Beast (12 page)

Meanwhile, by his innocent, random comment, he seemed to have unleashed a torrent of conversational confidences—she opened up like a mussel dropped into a steam pot.

Her cousin Mary bored her to tears, while being still the object of great, baffling affection. The wife of the American minister to France was as soft and sharp, as deceptive, as a cat's paw. (Charles laughed at this dismissal of Pia.) Louise's future husband's emissary in New York, now on the boat, was likeable, her only new friend, which surprised her since he was as pretty as a man could be without lapsing into the effeminate, while being as stupid as a man could be without crossing over into moron. (Charles had to stifle his roar of humor, as he recognized his cousin Gaspard.)

The lovely Louise adored her parents though she wouldn't admit it. for she was currently in a rage against them. She believed in beauty not love, though she admitted there might be something, a deep experience, that passed between two people—her parents seemed to lose themselves into something like this at the most inopportune moments. As to her own life, the young Louise awaited a "defining moment"

that would make her more intelligible to herself. She was admittedly confused as to who she was, where she was going, and what she really wanted to do of any significance.

For longer than Charles could keep track of, she talked his ear off—though never about anything so childish as animals or school or lip color from Paris. She thoroughly entertained him. Less charming, she eventually talked of her impending marriage and—this was the most difficult—the ugly stranger with whom she now realized she was supposed to conceive children. She was not naive at all of the sexual process. She was precocious in fact. Charles suspected her virginity to be a matter of history. Certainly, by her candor, her innocence was.

He grew warm at this point. This bumptious, soul-stirring young creature seemed more accessible suddenly, more acceptable—and far more appealing than he had ever imagined—as a bedmate. He lay there in the comfortable dark, vaguely contemplating her sexuality, as he scratched her dog or brushed up against her sweet-smelling skirt or was knocked in the knee once (the bad knee) for sport because he laughed at her. He was so thoroughly enchanted, he hardly knew what to think. The time flew.

He had no idea what hour it was when she said suddenly. "Oh. Lord. I'm going to be late for dinner!

Mother and Papa are going to wonder where I am!"

She stood. He stood. The two of them, with her puppy following, made their way through the dark.

Charles would have been doubly surprised to know how astutely Louise had taken his measure—a surprise first of the thrilled, then of the horrified variety.

The thrilling part would have been this: Louise had found their bizarre conversation in the blackest of the dark to be quite wonderful and somehow… significant. Her Arab, if that's what he was, seemed to be everything the lieutenant wasn't: suave, fearless, magnetic, and, she suspected, smoothly hot-blooded.

For here was the less than thrilling part: Louise knew perfectly of Charles's sexual interest, having fended off such interest from far-too-young an age and—like someone with always a royal banquet of choices—occasionally not fended it off. or not completely.

And here was another man, she thought, worthy of sampling, an interesting and exotic morsel to be plucked from the lavish buffet of men who daily laid themselves at her feet. He was intelligent, wise; he was older. She judged him to be in his late twenties, and his age—a savoir-faire and confidence she felt was connected to it—intrigued her for the first time in her young life. She had always dallied with men of the lieutenant's age, men closer to her own span of years. She felt wonderfully worldly and adventurous contemplating an affair with this mature man of a different culture.

Moreover, as Louise stepped up into the corridor of crates, she seemed to recall a physical impression of him: great height, a wide sweep of shoulders, the flash of a smile that was brilliant to behold. She tried to remember as much as she could from their brief confrontation in the hallway after breakfast, before he'd become a billowing dervish of bows and retreats. She thought she could remember rugged features, handsome features. Dark complexion, dark eyes, yes, his eyes had been dark, hadn't they? Semitic good looks. Besides, he had the easiness about him of a man who drew women effortlessly. An extraordinarily handsome man, she decided, a man of wealth, position. An equal.

She was going to let him kiss her. He was going to try. She was going to allow it and, by all early signs, going to enjoy it.

She was aware of him following closely as she walked along the corridor of cages, as she measured out the approximate distance to the Bear's crate in cold metal bars. Ultimately she found a cage with its door open. "I think this is it," she said. Then added as blithely as possible, "I could use some light at this point.

Why don't you find the switch?"

Her pasha or sultan or whoever he was could have used some light too apparently, for he walked right into her. Then he didn't back off. They stood like this, all but against each other. She felt, heard, sensed him bending toward her. Oh. yes, she thought. Yet for an eternity nothing happened. He just hovered above her.

She asked finally, "Are you going to kiss me?"

His voice, a murmur, was within inches of her face. "No." he said. "You have an interest, a curiosity for what it would be like to kiss a stranger in the dark, but that's not enough."

This reply left her baffled, annoyed. "Enough?"

"Enough interest, initiative, purpose. I'm not keen to kiss a woman until she is hoping I will, her heart thudding: afraid that I won't."

Louise laughed at his cockiness. She had never been afraid of someone
not
kissing her in her life. She turned away from him. The fool. Let him wait. then. She picked the puppy up and slid him into his kennel cage. The Bear lay down, an ungraceful drop of his little bones onto the metal-grid floor as she closed the door and clicked the latch in place. The crazy Arab remained beside her. She turned, leaning a shoulder onto the crate, refusing to back up or give way in this game of who could push whom the farthest.

"What do you look like?" she asked. When he didn't answer, she said, "I'm going to turn on the light.

The switch is two steps away. I'm not playing your game any longer."

His arm dropped down, his hand settling at her waist. He pressed his palm into the curve between rib cage and hip. his hand wrapping around her nicely, a warm, natural fit. A pause followed that said he would discuss neither his looks nor light nor darkness, all issues he considered beyond dispute.

In counter, she refused to lay her hands against him, though it was almost awkward to avoid it. She picked up the strand of pearls at her collarbone, twisting it to slip round and round one finer, holding her elbow, holding herself.

Above her, he whispered, "Louise, here's what I think: You would like to get away from the constant, overpowering presence of your own physical attractiveness. In truth, your beauty scares you. It's occurred to you, What if nothing else about you is as magnificent? The very fact that you worry about being shallow, though, my dear, means you are well on your way to some substance. So stop harking back to the visual, stop thinking in terms of what everything looks like."

"No," she insisted. "I'm not blind, and I won't blind myself for you. I want the light."

"I'll leave if you reach for it."

She laughed. "You can't. I stand between you and the doorway."

"I'll disappear. I promise. As surely as if I were nothing more than a figment of your imagination."

Louise thought about this. The difficult . Yet she was a little afraid. The whole afternoon had been so intriguing, almost magical. Almost as if she
had
dreamed him up. Well, never mind, she thought. She would catch him later. She said, "Then admit it at least: You are as remarkable to look at as I am, aren't you?"

He laughed. A low. rumbling chuckle that alerted something in her, a stirring in her belly. "You are as tenacious as your puppy. Do you know that?"

"Yes. If you won't show me, tell me."

His laughter was deep, a beautiful bass sound; mellifluous, contagious. And she could hear in it an unmistakable note of regretful folly—admitted vanity—then reluctant capitulation. He said, "Yes, we are two most remarkable people to look at. An amazing couple in the light." He lowered his voice. "And an even more amazing couple in the dark." He leaned forward.

She felt the warmth of his broad chest press closer, the moist heat of his breath on her cheek.

Her heart indeed began to thump. It seemed to rise up and wait in her throat for the touch of him at her mouth. She could feel her own pulse at her neck. Her lips on their own parted, already a little "Oh" of anticipation.

He wet her lower lip. a delicious and surprisingly intimate touch of his tongue. He blew lightly, her lips both warm and cool with sensation. Then he murmured against her cheek, "Still not enough," and pulled back.

Louise's mouth, her face tingled with feeling; incomplete, strange. She felt the lack of further contact all the way down into the pit of her stomach, a flip-flop low in her abdomen. Her face grew all at once hot.

She was rooted to the spot, unable to believe what seemed to be happening.

She wasn't in charge. She wasn't in control. A part of her rejoiced: A true equal, a friend to play with, who could play as hard as she did! A part of her complained vehemently: A despicable, unpredictable fellow who thought about his own wishes over her own!

He continued in a murmur. "Tonight at midnight. Put a sprig of my jasmine in your hair, then come to me here again with your sweet mouth open just like this"—he placed his finger over her lips, touching inside for a moment, fingertip to the edge of teeth—"then, if you want me to, really want me to, I will kiss you.

Or, if you prefer, we can just talk." He made a soft sound of amusement. "Yes. Tell yourself that, that we are just going to talk."

She felt a flurry of fabric, a faint breath of movement up the front of her. With the exit behind her. she didn't imagine he was leaving. Then she realized he had moved away. She frowned. What was he doing?

Louise rushed for the light, a pivoting, gamboling few steps behind her. She switched the electricity on.

The two fixtures immediately overhead burst into brightness, opening up the front portion of the kennel, a tiled walk between two rows of cages that dimmed into darkness where more than half the fixtures didn't come on.

Louise caught only a glimpse, a flying, colorful sail of light wool and silk as her Arab disappeared into the black end of the corridor. Then a sudden and impossible cool breeze cut into the room. A strong, wet wind blew her dress against her legs. My God, he was going out through the dog promenade. She ran after him, down the corridor into the dark, yelling after him.

"So don't kiss me!" she said. "There are plenty who will!" She taunted, "You could be a monster to look at, for that matter. I can't even be sure. I don't
want
you to kiss me!"

She caught the door on the back swing, then shoved it, taking herself outside into gusts of drizzling rain.

She walked out onto the deck, the ship beneath her feet lunging. She took rain full in the face one moment, down her back the next—and for her bother saw only-more indistinctness, more poor visibility.

The night sky seemed a close black ceiling. The dim glow of a moon, looking near enough to touch, swam in a halo behind layers of low purple-black clouds. On the deck, beneath this sky, there was no one. Nothing. Every direction disappeared into obscurity beneath the hulking, gigantic outline of ship stacks. Before her, she could see two of these, like looming phantoms, their funnels spewing their own blackishness. Behind the kennels, she knew, were two more. But for these, the whole, vast deck was open out to its railings.

Louise let the topple of the ship carry her forward to the nearest grip she could get on the handrail Over the railing, she looked down at the deck below, a twenty foot drop. A dangerous fall. Then looking toward the bow of the ship, she realized, there at the front this distance would be half that—if one leaped the rail, dangled, then dropped down onto the private terrace of one of the grand luxury suites.