Dark Enchantment (17 page)

Chimaera

I FIRST SEE
him the night we go to visit the Chimaera.

It’s the fourth day of our honeymoon in Turkey, heading east along the Lycian coast before we double back overland to finish in Istanbul. We’ve been scuba-diving in Kas and we’ve kayaked over the sunken city at Kekova, Keith’s been up parascending – though I had a dodgy stomach that day and cried off – and we’ve waded the Saklikent Gorge and explored Lycian tombs in groves of gnarled olive trees almost as ancient as the stone sarcophagi themselves. This night, after a long day on the water, we arrive as darkness falls at the Chimaera. Other tourists are here too. In legend, this was the home of the fire-breathing hybrid monster, part lion, part goat, part snake. Like pilgrims, we climb the footpath up the hillside, and it’s long and steep enough to make my legs ache a little. We see the flames before we reach them: first one distinct patch then another, on a pale bare hillside.

Flame from the earth.

There’s no eponymous monster in the vicinity now, and the flames that used to be visible to passing ships in the bay below have diminished over the centuries, but still it’s a little eerie. From cracks in the bare limestone the flames issue, in about a dozen places. Some of them are tiny, blue and liable to disappear for long moments; others burn yellow, with a soft roar. We can walk among them, careful not to roast our sandalled feet. We find our own little patch of flames and sit around it like it’s a campfire. People are bringing out chunks of
sausage
and toasting them; I can smell the fatty meat over the whiff of gas. There’s laughter and chatter. Keith opens a bottle of local wine and pours some into our plastic camping mugs.

We’ve been told that if you extinguish the fire it re-ignites spontaneously; the next group over is trying just that, covering a jet up, then oohing when the gas gives a little pop and bursts into flame once more. I wish they’d keep the noise down. It seems disrespectful of such a unique place. In ancient times, I know, this whole area was sacred to the god of fire. I dip my fingertips in my wine and flick droplets into the flames. An apology of sorts. An offering.

Maybe it’s a mistake. This is an Islamic country, and fire worship has traditionally been regarded as the epitome of forbidden heathenism. Because it’s then that I see him, standing a little way off, staring at me. He’s a tall, dark-haired man, and certainly looks Turkish. His black brows are knitted over a hawkish nose. I feel suddenly embarrassed, as if I’ve been caught doing something wicked. I look away, pulling my face into a mask of indifference. Keith hasn’t noticed; he’s kicked off his sandals and is examining the sunburn pattern on his feet.

By the time I glance back, the man has disappeared into the darkness.

I see him again the next day, while I’m swimming at the beach near our
pansiyon
. The setting could not be more idyllic or more evocative: turquoise waters and an arc of beach backed by steep, verdant cliffs through which ravines descend to the sea – and on the banks of the nearest river valley the ruined site of the port of Olympos which we’ve spent hours exploring this morning, its aqueduct and tombs and rock-cut theatre hidden away among the fig trees and oleander and carob, the yellow plumes of spurge and the long reeds. No modern buildings or stalls have been allowed on the beach so the scene is
unspoiled.
The bay is sheltered and the sea almost still. I rise from the clear waters where I’ve been hovering over pink sea slugs and slender trumpet fish and, as I pull up my snorkel mask, I happen to glance towards the shore.

He’s there on the sand: the man from the Chimaera. I’m not perturbed; he likely works at one of the
pensiyons
nearby. He’s wearing loose red trousers and a long-sleeved white T-shirt which glows against his skin. He’s watching me. The heat reflected from the sand makes the air around him dance.

I pull my mask off completely, smoothing back my wet hair. I’m aware that now I’m standing my breasts, cupped in their pink bikini top, are clear of the water. They feel heavy in their Lycra sling, and the sea is cool enough to have hardened my nipples to points. Water droplets pearl my bare skin. There’s no mistaking that he’s looking straight at me, though it’s not possible to be sure of his expression.

Then Keith explodes out of the sea behind me, hurls wet arms about me and drags me under, kicking and thrashing. By the time he pulls me to my feet again and I’ve coughed out salt water and slapped his chest and squealed my outrage and he’s kissed me hard, laughing, the stranger is gone from my mind. Keith puts his hands down my bikini bottom under cover of the water. ‘Want to fuck you,’ he groans in my ear.

I’m instantly self-conscious and try to squint over my shoulder at the beach. ‘Stop it! We’re being watched!’

Keith grunts. ‘So? Anyway, no one’s paying any attention.’

I press up against him, letting him play with my bum cheeks, slip a finger between them and tease my crack. ‘There’s a guy been watching me …’

‘Really? What’s he look like?’

‘Um …’

‘Talk, dark and handsome?’

‘Uh-uh,’ I admit, nibbling his ear.

‘You’d better tell him you’re taken, Mrs Everts.’

‘Tell him yourself. He’s just on the beach there.’

‘Nope. No one there.’

I pull out of his arms enough to turn, putting my shoulders to his chest. His hands rise from the water and cup my breasts, but I’m distracted, searching the shingly sand and the little knots of tourists for a figure like the one missing. It takes a good hard nudge from Keith’s cock against my bum to bring me back to reality. And I’m impressed because despite the cool water that erection means business.

‘I’ve had enough swimming,’ I purr, grinding my hips in a circle to stir his interest. ‘Let’s go back to the room.’

We’re still damp from the sea when we reach our bed and Keith tumbles me onto the coverlet.

‘Are you happy, Mrs Everts?’

I am. I am gloriously happy. He discovers that for himself as he pulls down my bikini panties and slips his fingers inside me. I am beach-wet in there and carry the aroma of the sea. Then he moves upon me like a ship taking to the waves, ploughing the Aegean in long rolling stokes. His skin tastes of sunblock and salt and there is sand in his hair. He looms over me as he surges into my wetness, gilded by sunlight. My lover, now my husband: I want him so very much. My body aches, stretches, blossoms for him. I touch his face and throat and chest as if seeing him for the first time. His hair is shorn as close as fine turf to compensate for the fact it’s retreating – he’ll be bald by the time he’s forty but I don’t mind, I like the blunt masculinity revealed. At this moment he is all golden stubble dusted with sand and skin tanning to a ruddy bronze. I’m not used to seeing his skin, his muscle, his tight lines; back home everything is covered up except for that flash before he dives under the duvet. Here I discover him all over again.

And as we heave and crash upon the bed, through the open window swirls a cloud of petals. I couldn’t say what flowering plant they come from, but they are orange like flame and they flicker in the breeze, falling on us like the confetti at our wedding fell. They cling to the sheen of my hot flesh, brushing my face like fingertips, and lie strewn upon the coverlet in glorious flaming disarray as if someone has thrown upon us a bucket of red-hot coals.

When I doze off, I dream of fire.

Three days later we are in Istanbul, hundreds of miles from the Lycian coast, in another world. The city is everything I’ve imagined. My head is filled with blue tiles and minarets, exhaust fumes and aromatic smoke, steep streets lined with wooden Ottoman houses, apple tea and calligraphy, carpets and concrete. We tour everything that tourists are supposed to: the harem in the Topkapi Palace; the Blue Mosque; the vast Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia; the Kapali Carsi covered bazaar; the spice market. But it’s in the darkness of the Yerebatan Seray that he finds me again.

This place is a pillared cavern beneath the streets of the city. In my imagination, an underground lake for the phantom of the Paris Opera; in prosaic terms, a covered Byzantine water cistern rediscovered after being forgotten for centuries. It is still flooded to a depth of a metre or so and the mismatched pillars, looted from ancient temples, rise to the brick arches of the roof. It is enormous; you would not believe that what is effectively a cellar could be built so big. Subdued lighting shows concrete walkways snaking away into the gloom. In several places the roof drips, sending ripples rolling across the black waters.

Keith is playing enthusiastically with the settings and lenses of his new camera. Leaving him by the carved Medusa head
which
is the most striking piece of stonework, I wander away. There aren’t too many tourists here today. I amuse myself by watching the grey fish gliding beneath me and wondering what they live on.

Then the lights go out.

Instantly it is pitch dark. The piped classical music dies and I hear the annoyed and anxious wails of other visitors, but it sounds very faint, as if they are a great distance off. I grip the wooden railing hard; I have no other connection to reality. I feel the chill air move damply against my cheek and cock my ear to the plash of a falling water drop. The air seems colder, though I know that’s only suggestion. Suddenly the awesome but peaceful space yawning around me is quite horrible: a Stygian darkness in which anything could be moving; a chamber of Hades. I bite my lip, determined not to squeal as the others are doing. Their muffled cries of distress only add to the illusion of an underworld of tormented souls.

There is light. Just a spot of it, but it’s approaching. I think it’s a man carrying a torch, but as the shape resolves from the utter darkness I see no torch. Just the man. His tread is steady and confident and he is coming straight towards me. It is the man from the Chimaera, dressed as he was that day on the beach: red cotton trousers, white shirt, bare feet. He is carrying no lamp – yet
I can see him
. He glows against the velvet blackness, like a paper lantern carrying its own flame. When he gets close enough I can see that he faintly illuminates the pathway, the railing and finally me by his light. At this my brain locks down in shock, unable to deal with anything except minutiae.

It’s disconcerting how familiar his face is, and how handsome, though he doesn’t smile in greeting. His expression even now is one of intense scrutiny. He comes in so close I press myself back against the rail, holding my breath. He’s taller than
any
of the local men I’ve met, and his tight T-shirt clings to sharply defined muscle. He looms over me. His gaze eats me.

‘Stop this.’ My voice is weak and husky but I say it, aware how stupid I sound, as if he were an ordinary man who had for no very good reason decided to follow me across the breadth of the country. ‘You have to leave me alone. I’m married.’

He lifts a brow, and there is a hint of challenge in his enquiry. Keith is not here to defend my honour, and the man’s eyes defy me to wish that he were.

‘I’m married and I love him,’ I repeat, brandishing my wedding ring, wondering if he even speaks English.

He takes my hand. His skin is warm, his fingers long. I can see the gold of my ring shining in his unnatural effulgence. I don’t dare to wrench from his grasp but I avert my eyes momentarily and it is then that I notice the water puddled on the walkway retreating from around his naked feet, steaming a little. I think I might scream if I had breath for it. My lips gape, my eyes are wide.

He spreads my palm, weaving his fingers with mine. His eyes never leave my face. He lifts my hand to his mouth and touches the tip of my little finger to his lips. They are full, dangerous-looking lips, and his breath is warm. He really is shockingly handsome. He puts one fingertip at a time to his mouth, sometimes touching with the tip of his tongue, sometimes his teeth, finishing with my thumb. Then he exposes my palm and bows his face to kiss it, those glittering dark eyes veiled by black lashes. He kisses my palm tenderly, yet with unabashed hunger. Then, lowering my hand but not releasing it, he steps into me until the whole length of his body is against mine. He’s not crushing me, not even pressing against me properly. Just sharing the sweep of my tingling flesh.

My better self is demanding,
Why aren’t you stopping him?

In this chilly, lifeless place he is so warm. He slides a finger under my chin to lift it and my breath catches in my throat with a noise like a sob. His lips stoop to mine.

At that moment the lights flicker back on all around us, but I am paralysed by his touch and unable to react. He makes a small frown – regret, resignation – then bends to brush his lips against my ear.

‘
Selamün Áleyküm
.’ Peace be upon you. His voice is deep. It crawls under my skin and sinks into my bones.

Then he steps away, his look a lingering promise, and walks off. He leaves me breathless and squirming in my skin, my hands moving without volition to my tingling breasts, my eyes fixed on his figure and then, when he has vanished into the gloom, on the line of bare footprints he leaves behind: dry footprints pale on the damp slabs.

We dine, on the penultimate day of our honeymoon, in a small restaurant near our hotel, in the old Sultanahmet area of the city. It’s a traditionally dressed room, so we’ve taken off our shoes and sit on low couches in our alcove. The wooden walls are dressed with geometric-patterned rugs and oil lamps burn on every table. There is one modern painting right inside the front door, of the creature after which the restaurant is named: the Chimaera. It roars, triple mouths open.

I wish I hadn’t let Keith pick this place. I can’t keep my mind off the painting. It seems too reminiscent of the man I am trying not to think of: the lion symbolising magnificence and strength and pride, the goat denoting lust, the venomous snake tail suggesting … What? Wisdom? The Underworld? Evil?

I know what the snake would symbolise in Western art.

We eat our way through platters of
meze
. Our lips shine with olive oil, our eyes with playful lechery. Keith takes advantage of moments when the waiters’ backs are turned to stroke my
inner
thigh, sliding his fingers up under my skirt to flick and tickle me through my panties: impolite in any society, indefensible in one as strait-laced as this. But I’m restless, twitchy and eager for transgression. I only giggle when he leans in to whisper in my ear.