Then there was an opening to the left, distracting her for the moment. It was water! They were pa.s.sing the lake, or a river. And there was a house-but not the one they had started from.
"You look bushed," Geode said, slowing to a walk. "I don"t want you to get heat stroke."
"Where-where are we?"
"Cabin at the far corner. I have to check, make sure there"re no squatters." He went to the door, brought out a key, and unlocked it.
She leaned the bike against the wall of the house, as there was no kickstand. She followed him in.
It was a somewhat ramshackle cabin, with kitchen, bedroom, and an enclosed porch. There were bare mattresses on the floor. "I"m afraid to lie down," she remarked. "I might never get up."
"I guess I went too fast," he said. "Lie down; I"ll wait."
"No, I don"t want to hold you up." This wasn"t politeness, it was grim determination.
He smiled. "I"m not much good in your world. You were nice to me. Now you"re in mine. I"ll be nice to you." He plopped down on a mattress.
"You make such sense!" she said, and collapsed beside him. She put her head on his chest, her arm on his shoulder, and let her strength ebb. What a delight to relax!
After a moment, he put his free arm up and across her back. She listened to his heart beating.
The affair had turned sour, and her guilt waxed inversely as the romance waned. How could she, a married woman, have done this thing? What had seemed so exciting at the outset now seemed sordid. She was sorry she had ever gotten into it. Her husband was ten times the man her lover was, and she knew that now. She had betrayed the man she loved, and was ill with self-loathing for it.
There was no help for it: she would have to tell him. She would make a clean breast of it and beg his forgiveness, and if he threw her out, well, it was his right and she had brought it on herself by her foolishness. But what a loss to her it would be! Yet she couldn"t keep silent, for that would make a mockery of their relationship; there had to be honesty between them, however painful it might be.
She nerved herself and broached the matter that evening. "Dear, I have something to say that I fear will not please you, and-"
"Oh, you found out!" he exclaimed.
"What?" She was nonplussed.
"About my indiscretion, over now. I really wanted to tell you, but I was so afraid of losing you, the only woman I ever truly loved. Now you have found out, and it"s too late for courage. I wish it were otherwise!"
He had had an affair? At first she felt a surge of anger. But following hard on its heels was relief: he couldn"t condemn her, if he had done the same!
Nevertheless, honesty compelled her. "I didn"t know," she said. "What I have to confess is my own indiscretion. I-"
"You?" he asked incredulously.
"Me," she agreed. "I-"
He looked almost relieved. "Maybe-would it be amiss if we simply let things cancel out, without going into details?"
"Why, yes, if you feel-"
And so it was that they devoted the night to love instead of confession and recrimination. He stroked her hair and she kissed him, and their marriage prospered thereafter.
It was only much later that she learned by chance from another source that her husband had never had an extramarital affair. Then she realized that she had been mistaken: he was not ten times the man her lover had been. He was a hundred times.
none woke abruptly. "Oops, I slept!" she exclaimed.
"n.o.body ever wanted to sleep with me before," Geode said, smiling.
"But you were supposed to continue your rounds! I delayed you!"
"It was the greatest hour I ever had, except for last night."
She lifted her head, gazing at his face. "Mine too, I think. I"ve wanted so much to be with a man, held by a man, not just s.e.xually but for myself. It"s been a long time, and I"m very hungry for it."
"I stroked your hair," he said.
"Oh, I didn"t know! You should have woken me up for that!"
"No, I wanted you to sleep."
"I was joking-I think," she said, remembering her dream. Tenderness, for the sake of nothing else. "Come on, I have delayed you too much. We must complete your rounds."
He sat up, nodding. "Maybe we can come here again sometime. When-" He shrugged.
"When we can make it," she said, understanding.
"Or just to sleep. I like being with you so much, it doesn"t matter what we do."
"You are my dream man," she said.
He shook his head, not believing it.
"No, I"m serious. I"ve always wanted to be with a man who just wanted my company, all the time. I didn"t think any existed. Now here you are. Well, you shall have my company as long as you want it, and when you get tired of it, it"s still been nice, very nice."
He stood looking at her, as if trying to say something, but not being able to get it organized. "Anything you want, take," she said. She went to him, embraced him, and kissed him.
"I think that was it," he said.
"That"s only the beginning of it." She let go and went out of the cabin, determined not to make her mistake of the night before, trying to push s.e.x on him when he wasn"t ready. It wasn"t that he objected, but that the foundation had to be set before the structure could be built.
She had not really looked around before, being too tired. Now she saw that there were cedar trees near the cabin, and an earthen ramp extending into the river. The swollen trunks of cypress grew at the water"s edge, and indeed, some way into the water.
"We could take a canoe," Geode said.
"So I could rest my legs? But then you"d have to leave the bike here, and wouldn"t have it when you needed it next time," she said. "No, I"d better finish my ride, though I"d love to canoe with you tomorrow."
He nodded, his usual response when it would do.
They resumed the circuit. Geode went slower yet, and she followed on the bike, picking up more of the scenery now. They were on a car-drivable road, and the bike had no trouble with the tire-wide tracks; she could virtually coast along many stretches. That helped, because her legs were indeed tired.
The road looped south and west, leaving the river and bordering parts of the lake. She caught glimpses of water lilies and reeds and occasional sections of open water. There were some purple flowers there, but those weren"t pa.s.sion flowers; they were vertical. She would learn their ident.i.ty in due course.
At last they came to a metal gate, and beyond it was the paved drive. They had made a complete circuit, and apparently looped around the house, and were coming at it from the north. Geode unscrewed the little link that locked the gate, and let her through, then screwed the link tight again.
She walked the bike up to the house, where he took it and put it away in the alcove. Then he unlocked the side door-and the thin wail of the alarm started. He hurried through the house to the alarm pad, and in a moment the alarm stopped. She knew that if he hadn"t done it within thirty seconds, the system would have dialed the police and fire departments, notifying them of a break-in.
He returned. "It"s noon," he said. "You can rest. I"m not going out again for a while."
"No, I have to fix you lunch!"
"No, you don"t. I"m used to doing for myself."
"What do you fix yourself?"
"Can of beans."
"I can do that!"
He shook his head. "I"ve got to shower. So do you. The beans can wait."
He was right. She was dripping sweat. "Would you like to shower together?"
"Do you want to?"
"Yes."
"Okay." Then he smiled. "The bathroom down here doesn"t have a shower; I usually use the one upstairs. Yours."
"Then it was fated," she said.
He led the way through the door to his room, but this time turned to the right. There was another staircase she hadn"t known about. They went up. At the top was a panel, which he slid into the wall. Beyond was the hall, with her bathroom at the beginning. She had found out what was beyond the forbidden portals!
They entered the bathroom, closed the door, turned on the air exhaust, and stripped. Soon their clothing lay on the floor in two sodden piles. "I will run those through the laundry," she said. "I hope you have a dryer, because I can"t hang my clothing out to dry in the sun; that would give away my presence the moment anyone saw it."
"There is one," he said.
She turned on the shower, waited for the water get warm, then stepped in. Geode hung back. "You too," she said. "And bring the soap."
The soap bar was beside the sink. He picked it up and stepped diffidently in with her. The water blasted down on them both, refreshingly. She felt the fatigue and tightness in her legs easing. She took the soap from his hand and rubbed it over his body, then hers. Then she put her arms around him, rubbing her slippery body against his.
"You feel so good," he said. But he didn"t get an erection. Well, it had been worth the try.
Then they heard the sound of the chime. Someone was at the gate!
Geode jumped out, dripping, and ran naked from the bathroom. He was going to buzz the visitor in. none quickly rinsed herself off, including her matted hair.
Geode returned. "I have to get dressed!" he said.
"No, you don"t," she said. "You"ve been out on your rounds; you were taking a shower. Just wrap a towel around yourself; they"ll understand. I"m the one who has to get dressed, so if I should have to meet anyone-"
He nodded. He stepped back into the shower as she stepped out, and quickly rinsed off the remaining soap. He turned off the shower. Then he wrapped a towel around his middle and went downstairs, while she patted herself dry. Of all the times for someone to arrive!
none picked up both sets of clothes and dumped them in the hamper, shoes and all. Then she stepped around to her room and quickly dug out new underclothing and a brown dress. She could change in a hurry when she had to. In moment she was pet.i.tely garbed and was brushing out her hair. It was wet, and there would be no concealing that, but of course she could have been washing it. Nothing directly connected her with Geode.
She heard a car pull up outside. There was the faint murmur of dialogue below. Then Geode"s raised voice: "But I can"t bother her, sheriff! I just got out of the shower!"
Deputy Tishner! He knew about her being here, but not about her relationship with Geode.
The house intercom came on. "Ms. Brown, you up there?" came Tishner"s voice. "I need some information."
She found the talk b.u.t.ton. "I will come down."
Then she walked down the hall to the main staircase, and down to the front door.
Tishner was there. "You"re looking good, ma"am," he remarked.
"May Flowers bought me new clothing."
"So I see. Look, they"re putting the heat on about your disappearance, especially your boy"s. I mean, you and your husband could"ve gone somewhere, but the boy"s supposed to be in school."
"A family emergency came up," she said. "We sent my son to stay with his uncle George for a few days, and then my husband and I left without warning; there wasn"t time to notify anybody."
"But your car"s still there."
She had forgotten that. "It wasn"t running well. We took a bus-" She hesitated, for he was shaking his head in negation. Bus service wasn"t great here, and it could be checked. "We-a member of the family came in his car, and we just got in with him and drove away. I know we should have notified someone, but it was so sudden-"
He nodded affirmatively. "Your brother-will he confirm?"
"Yes."
"What"s his number?"
She checked in her purse and found the number. She gave it to him.
Geode appeared, now dressed. Tishner glanced at him. "Sorry to pull you out of your shower like that, Demerit. This just came up. I don"t know how long we can keep the lid on. That exterminator-did he get here?"
Geode nodded.
"He took the body?"
Another nod.
"Did he say anything about it? I mean, what did it?"
"He said he had to get it to his lab. But he thought it was a firefly."
"A what?"
"The way a firefly eats. Dissolving."