Flame Angels

by Robert Wintner

  Do turtles mate on the surface? Even so, their shells would not allow this flexibility. Surely the turtles compensate with other forms of loveliness; they’re so well mannered otherwise. Well, being surrounded by azure clarity and reef magic must count for something. Still, it’s not always bad...to be...human...

  Soon they let go and drift, back to lovely sleep. The dream lingers with its little bubbles and eddies of goodness, like a gift of nature that won’t stop giving, so it recurs at four and again near six, when sunbeams dance sprightly over the windowsills, happily announcing another rise. Facing this way or that, it doesn’t matter. As a brand new day solidifies, the angelic fingers of the hostess show the way with expert sensitivity, suggesting eyes of their own, with logical visions revisited. Soon the exquisite sensations are surpassed only by a niggling amazement at this frequency. Is this randy response a compensation for the strife and turmoil of recent days? Is a man like a plant, going to seed in the face of imminent death? Could this be love? Not that love should be so strange or that the man’s heart is so cockled as to prevent such a thing. But this woman is so...so... Well, let’s face it: She’s not young and not what the lift, separation and spread boys would call fine. Yet she allures him again and again with her scent, her skin, her bounty.

  Wait a minute — could this be another skewed pleasure, whereby a man is sentenced to fuck every other hour into the future? Is this yet another test to see just how long this so-called waterman might be willing or able to swim against this current? Then again, such a task might be manageable and doesn’t really seem so bad with such a... such a...

  What?

  What was that?

  Well, as a matter of fact it’s exactly what it sounds like — footsteps in size twelve — and what it feels like — coitus interruptus, which muddles the poignant and pertinent question of incessant demand relative to enjoyment.

  A few days from the present, difficult moment, Ravid will learn that in fact he and his partner in communion had not suffered interruptus but rather reservatus, sustaining insertion of tab A into slot B, even as tab A threatened to become noodle C and slide hopelessly from the soup. This compromising in flagrante was not by design but rather flash frozen onto the little landscape much as lightning will still all life in the immediate vicinity of the strike.

  In the actual moment, several scenarios — and lives — flash before Ravid’s eyes. They all begin with jumping out of bed, pulling on his pants, grabbing his shirt and fleeing. They vary in destination — he could flee back under the covers into safety if not all the way to snug harbor; or he could flee under the bed, out the back door, into the wardrobe, out the side window if the window opens — surely it must open — or even out the front door.

  Oh, hello, how do you do? Beautiful morning, yes? No?

  Though numerous, the potential directions take split seconds to review and resolve, approximately equal to the time Moeava takes to assess the flip-flops on his front porch. But who is to say this man with the huge feet is her husband? Maybe he’s her brother, or cousin, or lodger. Or gardener. She said she had a garden. These possibilities take another two seconds.

  Then the interloper is inside, a silhouette much bigger than his shoes would indicate, big in the head, the neck, the arms, shoulders, belly, butt, thighs and calves, with a thickness common to Polynesian poi cultures, a uniform girth coming from genetics through the ages and poi from infancy onward, because the taro root is a tuber of complex carbohydrates and also the key to survival from infancy in many tropical climes.

  At this juncture of the life/death interface, the big man stares at the two people in bed under the sheet, which are presumably his bed and his sheet, the two people presumably naked, one of the people likely his wife, who opens the bidding boldly. “For eighteen years I care for him, and to this day I care for him still, but for what, so he can act the fool and try to kill himself?”

  But to whom does she speak? To the big man? In the third person?

  “Care for me still?” he asks.

  “Nothing happened here. This boy will tell you. I wanted it to happen but could not bear to ruin what we had. I’m leaving it for you to ruin.”

  “What we had?”

  “Yes. We had a home. Each other, till you threw everything out the window. We live in Paradise, but you chase a fool’s fantasy. You live in a fool’s paradise, which is foolish.”

  “You don’t know where I was.”

  “Trying to swim across Cook’s Bay to claim your nasty little prize is where you was. Postponing again because you are afraid is where you was. Doubting the delivery of the little biddy hen is where you was.”

  “Was not.”

  “Oh, but you was. You know it. I know it. This boy knows it. So don’t deny it. You have been caught red-handed. So be a man, not afraid, like you was all night!”

  It’s not hutzpa but chutzpa, with a guttural cchhh up front. And while it’s both Hebrew and Yiddish, it also converts to any language or culture among those people who have it. Hereata has it. In a classic demonstration of chutzpa, she is naked in bed with a non-spouse, engaging in sexual copulation at the moment of apprehension. This is the classic set up, with the practitioner dead to rights guilty, just as the sky is blue and sunrise occurs in the morning not the evening. The chutzpa begins with her accusation that the intruder is the actual culprit, caught red-handed himself in a violation as tangible as the prima facie right here before us, though we may be confused on the prima facie in this dim morning light. Worse yet, the intruder’s infraction is obviously more damning, by virtue of the accuser’s sheer momentum. With the non-spouse’s dingdong still inserted in the seemingly culpable woman, this demonstration may be called extreme chutzpa. Success may depend on the sustained momentum of the practitioner, along with peripheral pressure, in this case a suggestion of fear in the intruder, who is a man otherwise prone to low-grade machismo. The causal reference to fear is not incidental but pivotal to the success of the chutzpa; quick access to potential peripherals and bold use of them are part and parcel of chutzpa, especially in the extreme.

  Moeava hangs his head and asserts with humility, more quietly this time, “I was not afraid.”

  The successful practitioner will allow no slack, however, on the reverse accusation: “Oh, you were afraid. Otherwise, you would not be here. You would still be drip-drying on your way to the chicken coop to claim your favorite parts.” To Ravid, she laughs, “He’s a breast and thigh man.”

  “I was not afraid. It was windy. And choppy. I was smart.”

  “It’s windy and choppy every time you try. Why that?”

  Ravid’s breathing is labored as he shrinks an inch and backs another, as the salamander retreats from its lair and the big, sad man turns to go. In half an excruciating minute the intruder is outside again, his size twelve footfall diminishing back to where it came from, down the dirt road.

  She rolls over with a laugh, “Did you see that?” She reaches for the once obtrusive member, but all is apparently lost.

  Ravid covers himself. “No. No more. Please. That was your husband, for God’s sake.”

  “No! Husband? No! Not my husband. I already told you that. I cared for him. Like a son is how I raised him. Did. No more. He gave this up. This! So he could risk his life for one little fick with that skinny little putain. Do I need a man like that around here? A man who insults me? A man who throws my experience and wisdom out the window? A man who has less regard for the most important person in his life than for one little rooster spit, because I tell you that is all he would get. Then he would get the no, no, no, I have a headache, no more, not now, s’il-te-plaît. No. I need more than that. And less. Now come here!”

  “It’s different, though. You say you raised him like a son. You must see it from his point of view: You cared for him, but it’s two different kinds of love.”

  “Who do you think knows more about the subject of love? You? I don’t think so. A son was never raised with more love than Moeava
got from me. I mean love, you crazy man. You’re all alike. You think of one thing only. Now come here.”

  “No.”

  Her most solicitous smile is a tad grotesque in first light, especially when interrupted by a yawn. Defiantly radiant, she beams with the dawn, though her brand new day is already long in the tooth. Revealing experience, spirit and moderate dental care in equal measure, she inhales the wonder of it all. Or is that great gape an indication of appetite? Looking hungry as a hippo, she laughs, most likely at herself, so sleepy and horny all at once, first thing. Can you imagine? Then she moves in with compelling confidence, with a game spirit and persistence as fresh as during their first volley, as if the night had not yet passed.

  But it has. Her sleepy-time amusement makes no difference to a man played out. She eggs him on, but he’s up and out to the porch and off to the left side, dazed and doubtful as to just how this beautiful new day will gain the fresh aspect that every day deserves.

  She waits inside for her turn, wearing the same dress as last night, which she hikes up on the way into a squat, aiming as expertly as ever a woman could. He turns politely away in third world etiquette, where courtesy is primary, along with practicality, and where cleanliness is functional and far more efficient. Just so, she pours water into a basin and splashes it on her face. She brushes her teeth, calling out that he’s welcome to share.

  Back inside she visits the mirror and with a few quick strokes of the brush and lipstick, she’s ready — and able to generate second thoughts on the morning go. But he’s had his fill and sees her in new perspective, free of hormones in the light of day. Yes, she’s an excellent woman, but no man needs sexual liaison with every excellent woman he knows — especially now, after so many goes in such a short time, which makes a man worldly and wise, and so much easier to bear.

  Besides, it’s far better in some cases, like this one, to proceed as friends. Her contacts in tourism and in her high-end hotel will be a giant step on his way to livelihood. He laughs as they step down from the porch — laughs at this most recent curve on the road of life, unexpected, not to be repeated, but all in all enjoyable, relaxing, helping in the arrival process and all that. Which is not to say that you just can’t beat a nice piece o’ pussy for making a man feel at home, but then whatever it means to say is hard for the hospitable woman to construe. She may well think she suffers on the morning after. Maybe his laughter in the light of day is aimed at her; she is so obviously awkward and plump and, yes, suddenly aware that her dress is inside out. She shuffles along to the main road in her beat-up high heels, her dress refusing to properly adjust, riding up one shoulder and sliding down the other as she turns to assure him that nothing here is funny.

  With a straight face and polite concern he asks as a friend, “You said your, uh, man was after...one little fick?”

  “No, I did not. I said Moeava was after the fick. He’s not my man. That’s what I said. You heard it wrong, but you got the point correctly. What he’s after is less than one little slice of the cake you had last night.”

  “Is that the delusion or the curse? I mean on her part, the dancing girl’s. That she’ll give herself, but only once?”

  “I’m not an attorney. You’ll have to ask her. But do you really think you’d be happy eating the neck and the feet once you had the breasts and thighs? Do you really think she could satisfy anyone like I can?”

  Ravid gazes back in wonder and with new perspective on her primal force. He concedes, “No. I don’t think she could provide the same as you.”

  “Then tell me something: Why do you ask? Why do you ask not one hour after giving up your stuff for the fourth time in one night? Four times! Why?”

  Well, it was actually only three, but who’s to quibble? Ravid stifles a smile under his blush, which she could easily take as flattery, as indisputable evidence of her womanly power, and it is, till he playfully says: “Because I can swim that bay.”

  She stops and turns to him. She slowly nods. “Yes. I think you can. Over and back, after sunset and before dawn.” She scrutinizes him, as if for blemishes or other defects that might help level the playing field.

  On the main road a few cars pass, though fewer people stare at the odd couple roadside. Ravid feels relief on the one hand, processing this new day in a new life of days with normal, French values, in which people have sexual relations followed by friendly discussion on the side of the road, and this too is natural. On the other hand, he wonders if among the passers-by may be someone in a position to remember him when he goes to apply for a job. But that concern is only residual baggage from his old home and its culture of constraint and dishonesty, where nosy people took note of many things in no greater context than gaining grist for the gossip mill.

  She steps toward him, bright and blissful again, on a new tack. With her loving arm around him, and writhing slowly, she says, “God is my witness. I will make you a promise. I hereby pledge to fuck you four more times in one night when you swim the bay and back. Not before. Don’t worry if you think you can’t, not the swim but the other. I have ways, as you well know.”

  “Hey. I was joking. I have no intention of swimming that bay, at night or any time.”

  “You don’t want to fuck me four times?”

  Is this a loaded question? “What I meant is that I don’t want to swim the bay.”

  She turns back to the steep shoulder to continue the walk to work. “We shall see.”

  In a while they reach the hotel steps they descended under blustery clouds and sparse moonlight only hours ago. Now the steps appear dry and cracked, chipped and stained, leading the way up to another day’s work in a once lavish hotel now in need of paint, some new siding, a fascia replacement near the gable peak and a general sprucing.

  She takes his hand like she did on the dark road last night, though the path is easy to follow here in broad daylight. It’s a hotel lobby. How many routes can there be? Well, she’s showing off her catch as any angler would, and though he doesn’t feel caught, exactly, he wiggles inside like a hapless fish. He doesn’t want the point ’n shoot from last night anymore; he only wants to be back in the safe and silent confines of his cheap room across from Taverua.

  “Come.” She opens the office, easily finds the computer switch, turns it on, starts the printer, plugs in the camera and waits. Fidgeting with a loose thread, she realizes that it leads to an exposed seam, and she remembers. “My God. I’m inside out.” She laughs like a schoolgirl, crossing her arms with both fists full of bottom hem, then raises her dress overhead for another revelation in the light of day. Pulling her tummy in and thrusting her chest out she titters, “Excuse me, please. I think you make me a little crazy.”

  He shares her mirth, seeing her as fleshy and middle-aged and maybe good for another go at some point, but not any time soon. What’s the rush? No, it will be better to keep this friendship open, dynamic and free ranging.

  Turning around, he steps between her and the big window on the lobby, as if to shield her from onlookers, but then he realizes that the people in the lobby are also French or under French influence. They think no differently of a woman whether she’s in a dress or out. The light from Hereata’s desk lamp reflects her image in the window, and he sees her splendid assets along with his own grubby self, unshaved, hair mussed. He further sees the need for tolerance and compassion in all parties this morning. He turns back with a smile to counterbalance his grubby look and says, “Let’s get coffee. Okay?”

  “Okay. I almost have it.” She hits a few more commands and soon they have the photo of a reasonably groomed man beaming beside a beautiful dancer with two coconuts failing to constrain her breasts. “Psshh. Put that on my list. I have to see if we can fit her into some soup bowls instead. Ha!”

  Soon they sit across from each other at a table in a part of the dining room not open to hotel guests, so it feels private and sweet, as if Cupid had these two honeymooners in mind and made some very special arrangements. “It’s one of the
things you get when you are best of friends with the food and beverage manager. He’s not even here, but our friendship is very well known.” Ravid wonders how far back they go and laughs at himself for this brief tinge of curiosity that is not jealousy, because he’s free of that, and when you think about it, always has been.

  So he won’t ask how far back the food and beverage guy goes but merely gazes serenely. “And the kitchen staff,” she smirks, scurrying on short steps to fetch a plateful of glorious little pastries and a pitcher of strong French coffee with a creamer of — what else? — cream. “They love me.”

  Ravid moans as the caffeine pulls him to life and then some, to purpose and beyond, to happiness. “Mmm... That’s so good. Why do expensive hotels make the best coffee?”

  She answers by gorging on a pastry; it’s only three inches across and brings a moan of its own, similar to that of a satisfied cow. “Mmm! Oui! C’est très, très bien!”

  He takes a moment to inventory the many faces a new acquaintance may show and the time required to see them all. His forehead wrinkles as she stuffs loose crumbs in with her finger. She seems very happy, which is an easy emotion to be around.

  “Hereata.”

  “Mmm! You got it right! My name! You know my name!”

  He acquiesces, “Of course I know your name. I hope you know mine. Do you know my name?”

  “Mmm...” she points to her full mouth, chews and swallows. “Mais oui. Tu t’appelles Raaaa Veed!”

  “Okay. You can call me Ravid.”

  “Okay.”

  “Hereata. Do you know the recreation manager? Does the hotel have a dive boat?”