already left. Hurrying to her loft, I arrived just in time to see her pull away from the side of the street and take off north out of town. I must have sat in my car mulling the situation for nearly ten minutes. Then, as if I was struck by lightning, I roared off careening through the city streets, going north as rapidly as I could. My plan was to overtake her, pull her off to the side of the road and demand a decent explanation. It was totally irrational, not my normal behavior; but then, I hadn’t considered Savannah’s behavior as ever normal, the way she easily went beyond the bounds of convention.

  I never did catch up to her, never caught her taillights in my vision. Regardless, I drove straight into Boothby Bay and stopped a the first gas station I came to hoping that someone would remember Savannah. After all, she was a very memorable women. Unfortunately the station attendant couldn’t recall her, but the young man with the baseball cap on backwards, was able to lead me to the town’s gossip center: a small grocery in the center of the main street. “Annie Whippet knows everybody,” he said. “If she’s in town, Annie will tell you.”

  Annie Whippet wasn’t at the grocery store when I walked though the door, but her beefy husband, Arnie, was. Hardly the kind to wait on customers in this posh town, I could see that he was just filling in for what must have been a more gracious wife.

  “Yeah, I know her,” Arnie said when I inquired about Savannah. “You want the blonde broad that lives on the beach road. Next to Mrs. James. Place almost looks deserted, but I bet she’s there, flew into town just a little while ago.”

  “You’ve seen her?”

  “‘Bought some groceries and left.”

  I was eternally grateful to the big lout.

  Arnie’s adequate directions led me through town to the beach road, and the string of quaint cottages that overlooked the water. The one that Arnie described with the falling down picket fence wasn’t hard to find, especially as Savannah’s car was parked right in front. It was near dark, there were lights going on in the cottages up and down the street. I waited in my car for some time debating whether to make an immediate appearance or wait and see if I could catch a glimpse of Guillaume and Savannah. I could only assume that they were there together. I felt akin to a stalker, a vagrant, certainly an incurable voyeur. Of course that fact had been painfully clear to both Savannah and me for some time. As much as she was an exhibitionist, I enjoyed the sights. It was a little criminal to want to sneak around the house like a peeping tom, but then why else had I come here, if not to get to the truth? Of all the possibilities I considered, I opted for taking a few peeks in the windows before I knocked on the door. If I saw something that would break my heart, I’d leave and confront her later.

  From the front of the clapboard cottage there were no windows that didn’t have drapes to prevent me from looking inside. But on stepping around to the side of the cottage, there was a window with an open blind. From inside, I could see a soft glowing light and Savannah.

  There she was, the love of my life, dancing, to music of some throaty female voice rising around her undulating body. I watched her move, mesmerized by something I’d not yet seen. In all the times we’d been lewd together, in all the ways she’d shared her seductive self with me, not once had I seen a true strip tease. Seeing her now, for a moment I thought I was watching a pro. The movements were familiar, those times I’d been to strip joints and topless bars coming readily to mind. She would have been welcome in such an environment seeing the way she gyrated her hips, tossed off her clothes and played the steamy vamp for whatever eyes were watching her. I couldn’t see Guillaume or any audience, though I struggled at different angles to find a way to see who was with her. Going on around the beach side of the bungalow, I found all of the drapes were pulled and there was nothing more so see. Returning to my perch on the side of the house, I was glad to see her still dancing.

  I was jealous of the man who watched her close by; and yet, it seemed as though she wasn’t dancing for anyone in particular. Her eyes didn’t light on any one location in the room. Her smile didn’t focus anywhere in
particular. In fact, what I did notice beyond the beauty and allure of her was that she was more fixated on the wall opposite me than anywhere else. If there’d been a mirror, I might have understood her fascination with that spot. But then, on closer inspection, squinting my eyes to understand what was there, I began to see what so fascinated Savannah.

  The photographs. The pictures of her nude. They were all there on the wall. Those that I remember and some I forgot were tacked to a corkboard in layers, as some crude alter to the Goddess Savannah, The Ultimate Seductress. I wondered if I’d stumbled on a pagan ritual, my lusty lover in an altered state of erotic mesmerism. Her head dropped back, her eyes rolled upwards, the smile on her face turned faintly amused, like the enigmatic Mona Lisa. Now, totally nude, her hands discovered the secret depth of her female form, no doubt pulsing with arousal. Taking care of the need, she played with deft fingers, doing exactly what I loved to do to her when she submitted to me. This time, she submitted to herself, and whatever dark visage had the luck to be in the room with her. The dance went on as a joyous celebration of her sexuality until she climaxed. The first convulsion shook her, with the shiver moving from her fragrant shoulders down to her toes. I recalled the aroma of her body during climax…ah yes!

  For a few minutes, she did an intimate cool down, letting her fingers take one last excursion over her heated flesh. Then finally, when she was too weak to stand anymore, she disappeared from my view. My mind extrapolated the sight of her collapsing to a soft welcoming couch, or perhaps into the arms of Guillaume.

  I waited for some minutes for her to reappear in my sliver of window; and when she did not, I moved back to the car, thinking I had to leave. What could I possibly say to her now after what I’d seen?