Paradise Lust

by Kates, Jocelyn

  Chapter 16

  Danny lingered at the restaurant for a long time after he’d finished his lunch. Absently pushing around the last remains of veggies and peanut sauce from his gado-gado, he stared out at the sea. The sun traveled through the sky, the day moving from early afternoon to mid afternoon, and finally to the warmer glow signaling the oncoming evening, and no clarity came with the time’s passage.

  What had happened? The question turned in his mind, and not only did he remain answerless, the question itself seemed to have procreated, spawning myriad offshoots: what the hell had been going on with Ajuni in class today? Why had Adele suddenly turned cold at the very end, right after she’d seemed to be warming up? What had she thought of his letter? And, maybe above all, why did he feel so stricken, so existentially lost, over her rejection?

  In the distance, two unidentifiable bodies emerged from the waves, tucking their boards under their arms and wading up the beach. Seeing this, Danny suddenly realized that he hadn’t gone surfing today, missing his first day in months. This observation compounded his anchorless melancholy and seemed to underscore the need to answer that last question.

  Well maybe let’s start with an easier question, he thought to himself. What was the deal with Ajuni’s strange instructions in class today? There had undoubtedly been something strange going on there, some strange sexual energy mixed with a clear need to flex his power muscle. But where was the sexual energy directed? Did he want Adele? Or want to see Danny with Adele? Or just get off on being able to control people in such sexually charged ways? Or, did he want Danny? Was this his first step toward orchestrating a threesome?

  Danny shook his head to get the confusion of thoughts out. No, he was overly complicating it. When he was in class, with Ajuni instructing him on how to touch Adele, he’d felt it clearly: Ajuni wanted her, and he seemed to get off on being in control of how another man touched her. Letting things get sexual, but not too sexual.

  Thinking of it that way, Danny felt anger fire up in his belly. Ajuni had been thinking of Adele as though she were an object, a prize to be won—and his prize, at that. Well, he might be her instructor, and he might be some wise guru who can levitate or whatever, but I’ve slept with her, kissed her, brushed her hair from her face, laughed with her…

  An involuntary groan escaped Danny’s mouth, and he let his forehead thump down into his hands.

  “Hey mate,” a friendly voice called out from somewhere behind him. “Doin alright over there?”

  Danny lifted up his head and turned to see J.T., the beefy Australian surfer, sitting at the bar. He was sipping a comically elaborate drink, complete with a tiny umbrella and a skewer of pineapples and cherries.

  “Oh hey J.T.,” Danny said, turning in his chair to face the bar. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

  “Not from the looks of it, you aren’t.”

  “Astute observation,” Danny laughed.

  “Come have a drink with me, mate.”

  “Nah, I’m fine. Thanks, though.”

  “No, come have a drink with me. Not for your sake, for mine,” J.T. said, and the big grin across his sunburnt face was infectious. “Not gonna sit here getting bloody knackered on my own.”

  Danny laughed, stood from the table that he’d apparently been sitting at for close to four hours, and joined J.T. at the bar.

  “Care to unload your mind?” J.T. asked, silently gesturing to the bartender to bring another of his drink of choice for Danny. Before Danny could protest that he’d rather just have a beer, the bartender was off to make the fruity concoction.

  “To be honest,” Danny said. “Not really. I don’t even know if I could if I wanted to. Everything is just a…just a…”

  “Bloody mess?” J.T. offered helpfully.

  “Yeah,” Danny laughed. “That pretty much describes it.

  “Well,” J.T. said, and slid Danny’s drink over to him as the bartender placed it down. “Cheers to that.”

  They raised their glasses, and Danny took a sip of the drink, which seemed to be a whole lot of rum mixed with pure sugar and a hint of pineapple juice. He grimaced at the taste, and J.T. laughed.

  “Eh,” he said. “You’ll like it in a minute.”

  Danny took another sip, then shook his head, laughing. “No,” he said, “No, I really don’t think I will.”

  An hour later, as Danny sipped down the last bits of his second tropical cocktail, he had to admit that the taste had grown on him.

  “You know what,” he said, turning his stool to look more directly at J.T.. “Let me ask you something.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You’ve been around here for a while, right?”

  “I have.”

  “You’ve seen a bunch of these yoga teacher trainings come through?”

  “Yup.”

  “A bunch with this guy, Ajuni?”

  “I have.”

  “So,” Danny said, emboldened by the rum. “What is his deal? Like, there’s something weird going on, right? Am I right?”

  J.T. laughed deeply from his belly, laughed so hard he had to put his drink down on the counter for a moment. When his laughter quieted down, he spoke.

  “Yeah mate,” he said. “You’re a bloody Einstein. Ajuni is an odd duck.”

  Danny mock-punched J.T.. “Okay, yeah, but what is going on with him? It’s just…what’s his agenda?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Oh come on,” J.T. said, rolling his eyes. “You’re making this too complicated. Girls. That’s his agenda. Well, I guess it is a little more complicated: girls and power. Not so hard to figure out.”

  Danny turned this over in his head, and suddenly felt ridiculous at how much thought he’d been giving the whole thing. It was all much simpler than he’d thought.

  “Yeah,” he said, laughing at himself. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

  They both sipped their drinks and chuckled, though it was a strangely mirthless laughter. After a beat of silence, J.T. spoke again.

  “He likes to put girls under his spell,” he said, looking down into his glass. “Make them think that he’s this savior, or guru, something better than all the rest of us wankers, and so when he decides to let them have sex with him, they feel like it’s some special bloody gift. And then he uses that power however he wants.”

  “You’ve seen this happen a lot?”

  “Enough,” J.T. said, nodding. They sat in silence for a moment, then he continued. “You know Val?”

  “Yeah. I actually surfed with her yesterday. Cool girl.”

  “Very cool girl. Used to be much cooler, though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” J.T. said, and drained the last bit of drink in his glass, signaling to the bartender for two more. He looked at Danny and continued, “So she’s been on three or four of these, she gets to come for free because she’s Ajuni’s assistant or ingénue or whatever. And a year or so back, she and I, we…” J.T. struggled for words, making vague motions with his hands instead.

  “You guys hooked up?” Danny guessed.

  “Well yes,” J.T. said, blushing. “But more than that, too. We really liked each other. Or I really liked her, and it seemed like she liked me. But then all of a sudden she has no free time. Ajuni is having her stay late every day for what seem like bullcrap reasons, and when I say that she defends him and tells me how I don’t understand because I don’t have the clarity or mindfulness or whatever other catchphrase of the moment. And eventually she admits to me that she’s slept with him. But she says that’s not happening anymore, and you know what, I believed her, but at that point it didn’t even matter.” J.T. paused for a moment to lift his new drink to his lips, then abruptly put it down before taking a sip and continued. “It wasn’t so much about the sex, y’know mate? It was the idea that some other person had this strange…power over her, like he was just always there, even when it was just the two of us. Does that make sense?”r />
  “Sure,” Danny said. After what he’d seen at class today, he could definitely imagine how a dynamic like that could come to exist.

  “So eventually I just told her I was done,” he said. “It was hard, because I still thought—still think—that she’s great. But it was just too fucked up. He likes to manipulate women, and she fell under it. I think she’s still under it. I don’t think there’s anything physical between them anymore—I know he’s been with lots of other girls since her—but the mental manipulation is still there. Bloody shame.”

  “Bloody shame,” Danny echoed distractedly, wondering if Adele was one of those other girls. The image of her laughing face, open and sweat-speckled and free of makeup, popped into his mind. His stomach clenched at the thought of Ajuni manipulating that.

  “But truly, mate, can’t be bothered,” J.T. said, raising his near empty glass and gesturing for Danny to do the same. Danny obliged, and when J.T. drained the remainder of his glass, Danny followed suit.

  Why the hell not, he thought.

  As J.T. gestured to the bartender for another round, Danny opened his mouth to protest, but J.T. shushed him with flapping hands before he could get out a word.

  “Quiet, mate. I can tell you’re in bad way. The only thing to do is get knackered,” J.T. said. Seeing that Danny was unconvinced, he continued, “C’mon. It’s my shout.”

  “Your what?”

  “Shout! My shout! I’ve got the tab, mate.”

  “Speak English,” Danny said, laughing now, and accepted his new drink from the bartender with a smile. J.T. was right—if Danny didn’t get “knackered” tonight, he’d spend the next eight hours miserably picturing Adele with Ajuni.

  “Ah, shut it,” J.T. said, and took a sip of his drink.

  “Screw mindfulness,” Danny said, raising his glass again.

  “Bloody oath,” J.T. said, touching his glass to Danny’s and nodding in assent.

  “Bloody oath,” Danny repeated, and drained half his drink in one long sip.

  When Adele got back to her cabin after class, she didn’t stop to unpack her yoga bag as she always did, didn’t drink her customary glass of coconut juice on the porch, didn’t even splash her face with water to wash away the sweat. Instead, she went straight into her bedroom, shut and locked the door and closed the blinds, and fell onto her bed.

  The confused and frantic energy of the asana session—Danny’s touch, Ajuni’s touch, the words, the heat, the tingling, the sensation—coursed through her in overpowering and chaotic waves. She needed a release. With trembling hands she tugged off her tiny shorts, bringing her G-string with them.

  Sliding her fingers inside herself, she felt immediate delivery. She worked her fingers, pressing down with the weight of her wrist on her front as she nimbly caressed the inside. Moaning softly, she moved around her clit in slow circles, gradually increasing the pressure until she thrust up against her own touch in a steady rhythm. A tingling coursed through her toes; a warmth glowed in her abdomen; and as she felt herself getting close, her mind grasped for something to focus on, something to project her climax toward. Attachment, she thought hazily, why this need for an object?

  The thought shot out of her mind as soon as it appeared, and was replaced with the image of Danny’s face. She was imagining him hovering over her, that her hand was his, and before she could even take in the details of his hallucinatory face, she was bucking against her hand, emitting one last, long moan that faded to silence as she fell back on her sheets.

  As soon as the last blissful pulses of her orgasm faded, a curtain of sadness descended upon her. Sadness mixed with confusion. Did it mean anything that she’d pictured Danny? Besides the fact that he was an attractive guy, that is. Ajuni was attractive, too. But only the image of Danny made her heart thunder, her stomach flutter, her skin tingle.

  But he was gone. That was over. She’d made her choice.

  She felt one hot tear spring from her eye and slowly roll down her cheek. When had she become so emotional? This wasn’t like her.

  Despite her intellectual protest, the tears came, hot and fast, in a long stream, and she eventually gave in. It was too sad to fight. She wanted Danny to be holding her so badly, it was the only thing that felt clear anymore. And yet the wrong he’d committed was too egregious, too huge, to sweep under the rug.

  Wasn’t it?

  Chapter 17

  Danny was pretty well “knackered” when he got back to his cabin that night. He’d eventually had to physically prevent J.T. from ordering yet another round, because he showed no signs of slowing. Those Australians must be bottle-fed beer to develop such a remarkable alcohol tolerance.

  Falling down heavily onto his couch, he let his head settle back against the cushion and closed his eyes. The ocean breeze rolled in from the open door, the soft humidity of the evening air embraced him, the sound of crashing waves and island birds lulled him into a half-sleep.

  After who knows how long, a sharp sound—a light, staccato tapping—broke the steady lullaby of island noises. Reluctantly rolling his head forward, Danny opened one eye and scanned the room. A figure stood beside the end table near the open door, and he jumped up from the couch, emitting a cry of alarm.

  As soon as he stood and his eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the room, he could see clearly who it was. Adele.

  “Hi,” she said. He could hear that her voice was thick with tears.

  “Jesus, you scared me to death.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I knocked.”

  “I heard.”

  “Listen, can you talk for a minute?”

  Danny knew that he was probably a bit too sauced to have any sort of in-depth conversation at the moment, but couldn’t resist. Plus, he didn’t really want Adele to know that he’d been drinking—not that she would judge, but it just seemed like a fairly unattractive thing to do. He wished that he’d brushed his teeth before passing out on the couch.

  “Sure,” he said, and sat carefully back down.

  Adele walked toward him with hesitant steps. Given the fact that they’d had sex several times, it amused Danny to see her demure behavior around him.

  “Can I sit?” she asked, gesturing to the open cushion next to him.

  “By all means.”

  Adele sat and immediately began talking. Her words were jumbled and rambling, and it took her quite some time to reach the message she seemed to want to convey—or at least for Danny to understand that message—but ultimately she reached a place of clarity and determination.

  “The point is,” she said, and Danny felt grateful for the summary that was about to follow. “We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. Hey, I worked at a soul-sucking corporate law firm for years. So it’s not fair for me to judge what you’ve done with your work just because it happened to personally impact me. It’s hypocritical. Plus, you know, life is short and I really, really like being around you.”

  At that last sentence, she placed one hand shyly on Danny’s knee. She’d been staring at the coffee table while she spoke, and now looked up and caught his eye. She looked so deadly serious that Danny had to smile a little; thankfully, she took his cue and did the same.

  “I really like being around you, too,” Danny said, and as the words left his lips he realized it was the simplest, most obvious truth. The agonizing and analyzing he’d been doing over his feelings for Adele seemed pointless, self-indulgent. It all came down to this one truth: he loved to be around her. That was all. And that was okay. In fact, it was perfect.

  His smile widened as he settled on this smooth stone of truth in his mind, and her smile widened in return. They stared at each other for a few moments like grinning idiots, and Danny felt every nerve in his body come alive.

  Adele glanced down to straighten her sundress, then looked back at Danny. He smiled back at her as silence settled comfortably over the room, and then, as though his voice was speaking without his agency, he heard himself say:

  “I gotta t
ell you, Adele, I’m really smashed right now.”

  She stared at him for a beat, her eyes inquisitive, her lips pursed together, and Danny felt his stomach tighten. Idiot. But then, Adele exploded into another bout of laughter, this time doubling over toward him so that her torso fell onto his thighs, and he could feel the energy of her laughter transferring to his body—she was like a little girl being tickled, her entire body consumed by the act. Adorable. He wrapped his arms over her and let deep belly laughs reverberate through his body.

  When they quieted down, they landed in a state of exhausted peace. Adele left her head lying in Danny’s lap, and he gently stroked her hair, gazing dazedly down at this glorious little woman in his home.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said.

  “Me too.”

  “What made you change your mind about me?”

  “A bunch of things, I guess,” she said. “Partly it was realizing my own hypocrisy. The fact that I had no right to get up on some moral high ground. Partly it was the things I’ve been learning here, about how it’s not about judging other people, how that’s a recipe for complete misery when you put energy into approving or disapproving of other people’s actions. And partly it was realizing that life is too short, and that the best thing, the most meaningful and powerful and happiness-creating thing we can do with our time is to give love.”

  At that last word, Danny’s quadriceps involuntarily tightened, and his hand stopped mid-stroke in Adele’s hair. He felt her stiffen as well. He tried to cover, quickly resuming his stroking as though nothing had happened, but Adele turned her head so that she could look up at him and spoke quickly, her voice now higher and hollower.

  “Not that, you know, I’m saying I love you, I barely know you, that would be crazy, but, you know, just, love, like the love we feel for, for humanity, you know?”

  Danny was amazed at the sudden transformation of this eloquent, poised woman into a babbling, awkward teenager—but he understood. He’d felt something at that word—love—too.