by Rea Thomas
They had argued about rooming arrangements for ten miles along the highway. Lisabeth demanded two rooms, valuing her privacy.
“No honor among thieves,” Vikram reminded her. “I don’t trust you not to abscond off into the night.”
She gestured to the mountainous Western Ghats, the hillsides sloping dramatically to her left, high leafy trees flanking the roadside to the right. “And go where, Vikram? I’d have to walk fifty miles to find civilization.”
He shrugged. “I don’t care. You’re capable of plenty of nefarious acts.”
Lisabeth scoffed at him, “And you’re such a saint?” Clearly he would go to any means to protect his interest in the flute. She nudged the backpack with her leg, reassuring herself that he hadn’t performed some act of magic trickery and pilfered it while her head was turned.
“One room,” he said firmly. “We’ll ask for two beds.” Lisabeth glared at the side of his face, biting back a retort.
The roadside lodging was manned by a boy who could not have been older than eighteen, for his limbs were still gangly like those of a teenager. He eyed them with suspicion when Vikram requested twin beds, his gaze lingering on Lisabeth for long seconds.
Vikram paid in advance, passing faded and crumbled rupee notes before accepting the key, attached to a Plexiglas fob whose bottom right corner was chipped. Permanent black marker had been used to inscribe the number “8” unto the surface.
“You take me to the classiest places,” she muttered.
Vikram shot her a glare, shouldering his backpack.
“Well it isn’t exactly the Taj, is it?” Lisabeth added.
The boy kept his eyes trained on her, listening intently to every word she spoke, whether he understood them or not.
“Pampering you wasn’t part of the deal,” Vikram replied, taking her elbow in a hard grasp. She shook herself free and took two steps sideways.
“Neither was pleasuring you, so let’s see how much enjoyment you get out of tonight.” Lisabeth could have sworn she saw him smile, not in the least bit concerned. He probably thought he could dominate her again, force her to comply with his desires. She felt smug, honing her game plan.
The room was as basic as she could expect for three hundred rupees. The beds were narrow and so close they could have been one. A small television had been mounted on the wall and had no remote control. Two bedside lamps that were once white were now nicotine yellow, despite a notice nailed to the wall specifying the room was no smoking.
Lisabeth opened the only cupboard, a plywood structure of questionable stability, and was relieved at the only modern appliance in the room—the safe. She removed the diamond and the flute from her bag and set the code, sealing the treasures inside. It was when she turned around that she noticed Vikram’s body was elongated in a yoga pose, his hands pressed together above his head. She noted how his fingertips almost touched the ceiling.
Despite her yearning desire to mock him, Lisabeth had to admit his posture was graceful, more natural than any of the posers she had known back in London. Vikram looked as though he had been doing it for a lifetime. His body was statuesque, his eyes fixed on a spot beyond her head. He was oblivious to her, unfolding himself at leisure and repositioning his arms and legs in a different, equally limber pose.
Lisabeth double-checked the safe was locked.
“I’m going for a walk.”
Vikram’s eyes didn’t falter and he didn’t reply.
* * * * *
Lisabeth rounded the back of the lodge and climbed over the wire boundary fence. Beyond the hotel property, miles of uninterrupted jungle stretched to the east. The sun was beginning to set over the mountains to the west, darkening the landscape to sharp, angled silhouettes.
She felt an overwhelming urge to escape the room, confused by how she had wanted to know where Vikram had learned yoga. Lisabeth had not known anyone who could evoke such confusing emotions as Vikram. She liked feelings of indifference; they comforted her and she couldn’t remember the last time she had truly wanted to know intimate details about another person. Hours earlier, when Vikram had given her the chance, she had responded exactly the way she ought to have. Exactly as she always would. Only, now she had experienced a niggling in the back of her mind that she did have things she wanted to ask him. It made her frustrated. It made her want to burn off more energy than his damned yoga would.
An exotic bird cried out somewhere overhead and she caught a flash of scarlet red taking flight. A cacophony of squalls followed. Lisabeth should have been afraid of the jungle, but somehow she never was. The intricacy of nature and its simplicity gave her comfort.
She followed a decline in the ground, careful not to advance too far in the fading light. A half-moon was already visible in the cloudless sky, gaining brightness as the sun dipped.
Tropical nights were immeasurably more pleasant than tropical days. The air was zingy with the perfume of flora and fauna—at least out here in the middle of nowhere, far away from the cloying pollution of the inner cities. The skies were a crystalline blue, not made an opaque gray by rising fumes. The temperature had lowered to bearable and the thicket of trees swayed in a warm, southerly breeze sweeping in from the distant Indian Ocean.
“Lisabeth!” She turned to look up the embankment at Vikram’s silhouette peering down at her. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Are you finished with your stretches?” she called back, condescension thick in her tone. Vikram advanced toward her, negotiating the slope easily. She had to admit she enjoyed watching him—his grace and agility were captivating.
“It’s getting dark, Lisa.” He spoke to her as though she were a stubborn child in need of special coaxing.
“Lisabeth,” she said. “Not Lisa. Not Beth.”
“Yes ma’am. It doesn’t matter if I call you Charlie Brown—it’s still getting dark.”
Maybe she found him so arousing because he returned her challenges, never intimidated as so many other men had been. Vikram didn’t balk at her hardened personality. In fact, it seemed to amuse him and that both annoyed and intrigued her.
“I can hear a stream up ahead. I’m going to take a look.” The gaps between the trees were becoming indistinguishable as the light diminished.
“Can’t you look in the morning?” Vikram followed her, impatient. “Lisabeth, wait up. Seriously, you’re the most fucked-up woman I’ve ever met.” Foliage snapped and cracked under their feet, the jungle thickening around them.
Clearly she was fucked up, Lisabeth thought, to think of his remark as some kind of accolade.
“We have absolutely no equipment to go wandering through the jungle. There are still big cats in Karnataka; don’t be fooled by the Bengal in Bengal Tiger.”
She turned abruptly, stopping him with an angry glare. “Shut up or go back. I don’t need a fucking companion.”
Vikram smiled at her through the gloom. “I thought that’s exactly what you needed.” She suppressed the urge to growl, so frustrated was she by his tendency to answer her brisk remarks with an equally quick retort. He seemed to get the last word in just about every instance. In fact, he seemed to have gotten bolder after dominating her in the bedroom.
He quieted, allowing her to follow the sound of rushing water through the trees. The soothing babbles coaxed her inward, forcing her eyes to adjust to the thickening darkness. After five minutes, the trees parted at the riverbank—a stony slant running alongside a stretch of water only fifteen feet in width. Overhead, the sky was a Prussian blue in the early evening.
Lisabeth kicked away her shoes and peeled off the yellow camisole, inviting the tepid air over her skin. Vikram stood behind, watching her hastily undress. Within seconds she was naked, dipping her toes into the cool water. When she shook her head, the braid snaked along the length of her back. The city air dirtied her skin and she felt cleaner already, wading into the flowing water.
When she turned around, the river caressing her navel, Vikram was rapt, watching
her. Lisabeth was not modest about her body—she worked hard to maintain a trim, flat stomach and tight thighs. Her full breasts sat high on her chest, heavy and firm to touch.
She sank to her knees, submerging herself to her neck.
“Get in,” she said to him.
“There’s no chance,” Vikram replied, folding himself under the branches of a banyan tree. Lisabeth smiled, ready to cash in on the terms of their agreement.
“I think there’s every chance, actually. Anytime, anywhere, or has your short-term memory deserted you?” She thought she saw him go rigid.
“You’re serious?” he asked, glancing furtively along the stretch of riverbank as though he expected the teenager from the hotel to be peeping at them through the trees. “Of course you’re serious,” he added. “You should see a therapist, Lisabeth. You’d be the magnum opus of any psychiatric career.”
She watched him get to his feet, undressing slowly, delaying his inevitable plunge into the cold water. Lisabeth absorbed the image of his naked body into her mind, locking it in a memory bank for a night in the future when she would be required to conjure it as fodder for masturbation. What a memory it will be, she thought.
“I can’t just get hard on demand,” he complained.
“You seem to be doing all right,” Lisabeth replied airily. “Just get in the water, Vikram.” What she was expecting, Lisabeth didn’t really know. She knew she had wanted him since the Hindi song had played in the car, hours ago. She knew that his body stretched into yogic poses had piqued her arousal, although she hated to admit it. Still, asking for sex made spontaneity difficult, and as theirs was not a relationship built on the foundation of romance but instead forged by an agreement, she didn’t know how to proceed when he waded through the water toward her.
“At your service, madam.” The cold had brought a covering of goosebumps over his smooth, dark skin. His flat nipples were hard and his abs tight, as if he were tensing every muscle in his body. Lisabeth thought about her curiosity, how she so much wanted to feel nothing but indifference toward this man who was nothing more than competition. Looking at him through the darkness, his copper eyes lit only by the half-moon hanging low in the sky, she forced herself to admit that she was more interested in this man than she’d ever been with another.
Birds of a feather flock together, she thought.
“Are you all right?” he asked, leaning forward to peer into her eyes.
What the hell? Lisabeth thought. She was stuck with him until Mumbai—she might as well enjoy him.
That decided, she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his.
It would be all right as long as she didn’t fall in love with him, which she was certain was an absolute impossibility. She wasn’t designed to love.
No, there were two things Lisabeth Baker would never do—fall in love or relinquish control. Everything else was fine.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m all right.”
Chapter Six
Vikram did not know what had changed in Lisabeth. One moment he had been peering into her eyes, and they had been as hard and shuttered as always. Then, like the veil of hypnotism being lifted, the olive green depths became clear—welcoming, almost. There had been no time to reflect upon it though, for she had bridged the gap between their mouths and kissed him. Not the angry kisses from the hotel room back in Chennai, but slow and luxurious.
Her naked body was warm, despite the cooling river water, as though she were immune to the elements. Vikram was hesitant to touch her, to wrap his arms around her slender frame for fear he would break the spell and she would retreat back into the cold, hard place in which she seemed to permanently reside.
Gentle fingers played with the curling hair at the nape of his neck, almost tenderly. Her long legs locked around his waist and her weight, buoyant in the water, rested on his hips. Vikram had been hard the moment she had stripped off her clothes with carefree abandon, plunging herself into the river like an erotic water nymph. For the first time, he wasn’t preoccupied with the flute or with getting to Mumbai.
Vikram slipped his arms beneath the water, running his hands over her waist. Lisabeth murmured as her nipples hardened against the plane of his chest. He had been giving in to fantasies all afternoon, wondering when he might again be inside her hot, wet body, consumed by the tight warmth of her. Once had not been anywhere near enough. Now, with her supple, willing body in his arms, he had no desire to rush things.
Her lips explored his neck, suckling on his pulse, sharpening and hitching his breathing. Vikram was no stranger to women; he enjoyed the female body, enjoyed bringing them to pleasure and hearing his name tumble from their lips in passionate, breathy pleas. There was something else in Lisabeth though. Some invisible force was drawing him in and making him want to experience euphoric pleasure at her hands.
She leaned back into the river. The water, blackened by the encroaching night, covered her slender neck and spilled over her ample breasts. The stiff peaks glistened in the moonlight, delicious morsels that beckoned his mouth. Vikram yearned to taste her—the softness of her alabaster skin, to dip his tongue into the dainty indent of her bellybutton and feast upon the sweet, slick offerings of her pussy. If this were two thousand years ago, during the creation of the Kama Sutra, Lisabeth would have been worshiped as a goddess. She would have been adored for her magnetic, sexual appeal. They’d have said she epitomized lust and desire.
She floated, graceful as a water lily. Vikram almost hoped someone would pass by the riverside and see them, aghast at the sheer eroticism oozing from her every pore. Lisabeth would look like a ghostly apparition in the moonlight.
Her hands slipped over her belly, upward to caress the curve of her rib cage and finally cup her breasts, tweaking her nipples with firm strokes. Vikram held her hips, his hands large and dark against her fair skin. Lisabeth pressed her breasts together, a cascade of clear water spilling over the mounds, downward and over her belly. He watched her, enraptured by the soft moans rising in her throat as she squeezed and tugged her nipples, staring upward at the cloudless, navy sky.
His thumb slipped downward, over her pelvis to the apex of her parted thighs, caressing the shiny bud of her clit. He heard her take a sharp breath through parted lips, followed by a murmur of encouragement. Her fingers tightened around her breasts.
Vikram knew the opportunity to explore Lisabeth’s body would last only until they reached Mumbai, after which they would part—deal done. He intended to be intimately acquainted with every inch of her by then—every moan, every shuddered breath, the taste of her sweet cunt, the silkiness of her skin. He would remember the shade of her rosy nipples, pinched hard by slender fingers. He would especially remember the way this woman sighed his name.
He lowered himself to the sandy riverbed, drawing her legs over his shoulders. Vikram noticed that despite her physical strength, Lisabeth was slight in comparison to him. He had been rough with her last time, governed by his irritation and arousal. Lisabeth liked to push his buttons, and he struggled to control himself when she tried so hard to rile him. In fact she seemed to get a kick out of revving him up. Yet she looked almost sweet and approachable, lying back in the river so dark it was almost as though she were swimming on the abyss. Vikram didn’t think her mellowed demeanor would last long but he would enjoy it still.
The water sluiced over her body, every part of her skin simmering. Vikram pressed his lips against her inner thigh and her hips rolled upward, beckoning him closer. Her pussy glistened with a different kind of wetness—a slick, nectar-like sap. She released her breasts, cool hands sinking into his hair, nails clutching urgently at his scalp. Lisabeth whimpered at the sensation of his warm breath against her thighs, his lips so close yet tortuously far away from her clit.
“What do you want, Lisabeth?” He punctuated the question with a kiss to her navel.
“Put your mouth on me,” she said, pressing on his head. Her voice was gentle now. It was usually so sharp, demanding and r
eprimanding in equal measures.
“Where?” he pressed, his tongue flicking at her bellybutton. Lisabeth bucked upward, water sloshing against their naked bodies.
“My pussy.” The words didn’t sound filthy, somehow, but rather innocent on her parted lips. She was begging him, arching her back and sending ripples spreading outward toward the shore.
Vikram lowered his mouth, the tip of his tongue pressing teasingly against her clit. She offered him a pained mewling sound in response. The first taste of her was sweet and musky, making him thirst for more. Beneath the water, his cock pulsed dully in response to her whispered appeal for release.
“More,” she breathed. “Suck on me.”
He complied, drawing her clit into his mouth, suckling and flicking the tiny nub until she cried out, her voice sounding tortured. Her legs were tight against his neck, the muscles tense beneath his hands. The writhing of her body made the silken water almost tumultuous, splashing noisily over their naked skin.
When his tongue slid into her, Lisabeth cried out his name, her resolve unraveled. The sound of her voice shattered the quiet serenity of the surrounding jungle and he imagined a dozen wild animals perking their ears, lifting their heads from nocturnal foraging at the unfamiliar, foreign sound.
She was wetter than he could have imagined, urging him to feast upon her tender flesh. His tongue lapped at her, drawing her sweetness into his mouth. Beneath his lips he felt her body stiffen, an urgency building within her. Lisabeth’s nails clawed at his scalp, the pain searing and yet oddly intoxicating.
“Tell me what you want,” he murmured, mouth pressed against her slick core. Her hands released him, returning to the swells of her breasts, fingers pulling roughly on her nipples. “Tell me, Lisabeth.” He lifted his eyes, peering up at her through the darkness, aroused beyond anything he had ever been before.
“Suck my clit,” she demanded. “Hard.” Vikram obeyed her command, covering the bud with his mouth, his lips pinching gently. She cried out in fervent approval. His fingers slid into her, stroking her soft, inner walls. “Deeper,” she sighed, plucking and flickering her nipples.
