by Rob Swigart
Narni noted the flamboyant public relations language: Nature’s Bounty!
At the water lily exhibit she began to notice the man. He was apparently by himself, looking with a kind of intense gravity at every plant, every exhibit. She allowed herself to drift closer to him, idly curious. No, more than curious. She looked at his hands. They were strong, well-proportioned, powerful hands. There was, she thought, something of the beast in those hands, so unlike Mark’s soft, manicured, tame ones; Mark’s professional hands, his long, tapering, clinical fingers, so distracted when they touched her.
“Isn’t it fascinating?” she asked quietly. She had a pleasant voice that softened the banality of her question.
“Yes, indeed,” the man answered. A hint of French background flavored his words. “There is so much to learn from nature, is it not so?”
They fell into step together, examining the exhibits, talking quietly. She found herself telling him her husband was a doctor, here for a radiology convention. He took his convention seriously, she said, and attended all the sessions, leaving her to lie by the pool or take tours like this one. This was the first time she had left the hotel in four days, it was such a relief. Her husband’s name was Mark, he practiced medicine in Santa Barbara, California, they lived on a small ranch just outside of town. She had horses, played tennis three times a week, took a cooking class. She knew this made her sound dull and suburban, but it wasn’t such a bad life. She enjoyed movies, chamber music, and gardening. She had friends.
He nodded as he walked beside her, attending to her words. She put her hand on his forearm to tell him what she had learned about the display of native ohia lehua, which grew in a variety of guises, from low-lying shrub to majestic tree, many unrecognizable as members of the same species. “It’s almost as if the tree were able to disguise itself to fit into any environment,” she said. Her name was Patricia, but she liked to be called Narni. She did not tell him why, thinking that being French he probably did not know about the Narnia books she had loved as a child.
He smiled at her as she spoke, saying nothing about the hand she had left on his arm. Her grip tightened as she felt the cords of hard muscle there. He did seem like such a strong man, she had noticed his broad shoulders draped in a subtly tailored Palm Beach jacket. His gray slacks were also lightweight and hand tailored.
He was a remarkably handsome man, but, she thought, not a vain one. He had assets that he employed to their best effect, that was all. So different from Mark, whose professional manner struck her suddenly as pompous.
Her hand stayed on his forearm as they drifted along, exchanging deeper and deeper confidences.
He told her he thought he could get to like Kauai. He had always liked islands, especially tropical islands. He had spent most of his adult life on one island or another, which accounted for his very deep, rich tan. He was truly blessed to be French, for France owned many islands, among them some of the most beautiful in the world. France had strong historic ties with others she no longer owned.
His hands, she thought, did not really belong on a man who worked as a clerk at the French consulate in San Francisco processing visas and immigration applications. They were strong. An outdoorsman’s hands, hard-edged and competent.
Later, up on the hillside, they could look out over the coastal plain at the ocean, blue and tranquil and inviting. Motorboats, a small yacht, a ship under tow, what looked from this distance like a dive boat, they all seemed scarcely to move at all.
“It seems so…” She tightened her grip, as though squeezing his forearm would produce the word she wanted. But she stopped.
“So… what?” he asked her with a smile that showed the edges of his even teeth.
She shrugged and smiled at him apologetically. “Deceptive?” she said with a laugh.
He started for a moment, as if he suddenly sensed a danger. “How so?” he asked softly.
“Oh,” she made a helpless gesture, sliding her palm up to his bicep. “Ι don’t really know. It’s just that under the surface that looks so peaceful, so much like paradise, it must be like everywhere else. People have passions, fears, worries. They fight, get sick, give birth, die. You know? Yet from here it looks absolutely changeless and peaceful.”
“Ah,” He said, relaxing. “You are a… thoughtful woman. That is very nice. I like that.” She felt a warmth she had not felt in a long time.
They walked on. It was clear now that they would not talk about what they were going to do, though they both knew. When they stopped to examine something in the upper gardens, he looked out over the ocean, allowing the sun to shine into his eyes so he had to squint a little, hooding the gray clarity in them. His profile was clean, with elegant lines.
Later, when they were in a broad one-story building that housed several rooms containing row upon row of aquariums, he put his arm around her waist. They had drifted through a room with a shark exhibit and another of tropical fish, and had finally come to one with shellfish and snails.
“You see that?” he said, indicating a horizontal spiral shell moving slowly along the sandy bottom of the tank. The shell was about five or six inches long. “A cone snail. A geography cone, because the pattern looks like a map, very lovely shell, yes?”
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was a little thick. She leaned against him, hugged his arm to her with her own, letting him cup the soft ample flesh of her breast.
“Watch,” he said, pointing with his free hand.
The snail stopped moving and allowed a slender, pale worm-like organ to emerge. A school of blennies formed, darted here and there, in perfectly coordinated quick turns and shifts. They rose as one to the top, nuzzled the undersurface, darted suddenly to the far end, then returned. As suddenly as their pattern had formed, it dissolved.
One fish drifted away and, nosed at the rock, its small oval mouth working at invisible particles. The snail did not move, but the proboscis extended an inch or so and waved slowly, as if wafting back and forth by the current.
The fish darted an inch or two in the direction of the snail, then a fraction away. The snail slithered a bit out of its shell. The blenny, unaware, moved another inch, settled to the sand, and did not move.
The snail’s proboscis extended toward the fish so slowly it did not appear to move at all. Cupped around the base of the serpentine organ was a sheath. There was about it such an air of animal sexuality that Narni shivered against him, despite the heat. She was not wearing a bra under her light jersey, and she could feel her nipples tighten against his fingers.
“What’s he going to…?” she began, but the proboscis suddenly darted the fraction of an inch remaining between it and the fish, the blenny thrashed briefly, seemingly attached to the snail, then fell still, paralyzed.
She watched in fascinated horror as the snail’s mouth distended and moved behind the fish, engulfed its tail, and millimeter by millimeter swallowed it. The mouth itself, much longer than the proboscis, now lay on the sand as the snail began to digest its meal. It looked like a miniature python extended from the shell.
“It shoots a barbed dart called a radula into the fish,” he said softly. She trembled against him, her breathing shallow and fast. “Propelled, how do you say, hydraulically by a very effective venom, a paralytic. Fish cannot move, cannot… breathe.”
“It’s awful,” she said.
“No. It is the Bounty of Nature.”
He said it without apparent irony, and her nervous laugh stopped abruptly. But her breath tightened, and their return together in her rental car was confirmed, although she did not know it until they reached the parking lot after the tour and he told her he had come by taxi.
She drove a little recklessly, hitting some of the turns a little too fast. Sugar cane rushed past at the edge of the road, a thick green blur where the cane was mature, a red-and-green pointillist pattern where the new growth was just breaking ground. They passed the turnoff to Koloa and could see for a moment down the long eucalyptus tunnel to t
he south before it closed up and fell behind them.
As she slowed on the approach to Lihue, she started to tell him that her husband had a meeting on bone scanning that would last through dinner, that she didn’t do this sort of thing as a habit, in fact this would be the first time, but he merely pointed straight ahead, toward her hotel and she smiled shyly instead. They were staying at the same hotel, and she thought perhaps he was a radiologist too, except that he worked for the consulate in San Francisco. She smiled, recognizing her relief that he was not a doctor.
There was a parking area before the main entrance, and he gestured abruptly. She looked at him. “I could let them park…”
“No.”
“Of course, you’re right.” She parked and they walked to the entrance, a modest portico that led to a long downward escalator, a trip that ended in a fairyland entry flanked by enormous Chinese vases. Suddenly the two-acre reflecting pool, with its monumental fountain of galloping horses, opened before them. Jets of water rose over sixty feet in the air.
“Your room?” she asked huskily. The muscles in his arm jumped as he showed her the number on his room key.
He was standing by the opened drapes of his suite looking out across the narrow hotel beach at Nawiliwili Harbor, brightly lit by the afternoon sun, when she pushed his door open. She closed it and smiled shyly. He did not move, did not turn. Beyond him, the water was dark blue, an effective contrast to the green slopes across the harbor. No boats on the other side of the park. It was a tranquil scene, almost static, as if the life had been leached from it, freezing it into the frame of the window like a work of improbable art.
She paused a moment, then went into the bathroom. A few minutes later she paused naked in the doorway and watched him staring out the windows.
He was examining his reflection in the window dispassionately. She thought this must be the way he examined all things he considered beautiful. She began to flesh out his character traits. His high forehead, she thought, crowned by light brown hair swept straight back, concealed knowledge both practical and arcane. His eyes, a startlingly clear gray, held both intensity and honesty. The straight, thin nose gave an impression that Norman barons lurked in his ancestry, an impression he took pains to encourage, for although it was in no way true, it had more than once opened doors to him that might otherwise have remained forever closed.
The honesty in his eyes, like much else about him, was deceptive. Yes, she thought, this was a dangerous man. The thought excited her. She moved toward him. He did not see her reflection, so when she slid her arms around him under his jacket, he started and turned swiftly. She stepped back, frightened for a moment. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
She was naked, and involuntarily shielded herself with her hands for a moment. He said nothing, and she gave an embarrassed little laugh and came to him again, pressing her large breasts against him and sliding her arms around his waist. She began to tug at his shirt, pulling it free in back so she could feel the muscles of his lower back. She could feel him growing hard against her as he reached behind her, seized a handful of her buttock and squeezed. His grip was painful and she pulled away from it, a movement that thrust her loins against his. She could feel he was responding to her.
“I don’t even know your name,” she murmured against his chest as she struggled with his clothing.
He said nothing for a time, then said, “Jean,” in a brief, almost evasive tone.
“Jean,” she repeated clumsily, her French accented atrociously with American. He did not react, but pressed her against him.
At last she got his shirt and jacket off, and leaned back to admire the clean definition of his musculature. He had a tattoo on his arm, a fearsome sea monster of some kind. That was exotic, a little wild.
“How do you stay in such good shape?” she said, running her palms over his chest. She tugged at his belt.
“I work out,” he said shortly, pushing her roughly against the bed. The edge caught her knees, and she toppled back, spreading her legs a little as she fell. He could see she was not a real blond: Her pubic hair was dark, a chestnut color, but very rich. He reached down and seized a handful and pulled roughly.
She cried out with pain and sudden fear, and he smiled. “You would like,” he said softly, “to fuck?” He released her and stepped back.
She nodded, but felt the fear in her own eyes looking out. He pulled his pants down swiftly and stepped out of them. His penis was small and very hard. She stared at it, fascinated, as it approached her. Slowly, so slowly. She licked her lips and touched her breast lightly, almost without knowing she was doing it. She cupped it, curled her fingers around the nipple, small and hard between her thumb and forefinger. The fear faded, swamped by her desire. Her thighs widened, opening her shell-pink vagina to him, its small folds distended and moist. He ignored it, staring at her face.
“Please,” she breathed “Please. It’s been so long.” Her fingers worked at her nipple. She reached with her other hand for her clitoris and rubbed it in small circles. She spread her fingers along the labia and pulled them apart, opening herself more. “Please.” Her voice was so thick now she could scarcely get the word out.
He stopped. He put his hands together, palm to palm, and pressed. The muscles along his biceps and forearms, his pectorals and abdomen, tensed and ridged. For a moment he looked as if he were posing for a photo.
“Your husband does not look like this?” he said.
“No!” She almost shouted it. Her heels curved up, opening her thighs. More quietly she repeated, “No.”
He moved a little closer, flexing his hips and buttocks to thrust his penis slowly toward her. She let go of her clitoris and reached for him as he moved into range.
He struck then with unbelievable speed, lashing out so fast she never saw the blow coming. The room went black. He spoke to her then in urgent, rapid French, words she could not have understood through her shock and fear even if she did know French. She knew only they were intended to hurt.
He grabbed both her hands and pinned them above her head. In spite of herself she raised her loins to him, but he did not enter her. His face, so close to hers she could not focus on it, was distorted with an expression she did not recognize, though instinctively she feared it. He moved lightly onto the bed, holding her hands down. He threw one leg over her and sat astride, pinning her waist to the bed and her hands beside her ears, and watched her cheek swell and darken. He began to hum an old French drinking song under his breath as he moved his loins against her.
“Et le bec, oui, oui, oui,” he sang softly, his breath hot against her breasts. He came suddenly, spasmodically, on her belly. Then dreamily, almost lovingly, he let go of her wrists and laid the large, hard bases of his thumbs on her throat, thumbs up under the corners of her jaw. She could feel then the hard ridges of callus against her neck.
He began to squeeze. He smiled softly as her eyes filled first with fear, then with despair.
SIX
GAIA FOUNDATION
Vincent Meissner was dead tired and unhappy. The plane had been late. The temperature was all wrong— he had been here twenty minutes and already he missed the cool drizzle of Vancouver. He waited, his maroon nylon garment bag slumped at his feet like a pet hit by a car.
Vincent was overweight. He knew that and struggled with it, with his spreading waist and the time-consuming demands of his job. He mopped the constantly renewed band of sweat that had formed on his forehead and looked up the airport road for the car, which steadfastly failed to arrive.
There was no place to sit down out here by the curb. He could retreat back under the shelter of the roof and get out of the sun, but then he might miss Carrie. Besides, the sunlight slanted in at such a long, horizontal angle that it touched most of the airport lobby’s interior with its reddish glow.
Other passengers flowed around him, purposeful, intent, comfortable with the climate and the lackadaisical attitude of both the visitors and the Hawaiian natives. Vinc
ent was an intense man, and found such a lack of commitment repugnant.
Out of the glare to the southwest the small car appeared like a venomous insect emerging from a chrysalis of light and heat. The brakes shrilled, and the driver leaned across the front seat and said, “Mr. Meissner?” Vincent scraped his knuckles opening the rear door. He threw the bag inside and settled into the front seat with a deep sigh. Finally, he turned to the woman. “Yeah. Gaia Foundation. Carrie?” He did not offer to shake hands.
She nodded, eager to make her impression. She was younger than he expected, mid twenties perhaps, and very tan. A goddamn surfer liberal. He hated this whole affair.
“Let’s go,” he said, looking straight ahead. She stopped smiling and put the car in gear.
Ten minutes later she stopped beside the County Building. “Did you want to go to the hotel first, or see the police?” Her voice had lost its eager warmth.
Vincent did not look at her. “Police,” he said. “I had to leave on short notice. It’s a good thing there was a direct flight. Christ, it’s bedtime at home.” The tone of his voice gave no indication of whining. It was as if he were reciting the stock quotations.
He waited without moving. “It’s over there,” she said, pointing to the two-story building across from the seat of county government. He climbed heavily from the car and went inside.
A uniformed sergeant was on duty. A small nameplate said “Hirogawa.” Hirogawa, if the man behind the desk owned that name, was reading a Newsweek magazine. Vincent waited a moment. From where he was in the magazine, Vincent guessed he was reading the movie reviews. Vincent cleared his throat.
Sergeant Hirogawa lowered the magazine slowly and looked over the top at Vincent. “May I help you?” he asked politely. He had a very faint Japanese accent.
“There was a ship,” Vincent said. Sergeant Hirogawa waited politely, but Vincent said nothing further, as if that statement explained everything.
