Cathexis

by Clay, Josie

  “Emotional” she said, eyes glistening like hoar frost. She drew our hands to her lips and I saw little Dale fighting tears.

  “You miss her” I said and she nodded.

  “I never know when it's going to bite me on the arse, I guess it's being back here, all the memories...” she trailed off. “She used to visit me at night, I mean after she died. She'd sit on the bed and talk to me”.

  “Really? Does she still come?” Eyeing the room nervously.

  “No, it only lasted a year or so, but it helped. I've never told anyone that before, apart from my therapist” she smiled.

  “You know you can tell me anything”.

  “I don't have to” she said. “I know you can see me”, and then “Minky”, her eyes ethereal like moons in the afternoon, “you touch my core”. My face struggled serious, in respect for her admission, but an inappropriate smile surfaced. “In more ways than one” she giggled, attacking me with a pillow and we kissed until the kettle whistled.

  We drank our coffee on the jetty and watched little fish slant about its skewed shadow. The sea jealously mimicked the hue of her eyes and the wind explored her locks. My tides had been changed again and I wouldn't have been surprised if she could have persuaded the sea itself to retreat; she had no concept of her powers, the antithesis of Canute, her deluded namesake.

  “My heart could burst with love for you” she said. “You're not normal you know”.

  “You're not normal either”.

  “OK” she said, “I am unusual, I grant you, but you're something more. You're rare, a rare thing. It's like you know things that other people don't”.

  “Life's shit and then you die?” (flippancy, another of my default settings). Luckily, she laughed.

  “No, seriously” she said, “people really love you”.

  I couldn't equate this statement with myself.

  Dale pointed out to sea, where a long sandbank was emerging some three hundred metres away .

  “We can swim to that”.

  “What about the current?” I said dubiously.

  “It's fine” she said. “it's so shallow we can practically walk it; you're not a kratte, are you?”

  “I'm assuming you're calling me a coward”.

  “Kratte” she repeated, grinning. Changing into our costumes : Dale's, a blue and white stripey bikini, mine the black Speedo with short legs, which inspired a raucous gale of laughter.

  “Would you like me to wheel you down to the water's edge in a bathing machine?” she snorted.

  “Does it look daft? It's OK at the pool”.

  “It's actually kind of sexy” she said. “You look like Tatsio”.

  “Tatsio? Remind me”.

  “You know, Death in Venice”.

  She dived in. A myriad of bubbles and her sleek head popped up like a seal.

  “Come on, Minky!” The sun sparking her hair. I jumped in and flapped to the surface in panic.

  “Foffan, it's fucking freezing” I wheezed. She breast stroked to the sea-worn jetty post beside me and let our legs mingle.

  “Are you up for it?”

  The odds were stacked in my favour, swimming at least ten times as far most days. I'd never seen Dale in the water; I'd try not to trounce her.

  “OK, let's kick off from this post” she said, blinking away beads, reflected light painting her smile with silver ribbons. “Ready ...steady ...go!” she yelled, already pushing through the water.

  Lunging in a frantic crawl, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, her arms crashing next to mine, neck and neck. I'll just pretend I've pipped her. But after fifty metres or so she began to pull away. Outraged, I took a deep breath and held it for the next fifteen strokes to catch up, but only a flurry of feet and then nothing. By the time I touched sand, Dale was already at the crest, panting on her back. Crawling in her droplets, “How the fuck did you do that?” I said, collapsing on her legs . “You were turbo charged”.

  “I'm just used to it” she said. “You'll beat me next time”.

  After half an hour, my skin tightening . Dale looked at her watch which she'd kept on – this struck me as a foreign habit.

  “Your nose is pink, Minky. We should go back and get some suntan lotion”. The sandbank had grown and we were able to wade back, holding hands, sun cooking my shoulders. We climbed the ladder to the jetty, Dale darker already, her scattered freckles now a mob.

  Once inside, we peeled off our costumes.

  “Wait, Minky” she said as I handled her hip bone.

  “Why?”

  “Do you have to meet every urge instantly?”

  “Yes”.

  “Sometimes it's nice just to savour it” she said, taking a gulp from the water bottle. I looked up to the little blue spinning horse for inspiration.

  “Oh well” I whimpered, “I may have to see to myself then”. A bluff. The thought of doing that in front of anyone, even Dale, was out of the question, but her interest was sparked.

  “Go on then”, catching me in her cross-hairs.

  “I can't” I said, wrinkling my burnt nose . “I'm too self-conscious.

  “It's only me, silly”. Her eyes swept to my coco and up again, her mind whirring.

  “No, it wouldn't work” I said, awaiting the brainwave.

  “I've got an idea” she said, shaking a towel on the floor.

  “You're going to fuck me” I said, “excellent”.

  “Not yet, come here”, patting the towel. Cross legged facing each other, knees almost touching. I glanced at her pubes where her hands hung loosely.

  “Now what?”

  “We're going to look into each other ’ s eyes” she said. “We mustn't look away. You're going to imagine all the things I'm going to do to you in say, ten minutes time, and I'll do the same. We mustn't talk and if you look away, you'll have to do a forfeit”.

  I could guess what that would be ...I wasn't about to lose.

  “And why are we doing this when we could be having sex?” I said, unconvinced.

  “It's a tantric experiment” she said, setting the timer on her ‘phone, like a complete busybody, placing it next to her thigh.

  “OK” she said, “begin”.

  Looking into each other's eyes. A smile playing around her lips, I snorted a giggle. Her smile closed down and she frowned a reprimand. And so, taking a deep breath, I dived into the polar pools, her pupils dilating to accommodate me. Something quivering in my belly, begging attention, but I focused on her face, which blurred around those points of luminescence, Mowgli hypnotised by Kaa. The strains of an eastern lament scratched at my brain, the word 'golem' came to mind, random images flickered, the sea, a person in a boat obscured by a green parasol . I was hearing her music, seeing her thoughts. Pulling me in, I smiled faintly. Her eyes smiled back, her song of love and desire pervasive, now sending me tachycardic. I chanted my longing back at her and she blinked slowly in acknowledgement, tilting her chin up but not breaking the connection. Her nostrils flared as if scenting my soul, her chest rising and falling in my peripheral vision.

  We held this rapt exchange for hours it seemed, until a restless beast howled. She smiled broadly, my coco clenching in time to my jerky breaths. Arching her back, she fixed me challengingly and black speckles dotted my vision. Her head still, but curls whipped about her in time lapse tangles and the bond was nearly lost in a blizzard before she rescued me with those dancing, blue pilot lights, now hot, now cold. Parting her lips, she began to pant her heat at me and I did the same. My heart banging like a bailiff as she snapped into clarity. My Dale, my beautiful woman. Her hand moving on the outskirts and I fought hard not to follow its progress to where I knew it was bound (surely this was cheating).

  The fact she was touching herself floored me with tsunami force. Her eyes, glowing glaciers, kept me captive, and as she moaned I heard the middle eastern frenzy of flutes, drums and profane pipes suddenly struck silent, leaving one sound only - the most blasphemous of all - the slick, sticky overture of
her lubrication. Unaware I'd been levitating until she set me down and smiling lewdly she drew her moistened fingers to her mouth and sucked on them, pushing me over the edge. I lay on my back, massaging myself, knowing she was watching. Oh, I wanted her and looking down between my legs, she was now on her front, riding her own hand, her gaze fixed firmly on me as I was consumed by a megaton orgasm. We cried out in duet as the jubilant ‘phone alarm crowed like a cockerel. She thumped it with her fist and raised herself on all fours.

  “Awesome” she gasped, circling me like a panther. We assumed a rabid sixty nine. The dodgy symbiosis often precluding simultaneous gratification, but this time we nailed it. Subsiding in each other’s mouths, we remained like some dreadful accident until she rotated to join me. We kissed with each other’s lips and then swivelling again, she straddled my face while fucking me, pulling me to her, left arm beneath by back, raising me off the ground until I came, my tongue deep inside her. Turning to visit my face once more, hair hanging.

  “Minky, if you could have one thing to make life better, what would it be?”

  “Gills” I said and that husky laugh blasted me.

  “What about you?”

  “I can't think of anything” she said. “That's why I asked”.

  We swam back to the diminishing sandbank, this time leisurely, chatting. A bottle of suntan lotion tucked down the front of my costume, I sidestroked, clutching a water bottle to my chest. Dale lagging behind and I turned to see her swimming oddly, left hand raised above her head. In her palm, a tawny, bedraggled butterfly. We mounted the sandbank and she sat in solicitude, gently blowing its wings until it danced into the blue sky and headed out to sea.

  “Hey, you're going the wrong way” I shouted. “After all that, it's clearly got a death wish”.

  “Don't worry“ she said, “she's going to Öland”, as if they'd had a conversation.

  We sunbathed until the sandbank had all but disappeared and got to our feet as a fan of suds washed around us. From the shore, it must have looked as if we were walking on water. Holding the empty water bottle in front of me like a float, we kicked home, the swim now arduous because of the current, but my legs were strong and grateful. The jetty ladder was several rungs shorter now and Dale slapped my arse as I climbed.

  “Skitsnygg” she said.

  The modest nature of my swimsuit had left me with a ludicrous tan. Dale's gutter guffaws infectious as I stood before her, seemingly wearing a modest white undergarment.

  “I'll find you a bikini for tomorrow” she hooted. “Poor pied Minky”.

  Chapter 9

  “Pappa, are you there?” she shouted up the stairs. A muffled acknowledgement issued from the loft. “He's in his dark room” she said.

  We peered into the fridge, where three bluey-grey fish lay on a plate, which we ate that evening with potatoes, gherkins and fresh nutty bread. Dale scaled the stairs two at a time, leaving Nils and I in companionable silence. He exhaled an 'aye aye aye', topping up our vodka glasses.

  “Are you OK?” I said.

  “Yes thank you, I'm only tired, I walked very far today”. About to ask him if he'd taken any good pictures, when he gripped my hand and shook it playfully.

  “Very pleased to meet you, Miss Minette”. He seemed a bit pissed but then so was I.

  “Likewise” I said.

  “You're the first” he began and paused, lost in his thoughts, staring myopically at the little painted fish at the bottom of the gherkin dish. I waited respectfully as he sparked up a Marlboro and tilted the packet at me. Declining, I hastily rolled my own to give his next utterance my full attention.

  “She has never brought any of her friends here”. For a second, horrified that he might be under the misconception that we were just friends, but being a sensitive man, he saw it. “Sorry, I mean partners of course” he added kindly and briefly placed his big, old hand over mine.

  “Not even Maggie?” I ventured.

  “No, I had to go to London to meet her, can you believe it?”

  “What was she like, Maggie?” Feigning only a passing interest. Dale had remained uncharacteristically circumspect.

  “I don't know” he sighed, “nice enough, I suppose, nice looking, etc, but not in Dale's class in my opinion”.

  Naturally I wondered if he'd noticed that I wasn't.

  “It's more, how can I put it? It's more how my daughter is. She suffered when her mother died and I guess that has made me a little overprotective”. He blew a perfect smoke ring without realising and I watched it yawn into a question mark. A hefty thump from upstairs. “Vad har hänt?” he shouted. “Dale?!”.

  “Nothing, I just...”, the rest lost. “Tokig”. He shook his head. “Anyway” he continued, “what I'm trying to say is Dale is good with you, no, I mean Dale is good when she is with you. I haven't seen her so happy since she was a little girl. I like it very much. I like you Minette, very much”.

  Embarrassingly, a lump lodged in my throat and tears prickled.

  “I love Dale very much, sir”. It felt right to say sir.

  Dale hammered down the stairs, clutching a green polka dot bikini, skidding to a halt in socks.

  “What's going on?” she said, clocking my moist eyes.

  “Hell, we all love each other very much, is that not so, eh Minky?” He winked and raised his glass and I smiled collaboratively.

  “Oh ...good” she said, bemused.

  “Minette” Nils said, drawing himself up dramatically. “The time has come for me to challenge you”,

  My face flushed with embedded shame; perhaps he'd twigged that I wasn't in Dale's league after all.

  “We will play scrabble” he announced. “I will represent Sweden and you the UK”.

  Dale huffed like a teenager “And where will I represent?”

  “Narnia” I said and Nils let forth a barrelling brigand's laugh like his daughter's.

  “I see” she said, taking mock umbrage. “In that case, I'm going to town to fetch some provisions and you're cooking your chicken thing tomorrow, Mink”.

  “Good, be off daughter” Nils said, flicking his hand dismissively.

  The Mercedes crept along the gravel. The first time I'd been out of her perigee for days and I followed the receding arc of the headlights as we fished our tiles from the bag. Nils watching me inscrutably. Again, I noticed the source of Dale's eyes. Other than that, she bore little resemblance to him, aside from his big hands. Unlike her dark eyebrows, his were white and wheaty, like mine when I hadn't dyed them.

  I formed long, showy words. His game was more strategic, choosing short units but shrewdly covering the bonus squares. As we sorted our last few tiles, it was pretty close, and while I pondered, he topped up my glass.

  Genius ...I had it. Extending his 'enigma' with 'tic', incorporating a double word score, I must have won. But no sooner had I totted up my score, he placed a-t-h-e-x-i-s under the c, taking in a triple word score and an ‘x’ worth eight, plus a bonus of fifty for using all his tiles.

  “Cathexis?” I snorted. “I'm challenging, that's not a word”.

  “Which dictionary do you favour?” he said, dabbing at the laptop. “See for yourself”, swivelling the screen.

  “ca-thex-is: concentration of emotional libidinal energy on an object, idea or person, from Greek kathexis, meaning holding, to hold fast”.

  “Crikey” I said, “you'd think I’d have heard of that. You beat me, fair and square”.

  “You'll win next time” he said, studying the board.

  Wondering about Dale, I gnawed a cuticle.

  “I hope she's OK, she's been gone ages”.

  “She's probably met someone she knows” he replied. “Would you like to play again?”

  “No thanks, maybe tomorrow” I said, moving towards the window. The night so emphatic that as you stared into the cosmos, you realised the stars you could see were merely indicators of a more complex arrangement, vast and mind blowing. Perhaps we were only permitted to perceive s
o little of it, in case we went mad with loneliness. But then in the distance, a glow. Please make it be Dale. The headlights swung into the driveway, briefly capturing me in the window.

  “She's back!” I shouted over-enthusiastically as I skipped to the front door.

  “Did you win?” She kissed me.

  “No” I said, taking the bags.

  “Let's go to the boat house” she whispered. “I've got a surprise”.