Dark Tide

by Josh Lanyon

He nodded.

  “I didn’t realize you’d gone up to Ojai again.”

  “I’ve been there a couple of times talking to Argyle.”

  “You like that old copper.” I tugged gently on the pup’s silky ears. “You didn’t say anything about buying this little guy.”

  “Yeah, well. I thought I’d get him trained and give him to you for your birthday.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t keep a dog. Where the hell would I put him? This was going to be a big dog. The oversize paws on my knees told the story. And yet, as I gazed into those shiny-button, laughing eyes, I felt myself smiling back.

  “And if I’m wrong and you don’t want him, I’ll hang on to him.” A reluctant smile tugged Jake’s mouth. “He grows on you.”

  I picked up the puppy — ouch, fat little bastard — and leaned back in the chair. He proceeded to frantically lick my chin. I lifted my head out of reach. “All the way over here, I was trying to think what to say. It turns out I have the worst timing in the world. Maybe you should tell me your news first.”

  The screen door slid open behind us. Jake turned as Kate said, “I guess that’s everything.”

  They were both calm and controlled, but it was obvious how much in pain they were, and I realized exactly how bad my timing was.

  She was staring at me, and Jake said quietly, “Kate, this is Adrien.”

  “Adrien. Well.” Her tone was flat. “We meet at last.”

  I nodded, putting the puppy down and belatedly rising. I didn’t know what to do or say. Not something covered in any etiquette book I’d read. Why the hell hadn’t I thought of this? What was I doing intruding here?

  “I’ll walk out front with you,” Jake said to Kate. He gave me an indecipherable look, and they went inside.

  The puppy picked up the blue ball and dropped it on my foot in reminder. I picked it up, forgot, and threw. For a racked instant I thought I’d snapped the wires holding my sternum together. The puppy tore off down the yard barking like a demented a squeak-toy.

  After what seemed like a very long time, Jake came back. He walked to the edge of the patio and stared out at nothing.

  I said, “I should have called first.”

  “You said that.”

  He continued to stare out unseeingly at the clipped and trimmed yard and the puppy galloping up and down the grass, the ball in its mouth.

  “I’m sorry, Jake.”

  He didn’t seem to hear.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Probably not, since I didn’t currently exist.

  The puppy dropped the ball on the bricks and looked up hopefully. Jake bent automatically, snatched up the ball, and threw it. Hard. It slammed into the wooden fence with a force that sounded like it cracked the board.

  I rose, went inside the house, rummaged around until I found the bottle of Wild Turkey. There was a shelf half full of clean glasses in the cupboard. I poured a stiff drink and brought it out to the patio.

  He looked at the glass, looked at me. His brows rose. He took the glass and tossed back the bourbon.

  “Another?”

  His grin was crooked. “Thanks. No. I don’t think drinking tonight would be a good idea.”

  “Do you want me to go?”

  “Yeah.”

  I nodded, turned away. As I reached the screen door, he said, “Adrien, no. Don’t go.”

  I came back and leaned against one of the wrought-iron posts propping up the metal patio roof.

  He threw the ball to the puppy a few times more. “You know what I thought the first time I saw you?”

  “No.”

  “Point of no return.”

  “Huh?”

  “I knew. I knew from the second I laid eyes on you, everything was going to change.”

  I’d had a similar feeling. Granted, I’d expected the change to have something to do with a lengthy prison sentence.

  “I don’t even know what it is about you. Why I couldn’t forget you. I tried. Believe me. You’re smart enough, but you’re not a genius. You’re funny, but you’re no comedian. You’re beautiful, but —”

  “All this flattery is going straight to my head.”

  He didn’t smile, still preoccupied with his own mordant thoughts. I thought of the words of the Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne. “If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.”

  I said, “You know what I thought the first time I saw you?”

  The hard smile he gave reminded me of that first time. “You were scared to death.”

  “I was. And I never wanted anything as badly as I wanted you.”

  The smile faded. His eyes were wary, waiting.

  “And I still am. And I still do.” I drew a breath. “And if you haven’t changed your mind —”

  We met halfway.

  There were faded squares on the bedroom wall where pictures had once hung. An empty drawer thrust out of a tall dresser as though sticking its tongue out. The king-size bed was minus any quilt or comforter.

  The sheets were a pale yellow like fading sunshine. There was nothing in the room to remind me that it had ever been Kate’s — and nothing to remind me that it was still Jake’s. It was a room in transition — like a hotel room, like a waiting room.

  We sat on the edge of the bed, side by side, and undressed each other with tremulous fingers, careful and slow. I didn’t believe we had ever been this tentative — not even in the very beginning. Perhaps especially not in the very beginning. We gave each other plenty of time for second thoughts, for a change of heart. We were polite with the buttons and respectful of the zippers. And all the while we watched each other’s face, eyes locked.

  The somber darkness in Jake’s eyes hurt my heart. In that moment I would have given him anything in my power.

  He undid the last button, pushed the shirt back off my shoulders. He glanced down at my chest.

  “Ugly, isn’t it?”

  I heard the rough intake of his breath. “Is that what you think?”

  “Oh it is,” I said easily. Somehow I knew the ugliness didn’t frighten him any more than it frightened me.

  He bent his head and kissed the curve of my neck, said against my flushed skin, “Nothing about you could be ugly to me.” I shivered despite the warmth of the room, the heat of our bodies. He pushed me back in the smooth used sheets, and he kissed the lowest point at my sternum, working his way, his mouth nuzzling up that tender pink ridge — stinging and soothing at the same time. It tickled and made me want to laugh. It melted my guts and made me want to cry. I tried to hold still, not wriggle away, finally relaxing as his mouth nibbled and kissed its way beneath my jaw and at last found my mouth. We kissed long and hungrily.

  Passionate kisses, the intoxicating exchange of breath and saliva — and something more intimate — something there was no real name for, like a spark catching between us and taking light.

  How had I forgotten this? How had I been satisfied with anything else? Guy…Mel…it was like choosing celluloid kisses over the real thing. The real thing was raw and powerful and dangerous…but it was the real thing. Had I really believed I could make do with safe substitutes?

  Jake tasted of bourbon and sorrow. I opened my mouth to his tongue, the rough velvet push against my own — claiming me as I was claiming him. This sultry afternoon, wooden blinds knocking against the wall, the hum of bees outside the window, the distant buzz of a plane off to faraway places was merely another link in the chain. There seemed a strange, sweet continuity in this tentative, cautious coupling, and yet it somehow felt like the first time as we made love in the wreckage of Jake’s dreams.

  It was the first time. The first time we were together with no secrets and no restrictions. It was us naked…in every way.

  We kissed until we were out of breath. Jake lifted his head. He said, “I’d given up. What made you change your mind?”

  “I guess I finally caught up on my sleep.”
>
  He didn’t smile.

  I stared at him, at the silver-gold at his temples, the tiny lines at the corner of his eyes, the stern but tender line of his mouth. It had to be the truth from now on. “Because nothing could hurt worse than never seeing you again. I can’t do it. It’s breaking my heart.”

  Though my vision blurred, I could feel his gaze like a caress, like a kiss against my eyelids, lingering at the corner of my mouth. He spoke so quietly I had to strain to hear, “You remember asking me if I’d ever begged?”

  I wiped the corner of my eyes, sniffed. “Is this about to get kinky?”

  “Do you want it to?”

  “Mmm.” I hastily wiped my nose. “Maybe. I read this thing about silk scarves and feathers once. I wouldn’t mind trying that one of these days.”

  His mouth quirked. He said gravely, “I’ll keep that in mind. No, this was a conversation we had where you said you thought I’d never begged for anything in my life.”

  “And you said you did beg once — and you got what you asked for.” I waited, wondering if I was going to like what I was about to hear.

  Jake said, “When your heart stopped on that fucking boat.” The sudden fierce glitter in his eyes had to be a trick of the light. “I begged then.”

  I couldn’t think of a thing to say. It was the last thing I’d expected. Almost the opposite, in fact, of what I’d expected.

  “I’ve never been that afraid. Not even close. I worked over you, and I called you every name in the book.” His face twisted. “I cried. And then I begged. You’re damn right I begged. I promised — not that I had anything worth promising — but I was willing to give anything for you to be able to walk away from that.” His smile was the rare one, the wide and unguarded one. “And you did.”

  I caught a ragged breath. Sat up so fast, we nearly head-slammed each other. “Jesus, Jake. If that’s true, why the hell can’t you say it?”

  He looked confused.

  “If you do feel that way, then why have you never said it? It would have helped. Because to not say it at this point feels like you have some reason for not saying it, that you’re making some point by not saying it.”

  He was shaking his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Of course I — what do you think this is about?”

  “Knowing and believing are two different things.”

  He was looking at me like something had been lost in translation.

  “Why can’t you say it?” I hardened my voice. “Because I’m telling you, you never have. I’d have remembered.”

  He stared at me with disbelief. Then he lunged forward, pushing me flat in the pillows once more. He leaned over me, his mouth a brush of lips away from my own, his breath warm on my face.

  “Love you? Of course I love you. Baby, I fucking worship you.”

  We moved into each other’s arms, a tangle of warm, bare limbs on rumpled sheets. He was holding me so tight, it hurt. As we rocked together, I could feel his heart pounding away beneath supple skin — pulsing faster than my own — I could hear his harsh, quick breath.

  “Are you scared?” I whispered.

  He gave a shaky laugh. “Maybe I am.”

  He gathered me close, rolled so that I was on top of him. I sat up, straddling him, running my hands down his broad, muscular chest, feeling the crisp silk of his body hair, feeling the points of his nipples stiffen. He sucked in a sharp breath.

  “I like that.”

  “I can tell.” I found his cock — or it found me — rising long and thick, leaking excitement, the sharp, pungent smell of sex wafting between us. I was already erect and pulsing in needy discomfort. It had been way too long; flying solo was not the same. I rubbed our cocks together, finding that tidal rhythm, that ancient meter, long, slow strokes like the crest and fall of waves.

  Pleasure built like an underswell, that turbulent, kinetic energy swirling up, whirling to the surface. I moved my hand faster. He bucked against my haunches sending a frisson of delight though the network of nerves and muscles. One big hand stroked my back, caressed all the way down my spine, smoothing over the curve of my ass and tracing its way to the tight knot of warm, dry skin between my buttocks, gently probing.

  I groaned. “Yes. There. Please.”

  I massaged our cocks more frantically as he pushed harder against the tight opening. Long, sensitive fingers with blunt tips. He poked through that instinctive resistance, moving back and forth in an exquisite tease.

  “Like that? That what you want?”

  That shivery, sweet friction. No one touched me the way Jake did, with that easy, unshockable expertise as though he knew my every secret desire.

  I wriggled and strained against him, wanting more. I could hear the sounds I was making, embarrassing, frantic noises as I squirmed and rubbed. Only with him could I let go like this, permit myself this…

  I could hear the rush of his breathing, feel the slippery leak of excitement and need between us, seed pearls easing the friction between our moist, sweaty bodies. He was panting now, thrusting hard into my hand, his finger doing unspeakably enjoyable things to me.

  Oh, it had been far, far too long for both of us.

  I tensed, felt my thundering heart pause and consider. Release came in a tidal wave, roaring in from the bottomless deep, rushing forward in a shining wall and knocking down every remaining barrier, every doubt and fear…sweeping away all resistance. Sea swelter pulsed sweetly, slickly on Jake’s skin.

  I slumped forward as Jake came with an inarticulate cry, squeezing the air out of my lungs as he clutched me tight, orgasm ripping through him seconds later.

  * * * * *

  I woke to the sound of gnawing as though giant rats were chewing through the walls.

  They were not my walls. This was not my room. I turned my head, and Jake was lying beside me, his eyes shut, his lashes dark crescents against his cheekbones. He was breathing slowly, evenly, but I knew he wasn’t asleep.

  I said, “Your dog is chewing the legs off this bed.”

  “He’s your dog.”

  Was he? It seemed that he was. “What’s his name?”

  “That would be for you to decide.”

  I thought about it, stared up at the ceiling fan moving air languidly around the room. “Scout,” I said dreamily.

  Jake snorted.

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  He shook his head, eyes still closed.

  “Scout, stop chewing the bed,” I ordered.

  Scout sat up, the one ear tilting drunkenly.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Jake said.

  He was proved correct about thirty seconds later.

  “Get off the bed,” I ordered.

  Scout laughed his puppy bologna-breath into my face. I turned my head toward Jake. “He’s not very well trained.”

  “I’m sure now that you’re taking over, he’ll shape up in no time.”

  “Get off the bed, Scout,” I ordered.

  Scout circled twice and folded up on my legs. He looked at me from under his eyelashes.

  * * * * *

  The next time was more urgent — and yet easier. It was getting familiar again.

  Hands ranging possessively, relearning, caressing, reassuring. “I love you,” Jake whispered. “Are you strong enough for this?”

  I made myself comfortable. Said over my shoulder, “Sure.”

  “Would you tell me if you weren’t?”

  I grinned. “Maybe. I can’t think of a nicer way to commit suicide.”

  “That’s good. I can’t think of a more pleasant way to commit murder.”

  Like the Boy Scout he had been, he was always prepared. Very rarely we had done foolish things, but generally he was even more careful and cautious in this way than I was. How had he managed it with Kate? How had he explained the ongoing need for protection between wedded man and wife? Or in his fear had he risked her life and health? No, I didn’t believe he would do that. So…more lies. Complicated and inv
olved lies.

  I didn’t have it in me to judge him.

  The oil he used was scented, flowery, and for an uncomfortable instant Kate was in the room with us, between us. But once his hands were stroking, circling, pressing, I forgot about her again. Ten months, twice a week — occasionally three times — what a pity they hadn’t come up with word problems like that in geometry class… It had only been a taste, the beginning.

  “Nice,” I said as my body relaxed beneath that delicate invasion.

  He sank into me, and we started to move together. It was tender and bruising and invigorating. The pulse of cock seeming to echo the beat of our hearts, we were so close together I couldn’t tell where he stopped and I began. When release came this time, it was in delicate shock waves, echo after echo.

  In the aftermath we lay together, relaxed, peaceful. It felt as though something off-kilter had slipped back into its track. The world seemed stable again. Steady and balanced and poised. Which, considering what had brought us to this, was extraordinary.

  He linked his hands with mine, brought our hands to his mouth, and kissed my fingers.

  I smiled. Such an old-fashioned, courtly gesture. Poor Kate. How would she survive losing him? It had nearly killed me the first time. Nearly killed us both, really. The sun was moving across the sky, and the shadows on the ceiling looked like wings.

  * * * * *

  Afterward we talked in fits and snatches.

  “Will you open your office in the bookstore when the renovations are complete?”

  He said lazily, “If the price is right.”

  “I might be able to sweeten the deal.”

  He smiled, rolled onto his side so that we lay facing each other. Reaching over, he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

  “So what’s this about you developing a more healthy lifestyle?”

  I made a face.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I don’t know. Everyone’s trying to make this big deal about stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  “Like me living over the bookstore.” I rolled on my back, frowned moodily at the ceiling. Now the shadows looked like hands pressed in prayer. “The fact that I haven’t had a vacation in three years.”

  “Since we were at the ranch.”