In the glow of the candlelight her breasts were golden, except for her nipples, which were as dark as autumn roses. He bent forward to kiss her, only once, between her breasts over her heart, hooking his fingers at the same time in the waistband of her panties. He tugged them down and Val stepped out of them. The puff of dark hair between her legs had once been trimmed into a heart but had not been tended to since before the attack ten days ago; even so the heart shape was still visible and the dark hairs caught the light so that it seemed it was sewn with golden threads.
Crow kissed her stomach. Rising, he took her hand and guided her toward the tub. Val paused, looking uncertain and self-conscious, but Crow gently tugged her hand and she stepped over the rim; he continued to hold her hand as she settled, inch by inch, into the deep, hot water. It was one of the old-fashioned tubs with clawed feet, big enough for Val to stretch out her long, slender legs and immerse all of her body up to the delicate skin of her throat. The water was deliciously hot and a faintness of perfume rose from the mist.
Once she was submerged, she let out her first relaxed sigh.
Reaching over to a small table by the sink, Crow took a cut-crystal wineglass of very dark Shiraz and raised it to her lips. She drank gratefully of the fruity red wine, closing her eyes as she did so. She sank back against the tub and let the waters close over her body.
While she soaked, Crow positioned himself behind her and slowly, deeply began to massage her scalp, feeling where the tension hid and chasing it away with strong, deft fingers. The music soothed her, lulling her into torpor, and Crow gradually slowed the motions of his fingers until they were barely more than a whispery touch. Time drifted past with a dreamy slowness.
After a while, once her skin had soaked up the richness of the water, Crow slipped one hand into a terrycloth mitten. Wetting it, he fetched a bar of scented wheat-and-lavender soap and worked up a good lather; then he helped her to stand up in the tub. Water sluiced down the lovely length of her, and pausing once in a while to kiss her glistening hide, he used the luxurious soap and the gentle roughness of the mitten to wash every inch of her glorious skin. He was diligent in his thoroughness, and then with a large bath ladle he poured water over her to rinse away the soap. He drained most of the water from the tub as he did so and quickly refilled it so that when he helped her down again, she lay in fresh water and that sloshed around her.
With the ladle he soaked her black hair and worked a rich shampoo into it, massaging the gel into her scalp until it foamed with a hearty lather. He used a gentle spray attachment to rinse the suds from her hair, and with a fluffy towel patted the excess wetness from her hair. He bent and pulled the plug from the tub, letting it drain away, rinsing her with the shower attachment until every bubble of soap was gone. Finally all the water was gone and she lay reclining, nude and immaculate, on the slatted wood Japanese grille inside the tub. She made no effort to cover herself with her hands, which Crow took as a good sign. He kept running the clean water for a long time. Then, switching it off, he reached for her and helped her up, wrapping her in a huge oversize towel that had patterns of moons and stars and swirling galaxies.
At first all he did was wrap the towel around her and enfold her in his arms, careful of her shoulder, nuzzling his face in the dampness of her hair. Then he patted her dry, missing no single inch of her skin, and kissing her here and there as he went about his task. When her body was totally dry, he helped her into a silky robe that he’d bought for her that very afternoon. It was a deep electric blue, a perfect color for the paleness of her skin and the deep black of her hair. The thin silk clung to her body in a particularly tantalizing way, and Crow was eminently aware of it.
He blew out the candles and led her out into the hallway, where he paused for a long and lingering kiss. Neither of them had spoken a single word since they’d come upstairs, and neither spoke now. Words seemed pale and weak, the wrong language for this country of soft touches, sweet kisses, and incense-fragrant air. They went downstairs, following the trail of delicate little rose petals to the large living room. The floor was polished hardwood, and the high ceiling was lost in a swirl of shadows. The fire logs were quietly chuckling.
In the center of the floor, Crow spread a thick mat of layered quilts, scattered with pillows, and onto this he lowered her, holding her hand until she was seated comfortably. He used the remote to start the CD player, and Loreena McKennitt began singing sweetly to them from the four speakers placed around the room. Sandalwood incense burned mildly and flavored the air with the aroma of exotic and faraway places, and Crow went around and lit a dozen long tapers, adding their golden glow to the light from the fireplace. There was an ice bucket with two bottles in it; Crow poured white wine for her and Perrier for himself into tall glasses and they lounged there listening to the music. The fireplace was cheerful but subdued, and the candlelight soothing to the mind and the eyes. Time just seemed to swirl, not really moving forward and not standing still. Time just was, and they were, and the moment was golden.
Crow touched her face and she reached and drew him to her, rising until they were an inch apart, both of them on their knees facing one another, bodies only a whisper apart. Crow took her hand and kissed her wrists, her palms, her fingers. He held her hand like a precious thing and kissed each fingertip, and then pressed her palms against his heart. Leaving her hands there, he reached and lightly touched her face, his own fingertips barely touching the softness of her cheeks as he bent to kiss her forehead, her eyes, and finally the sweetness of her mouth. It was such an innocent kiss, despite, or perhaps because of the intense purity of its passion.
He trailed his fingers down until he found the knot of her robe, and with the subtlest tug, the knot yielded and the ends fell away. The folds of the robe parted and candlelight touched her with gold: the curve of one breast, one thigh, the tips of her pubic hair. With infinite slowness and gentleness, he helped her to lie back on the soft mat. The folds of her rob fell in such a way as to cover her, and somehow that made his heart glad, as if all things in this night were conspiring to keep her safe.
Kneeling next to her, he kissed her lovely face and mouth, feeling the heat of her tongue. Her eyes were closed, long lashes sweeping down over her cheeks. Crow couldn’t help looking at her, at the construction of bone and tissue and blood and heat that had combined into such a pattern of loveliness, and he marveled at the fortune that had allowed him to be the caretaker of that loveliness if only for a single night. His lips sought hers again, and then drifted away downward to chin and throat, tasting the different parts of her, the different textures of her. He traced the lines of her collarbones with kisses, as well as the hard flatness of her sternum, and brushed against the upswell of flesh where each breast rose away from her heart. With great care he peeled open the robe and looked at her breasts as if he’d never seen them before, as if beholding some new mystery. They reflected golden light from the candles, and he bent to them, kissing the contours of each, finding the hardness of each nipple and drifting away only to rediscover them again and again, touching the pebbly hardness with the very tip of his tongue.
Val writhed slightly, her back arching as Crow took one nipple in his mouth, his teeth nibbling on it very gently as the tip of his tongue teased the flat tip. The writhing of her body made the robe fall open even more, and he looked down the length of her, past belly and hips, down long legs to the feet and to each pink toe. To his eyes she was a collection of perfect curves and planes and angles, each part correct in its design and in its part of the whole of her. At the inward curve of her left knee he paused and pressed his mouth and teeth against a pressure point, drawing a line of sensation with teeth alone that made her body twist. Then he continued up her leg, kissing the inside of the long, soft, slender thigh, going higher until he could feel the feathery brush of her pubic hair against his cheek. He shifted, turned, and bent to bring his lips gently down onto the dark swirl of hair, drinking in the perfume of her body, the scent of her awa
kening passion. His lips explored deeper until they touched heat and wetness and softness. Val hissed and moved as his tongue found that tiny rosebud, coaxed it to hardness, and kissed it deeply.
He shrugged out of his own robe and settled down naked on his chest. Both of his hands swept slowly up and down the length of her, touching and exploring as his tongue began it rhythmic dance back and forth, back and forth, slowly at first, then faster as her breath came faster. Val knotted her fingers in his hair and arched her back as the sensations within her began to build and it was not long before the tremor began deep within her. Crow could feel it through his hands, through his tongue, and through every part of his body that was touching hers. It was a faint tremor at first, but it grew quickly, vibrating out from inside of her, blossoming up, becoming real and full and at a certain point, unstoppable. Her hips were bucking now, twisting and shifting under him, and Crow had to hold on to her to maintain that contact, to keep that essential rhythm so that she don’t fall from that peak. When she climbed to the top of that mountain, her whole body arched, froze, held for a long moment, and then there was a release so violent and so total that Crow was buffeted by her. Val managed no words, just a continuous and inarticulate cry of pleasure and sensation. Her fingers knotted and twisted frantically in his hair, pushing Crow’s face against her, forcing a deeper, harder contact until the relentless waves of pleasure begin slowly—very, very slowly—to diminish, each new wave reaching to a lesser peak and settling lower.
As her body began to relax, slumping bonelessly, exhausted for the moment, Crow kissed his way up her stomach, along the straight line of her sternum, up the graceful curve of her throat, and finally to her parted lips. They kissed, tongues darting and dancing, and he took her in his arms and held her, feeling her sweat mingle with his, feeling her breasts crushed against his chest, feeling the hammering of her heart so much in rhythm with his own. Gradually he rolled over onto his back and with infinite gentleness and care, he helped her slide atop him. It was a movement so skillful, so synchronously performed that even as she sat astride him they were joined. They both uttered small, almost inaudible gasps
There was a long time for silence, for doing nothing but holding that position, for maintaining that perfect contact. They lay in the candlelit darkness for a long while, and Crow felt a burning tear land on his cheek. He reached his hand up to touch her face, searching for a troubled frown and finding only a smile, and he knew that the tear was shed for beauty, and not for pain. He immediately felt his own eyes well up, and as they wept, they began that slow rhythm that is the pulse of all life and love.
Chapter 22
(1)
For a town like Pine Deep having Friday the 13th fall in October was a reason to celebrate. “Little Halloween,” they called it. Schools were let out at noon, special football games were scheduled, there was a major party planned for the Haunted Hayride, and the town got into the party mood. The Harvestman Inn ran a special for groups of employees who showed company ID: thirteen beers for thirteen bucks. Motley’s Steaks offered a special on thirteen-inch hoagies, and the Dead End Drive-In was advertising a thirteen-movie marathon of classic horror that kicked off with the entire Friday the 13th series, including a Jason Voorhees costume contest.
Tourists would be pouring in by noon, and by two o’clock there would be ten thousand people packing the streets and another five thousand at the Pinelands College stadium for the non-league game between the Scarecrows and the Temple Owls. Then the town proper would reverse course and start to empty as everyone cruised out to see Concrete Blonde or Los Straightjackets in concert at the Haunted Hayride, or went to the Drive-In, or crammed the bleachers for the Scarecrows-Owls game. The town bars would be full, of course, but shopping would drop off after five o’clock, which was fine since many of the vendors set up booths at the Hayride and in a carnival line around the campus parking lot. Little Halloween was planned for months, and never in Pine Deep’s history had the holiday been as important to the overall financial survival of the community as it was this year. Terry Wolfe had been working to find ways of including the farmers in the town’s nonagricultural activities so they could make a buck. Maybe a few bucks; enough to meet their mortgages and get through the rest of the season with their farm deeds still in their hands. For everyone it promised to be a great day in Pine Deep.
(2)
Propping himself up on one elbow and watching her sleep. Crow thought that he had never seen anyone or anything as beautiful as Val looked at that moment. There was just the faintest rosy glow of sunlight painting the window and the softness of it caressed her cheek and jaw. He wanted so much to touch her face, to trace the line of her cheek, but he didn’t want to wake her.
“I love you,” he whispered.
She opened one eye, surprising him. “Good morning to you, too.”
“Did I wake you, sweetie?”
“Just the frequent heavy sighs. You sound like you’re deflating.” She was smiling, though, and bent forward, kissing him on the nose. “I love you too, you goof.”
He leaned toward her and gathered her in his arms. She was soft and warm and real and he covered her face and throat with kisses.
“Hey, slow down, cowboy,” she said, coming up for air, “before you start something you don’t have time to finish. Don’t you have somewhere you have to be?”
Still nestled in her neck, he peered over her shoulder at the bedside clock.
“It’s not even six and I don’t have to meet Newt until seven-thirty. We got loads of time.” He made Groucho eyes at her.
Val affected a yawn. “I should try and get some more sleep. I have a long day ahead of me, too. I don’t know if I should fritter away the morning with the likes of you.”
“‘Fritter’! I’ll give you ‘fritter,’ you vixen!” He began to tickle her, or tried to, but she was quicker and jammed her fingers under his elbows and got his ribs, reducing him to helpless shrieks of laughter. He tried to get away, but she wasn’t having any of that and climbed astride him, tickling him all over. There was pain—in her shoulder, her head, his wrist, his hip—but neither of them cared. Some things matter more than pain.
One minute later they were wrapped in each other’s arms and though they were both smiling, neither was laughing.
(3)
Crow was half-dozing on the hood of his battered old Impala Missy, his back against the windshield and his hands folded around a cardboard cup of Irish cream coffee that rested on his stomach. He wore six-stitch boots, faded jeans, and an insulated denim vest over a bright-red plaid flannel shirt. Eight inches of frayed thermal undershirt hung down below the rolled cuffs of the shirt. He wore white plastic sunglasses with opaque black lenses and had a Phillies cap turned backward on his head. The mangled end of a brown coffee stirrer hung from the corner of his mouth like a pool-hall Jim’s matchstick.
At 7:35 Willard Fowler Newton’s ancient Civic rolled to a squeaky stop in front of the Crow’s Nest. Newton locked his Club snugly in place and got out, dressed in a blue Eddie Bauer padded jacket, 501 jeans, and Nike sneakers that had never seen the inside of a gym. Crow raised his sunglasses an inch and peered at him under the rims, one eyelid raised. “Did retro-Yuppie come back in and I miss the memo?” he asked.
Flushing a bit, Newton smoothed his jeans, and said, “Yeah, well you look like you’re in a Marlboro commercial.”
“I’m a manly man.”
“And the sunglasses?”
“Keeps me in touch with my counterculture youth.” Crow sat up and drained the last of the tepid coffee. He slid off the hood and did a hook shot that landed the cardboard container in the waste barrel that stood beside a streetlamp four feet away. “Yes! Two points, nothing but can.”
Newton applauded ironically. “Who’s driving?”
Crow looked pointedly at the squatty little Civic and then back at Missy. He said nothing. Newton fetched his gear, and they piled into the car and Crow popped a Flogging Molly CD into player. As
Crow was pulling away from the curb and into the pre-business-hour flow of traffic, Newton said, “What about your store?”
“Mike’s due in at noon. He has keys. Most of the Little Halloween weirdness won’t get rolling until this afternoon, and we’ll back by then, and by tonight all the action’s going to be at the campus or the Hayride, and no one’ll be shopping. Everyone’ll be drunk. If we get delayed and the kid gets into a crunch, Val said she’d come down tonight and help with the rush.”
“Oh.” Newton opened a pack of Big Red gum and put a stick in his mouth. “I liked Val. She seemed nice.”
A smile curled the edges of Crow’s mouth as he drove. “She is.”
“She forgive me yet?”
“Time will tell,” Crow said mysteriously.
“Have you guys set a date yet?”
“We’re thinking maybe a Christmas wedding—next Christmas, I mean—but really we haven’t done that much planning yet. A bit too soon, you know?”
“I can understand that.”
The morning had dawned clear and blue and cloudless, and there was a mildly cool wind from the northeast. Crow had his window cracked and crisp air blew into the car and made their cheeks tingle. They headed down Corn Hill to A-32, turned left, and within minutes they were out in the farm country. Groves of carefully tended shade trees gave way to acre after acre of geometrically sown cornfields, many cut to stubble that late in the season, but some still swelling toward the last corn harvest in November. There were fewer houses to be seen, most of them tucked far back at the end of winding dirt roads. Here and there a roadside stand stood fully stocked and ready for the influx of Little Halloween tourists. Barrels of peaches and apples stood in ranks; tall stands of decorative cornstalks leaned in bunches, tied with lengths of hairy twine; Indian corn hung from the rafters of the stands, cheery in their browns and reds and oranges; buckets of mixed nuts stood by the cash registers near jugs of dark, rich cider; and row upon row of pumpkins waited in patient lines, some painted with spooky or cheerful faces, some precut, some untouched and pumpkin-pie ripe in the early sunlight.
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