Phantom Lover

by A. J. Llewellyn

  I allowed myself to relax and drifted off, awoken at some point by the sound of the phone ringing. “I’ll get it,” I said, but Kimo wouldn’t let go of me. The phone stopped, then started again.

  Reluctantly, he let me go. It was Johnny. I hung up on him and I unplugged the phone. Tomorrow, I would have the number changed. I checked the time on the kitchen clock. Four p.m. I checked on Kimo who was waiting for me in the bath.

  “Who was it?” he asked drowsily.

  “Johnny. I’m changing the number tomorrow.”

  Kimo nodded. “You unplugged the phone, I hope.”

  “I did.” I picked up the shampoo bottle and I washed and conditioned his hair, then pulled him out of the tub, drying him off. The bed sheets were drenched from the ice bath I’d given him, so I found clean sheets and put him to bed. He was hungry for me and I, for him but I wanted to clean up the dishes, the evidence of last night’s activities.

  “Let me get some food.”

  “I don’t need food. I need you.”

  “You need to eat. I’ll be right back.”

  Bustling around the kitchen, stacking the dishwasher, putting finger foods together on a tray restored my sense of equilibrium. I looked at my stone and picked it up, but it still glowered in my hand. Once Kimo was better, it would quit being angry, I was certain.

  When I returned to the bedroom, he was waiting for me. His skin was still hot to the touch, but not as bad as it had been.

  “I need to fuck you, fill you up again, show you who this cock belongs to,” he said.

  “Feed first, then fuck me.” I climbed on the bed and he took my cock in his hand as I fed him the way he loved, with my fingers.

  “I know I hurt you last night—”

  “Don’t talk about it anymore. I want to forget about it. Okay?”

  “But I’ve never fucked you like that. Like you weren’t mine. I’m sorry.”

  “I forgive you.” I put a piece of chicken in his mouth. He had my cock hard by then and his was practically screaming for me.

  He took the tray away from me, putting it on the floor. He pushed me back on the bed and his mouth zeroed in on my cock and my ass. He sucked and licked me and I felt the fireball growing in the pit of my belly.

  “Lie back, Kimo. I want to get on top of you.”

  I straddled his hips, and the blisters seemed smaller, but still looked painful. He didn’t care. He just wanted to be inside me. I hovered over him, pointed his cock at my ass and he plunged it straight home. I rode up and down on him and he loved watching the way I swayed on him, his own personal hula dancer, rocking his world.

  Kimo sat up and swung his legs to the floor, keeping himself in me. He pulled my legs up, holding me up by the ass, he gave me the fucking he should have given me the night before. He sucked my nipples, bent down and licked my cock.

  We came together strongly and his mouth released my cock so he could kiss me, my come spilling back and forth between us.

  He cradled me on his lap, his cock moving into me, then out, in slow circles as his orgasm subsided. My body shook with the violent passion of our coupling. Kimo kissed me. “Still think this cock doesn’t belong to you?”

  I shook my head and, at last, we fell back on the bed, spooning into a sweet sleep, my husband inside me, my cock, right where it belonged, in the palm of his hand.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was a few months after the Johnny incident and we were back to normal. Things between us had never been better. I got work on a show in Lahaina and Kimo relinquished his hold on me enough to let me work five evenings a week. Since he was at every performance, we spent more than I earned, but we had wonderful dinners afterward and it was a thrill, night after night, to see his shining, adoring face in or near the front row.

  Kimo had a couple of tense conversations with Mim, but then things were always like that between them lately. Kimo said it was just Mim being Mim, but he looked worried.

  When Nicky and Kaiona flew to Maui and came to see the show, I was pleased. We all had dinner at Longhi’s in Lahaina and the cool salt breeze of the ancient whaling harbor added to my already famished state.

  They didn’t mention the baby issue, but I saw Nicky’s devastated face whenever a pregnant woman or a woman with a baby pram strolled by. My heart went out to her. Kimo’s fingers gripped mine and I wished I could just say, “Yes, fuck my man!”

  “How is it going?” I asked Nicky when we bought ice cream and the four of us strolled along Front Street. It was my first moment alone with her in months.

  “I tried in vitro, but Kaiona was so against it. I’m sorry, Bobby. I mean, Lopaka. It’s not your problem.”

  “You’re my friend. I wish the only solution wasn’t you having sex with my man.”

  “Is that how you see it? It wouldn’t be like that. It would be conceiving a baby with love. I know you didn’t have a mother, but whatever happens, I want you to be my baby’s godmother because you’re my best friend and I know you will be such a loving force in his life.”

  “A boy?”

  “Oh yes, we have dreams about him.”

  “And what is his name?”

  “Something Hawaiian. Something old.” Her face took on a dreamy expression and I thought how beautiful she would look when she was with child.

  * * * *

  After we parted company, Kimo drove me toward west Maui, where I still sometimes went to visit with Pele.

  “There’s something I want to give you.” He was checking his watch.

  “What are you up to now?” I asked, but he would only smile in an enigmatic way.

  Just past Wailea, he stopped the SUV and urged me to follow him. I clambered over broad, flat rocks between two giant hotels and we crept along the wet shoreline.

  Kimo’s face was ecstatic when he showed me the moonlight. “We’re just in time. Look.”

  The moonlight had hit the water like a spirit tunnel and at that moment, a handful of sea turtles lumbered out of the ocean as in the sand, dozens of babies started to hatch in the hidden depths.

  We held our breaths, watching the miracle of nature and Kimo put his arm around me. The baby turtles stumbled on the sand as their mothers nudged and nosed at them, pointing them in the direction of the water.

  “When you meet your mate in Hawaii, legend says you’re supposed to give them an animal. I’ve never given you one yet, but I’ve meaning to give you this moment for a long time. I love you, Lopaka.”

  “I love you, Kimo.”

  A wave interrupted our fervent embrace, taking all the turtles to sea with them.

  “Thank you,” I whispered as Kimo laid me gently on the sand, his mouth closing over mine.

  * * * *

  It was later that night that I was in the kitchen getting a glass of water. I kept looking out the window at the stars and the sky, when Kimo walked in, wrapping his arms around me.

  “I’m getting lonesome in that bed. Is everything okay?”

  Tightening his arms around me, I looked at him, “I think you should give Nicky a baby.”

  Kimo kissed my temple, my cheek and my throat. “Are you sure? I mean, I know exactly what it would be, but I need you to be completely okay with it.”

  “My mother didn’t want me, Kimo. She threw me away. It’s not fair that she was able to have me and discard me, yet Nicky, who would be the most awesome mother in the world, pines for one. She wants a baby so badly. Besides, I like the idea of being a fairy godmother.”

  Kimo kissed me. “Your mother didn’t throw you away.”

  “Yes, she did. You weren’t there. You don’t know.”

  “You’re right. I wasn’t there. And I’m sorry I wasn’t. I would have kicked her ass.”

  I smiled, turning around to hold him.

  “So we’ll help her?”

  “I want to, as long as you are okay with it.”

  “I’m okay with it.”

  He reached over and picked up my rock. “Why’s this stone so hot
?”

  I took it out of his hand. I had no idea he was aware of my stone, not really. And yes it was hot to the touch.

  “Usually, it means pilikia.”

  “Trouble? Between us?”

  I nodded. “Baby, is there something you’re not telling me?”

  He hesitated. “Nothing bad. I mean…the thing is…Lopaka, I already sorta…promised Mim I would do the baby thing.”

  “Did you now?”

  “Yes. It’s all part of our divorce settlement. Lopaka, I am severing all ties with her. I don’t care what she wants. I’m giving her everything. Except this house.” His fingers touched my face. “I want to be with you.”

  “My life…my heart…they belong to you, Lopaka.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nicky and Kaiona scheduled the ritual for the following month. They stayed in Maui, dropping all the western doctors they’d been working with and they began the process of preparing Nicky’s body to receive Kimo’s semen in a ceremony going to back to Ancient Hawaii known as Po’o lua.

  Both Kimo and I, Mim, and her girlfriend, Jessie were to be the godparents.

  Kimo gave me an old medical text to read and I soon became caught up in the whole ritual. From what I learned, it was not unusual in old Hawaii for childless couples to use another man for impregnation, but at the precise moment of conception, as in, as soon as the stud cock came, the permanent partner laid claim to the child in the womb. In this case, that would be Kaiona.

  As Kaiona and Nicky holed up in Kaiona’s family compound upcountry in Makawao, where the actual ritual would take place, at Kimo’s insistence, he and I remained in our home. He wanted us to be away from the others, to have our own private space until the ritual was to begin.

  Nicky was on a diet of vast and icky-tasting greens. Kaiona cooked for her, waiting on her hand and foot, whilst I doted on Kimo.

  He was required to consume ala-ala-wai-nui plants gathered by a kahuna who delivered them to our gate every day. I cooked them up like greens and doctored them with garlic, lemon juice, ginger and oyster sauce, which helped Kimo get used to the bitter taste after a couple of days. The plants were supposed to ensure absolute potency, not that I believed he needed them.

  Kimo and I talked about the book he’d given me to read and we marveled over the medical, magical uses of common plants in Old Hawaii.

  “Is there anything in there about what I can eat to knock you up?” he asked me.

  I loved him for that. “Let me check. Oh, here it is. It says, keep trying.”

  Kimo laughed. “Good advice.”

  We weren’t supposed to make love the day before the ritual according to the kahuna, who wanted Kimo primed and ready, but Kimo and I were ravenous. I knew he was so afraid of losing me, so we had sex the second we woke up.

  The night before the daylong ceremony, we had a very early dinner with Kaiona and Nicky at Aloha Plate Lunch, a very casual restaurant in Lahaina. I loved the coconut shrimp, the beach setting and the stray cat living on the premises named Ahi that prowled the tables for shrimp tails.

  The women were brimming with joy about becoming parents and I realized for the first time, Kimo was really dreading the ceremony. As we were leaving, I handed Nicky a pikake lei I had strung by hand especially for her, with flowers from our garden.

  She opened the box and looked at it. “I can’t wear that,” she gasped. It’s bad luck for a pregnant woman to weir a lei. They say it might symbolically strangle the baby.”

  “You haven’t looked at it yet,” I said. She lifted out the delicate strand and saw that it was open-ended.

  “Lopaka,” you’re the best.” She hugged me.

  “Amen to that,” Kimo grinned, anxious to get me home.

  He fucked me all night and said more than once, “I can’t go through with this,” but of course we had to seal the marital deal. And Nicky needed a home run.

  Very early the next morning, two kahuna came to collect Kimo, demanding that I remain behind. He went mad, saying I was his life partner and he needed me with him.

  They were refusing to budge and he started to become unglued. The two kahuna watched my darling have a complete meltdown screaming, “I won’t do it. I won’t go through the fire again.”

  “Darling, I gave you permission,” I said, trying to appease him.

  “The blisters! The blisters!”

  “You had the fire blisters?” they asked.

  “Yes! Yes!” he shrieked. “Even in my mouth. Here!” He stuck out his tongue, jabbing his finger on it.

  “Because of him?”

  “Yes!”

  The two kahuna were agog. “Mebbe mo betta you come, too.” They looked thoroughly astonished.

  We drove to Haleakala crater, hiking to an area called Pele’s Paint Pot. A naked Nicky was already there, sitting on the massive boulder with a serene expression on her face. Kaiona’s family was with her. Introductions were made and I leaned toward her. “Darling, do you feel anything?”

  She looked at me. “I think an ant just crawled up my doodah.”

  Kimo and I roared with laughter, but everybody else was acting like we were being sacrilegious.

  The kahuna chanted and, eventually, we all piled into cars and drove to Kaiona’s family home.

  * * * *

  There was a special bath for Kimo, bathed by two women who brushed leaves over his body and then, with a worried look at me, he was led naked to another room where the kahuna chanted with him. Kimo beckoned me to join him. He was wearing a pireau around his waist and nothing underneath it.

  I stood beside him as the kahuna spoke. I recognized the words, “We will eat the fruits that cause the impregnation for the bearing of chiefs.”

  We went into the dining room where the family members, Mim and her girlfriend Jessie, sat on low-lying seats and plates of scrambled eggs and kanawao fruit were passed between Kimo and me, and Kaiona and Nicky.

  It was truly an unpleasant combination. Not a taste I am likely to forget in a hurry. We all ate quickly though, as the bitterness seemed to increase with each bite. At last, the kahuna said we were ready.

  In her parents’ bedroom, Kaiona laid Nicky on the bed. She had a haku, or floral wreath, on her head, one on her right foot and several untied leis, including mine, around her neck. The two women lay on the bed together and started to kiss.

  “I love you so much.” Kaiona started to make love to Nicky. I felt like I was intruding on a private moment and that we should all leave.

  Nicky moaned and Kaiona sucked her pert little breast, her hand traveled down to Nicky’s pussy, which I was surprised to find, once the pireau had been removed from her, was waxed and hair-free.

  Kaiona’s fingers traced the public mound and the clitoris, one finger, then two, then three, moving in and out of her. I looked at Kimo who was clearly, not turned on. I threw myself in his arms and kissed him. He closed his eyes, kissing me back with his whole heart.

  I knew then what price he’d paid to be with me and I loved him even more, because I knew how much he did not want to be here.

  “Pretend she’s me,” I whispered in his ear. “Close your eyes and feel me with you.” My hand moved to his cock, which was getting nice and hard.

  Finally, he was ready and Nicky seemed in the throes of an orgasm.

  I took the pireau off Kimo and saw the looks on people’s faces, especially Kaiona and Nicky’s as he moved toward them with his majestic cock.

  Kaiona looked like she’d seen a ghost and Nicky’s mouth dropped into a frightened o.

  The kahuna started beating gourd drums that seemed to put Kimo in a trance. I moved forward with him and pushed him just a little to the bed. He got up on the bed as if he was afraid he might hurt her and knelt between her legs. I lay beside Nicky, stroking my man’s belly and his cock.

  “Touch him for me,” I said to Nicky and she reached out her small, nervous hands, stroking him. She smiled at him.

  “You’re beautiful,” she whisper
ed. “Thank you for this gift.”

  “You’re welcome,” Kimo whispered back, tears in his eyes. Kaiona and I helped part Nicky’s thighs so he could enter her.

  Kimo leaned down and kissed Nicky with passion and great sensitivity.

  She reached for my hand and I kissed it. Kimo looked over at our entwined hands. We were part of a very profound moment. The beating of the gourd drums kept up their steady thrum. Kimo entered Nicky and she cried out. Kimo started moving in and out of her. He started crying as she wrapped her legs around his waist and I knew he needed me.

  I reached toward my beloved and kissed his tear-stained face until he came.

  “Po’o lua,” Kaiona announced, laying claim to the child in Nicky’s womb as hers.

  * * * *

  The women were all ecstatic when it was over. Kimo seemed forgotten as they fussed over Nicky, who remained on the bed, knees drawn to her chest, eyes closed. Kaiona stroked her head and face.

  Kimo seemed shattered. He must have been upset, because he let me drive his sacred BMW back home. He sat far away from me, turning his face to the window when I asked if he was okay. We arrived at home and he looked like a broken man as we got out.

  I watched him go into our bathroom.

  “Let me run the bath for you, baby,” I said. “Let me take care of you.”

  “No. I want to be alone for a while, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He looked at the floor. “I feel like I’ve been raped.” He went into the bathroom and closed the door. I heard him run the shower and I didn’t know what to do.

  I waited for about an hour in shocked silence. I felt awful. None of this had been my idea. I had raged against it. It was Kimo and Nicky who had talked me into it. So why did I feel so guilty?

  The hot water steam stopped swirling under the door and still the shower motored on. My thoughts ran amok. Something made me pick up the lava stone. It was cold. I blew out a sigh. That should have been good news, so why did I feel like my relationship was over and that everybody had what they wanted, but me and Kimo?