The Pleasure Seekers (16 page)

D’Arcy had always thought Jane Plum a very stupid woman and spoilt. She never could quite see how she managed to hang on to Tom who was anything but stupid and a very great painter. What D’Arcy hadn’t realised was that Jane was incredibly insensitive, she never thought before she spoke. Between them she and Mark were setting Melina up for an in-depth interview at the very least, even possible arrest on suspicion. D’Arcy could see that a motive could be attributed to the girl. And they sat there, both of them thinking they were doing her a service by explaining how Arnold might have offended some unknown Cretan’s pride!

The very idea that Melina might have killed Arnold distressed D’Arcy. And if it were shown to be true, it would be the worst possible thing to have happened. How had they all not seen it coming? Or even the possibility of it? Had they seen it and just turned a blind eye, let it slide by them? Had they played a part, although unwittingly, in this tragedy that had landed in their midst? It didn’t bear
thinking about. D’Arcy put it out of her mind. She would not take on that scenario unless the girl was arrested.

Fortunately three platters arrived heaped high with lamb chops, and two bottles of wine, and the table burst into life again as eating and drinking resumed. Manoussos rose from his chair and went round filling glasses. When he came to D’Arcy he placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled at her. He perceived that she was aware of what he suspected and what he was doing, she could see it in his eyes, sense it in the manner in which he squeezed her shoulder.

She was the first to leave the table to go home. D’Arcy did not miss the look on some of the faces round that table: her friends sensitive to the fact that she was no longer with Laurence. They tried to act casually about it, as if it were the norm, and she was grateful for that, although it felt far from being the norm.

It was early, too early for her to go to bed, and so she sat in her garden, one of the lower level gardens that hung very nearly over the sea. A black, black night except for the white moon casting a wide beam of light on the water and a sky full of stars, the sound of the sea, and in the distance the lights of the old port. She’d always had those things in her life, and such nights as this one, for as long as she could remember. They were for her another kind of friend, another kind of love, a reason never really to be lonely in the deep sense of that word.

She remained in the garden for some time watching the lights slowly go out all over Livakia until it was very nearly in total darkness. She heard the men, her friends from the mountain village, walking on the path below
the garden making their way back to Brett’s house, and then silence again, nothing but the sea. It wasn’t long after that that she heard the distant sound of creaking hinges: the opening of her garden gate. She made no move, her mind and heart were empty and still, nothing could break the peace and contentment, the spirit of place; she was one with it and herself. The footsteps on the stones were travelling in her direction. D’Arcy sighed. A smile appeared at the corners of her lips. It came from the heart. He stepped up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. She reached up and covered them with her own, and he kissed the top of her head and stroked her hair.

‘It’s been a long time, and still you knew where to find me.’

‘Love is like that.’

He walked round the stone bench where she was sitting and, taking her hands in his, pulled her up and into his arms. He held her there for a long time doing nothing more than enjoying the feel of her again in his arms. They clung to each other in silence, passion building between them. Finally he tilted up her chin and kissed her full on the lips, at the same time sweeping her off her feet and into his arms. He carried her for some distance through the gardens before he placed her on her feet again and took her in his arms to hold her tight against him and kiss her again. Sex had now come into it, their erotic souls’ craving for each other. She took him by the hand, he placed an arm round her waist, and together they walked through the remainder of the garden and into the house, directly to her bedroom.

They took their time undressing each other, savouring the excitement of once again seeing each other’s naked flesh as it was exposed. And then began the celebration of that flesh. His kisses were long and lingering. He knew so well how to excite her with his tongue, lips and mouth. He loved her nipples, used to make them shine with honey and then lick them clean, eating away at them and then beginning again until she begged for him to stop and take her in long, hard strokes. He needed no honey now, he had been starved too long for the enjoyment of her and her luscious breasts. He caressed her arms. The feel of her skin on his fingertips set him aflame. He wanted to weep with joy for having her to himself again. He covered her with roving kisses until she stopped him. She held his hands behind his back and returned those kisses, to his face, his neck, his chest, where she sucked and bit hard into his nipples.

She led him to the bed and there lay down and placed her arms back over her head, raising her legs until they were bent at the knee, her feet flat on the mattress. He joined her there, on his knees facing her, and placing his hands on her knees ever so gently pushed them apart until they rested on the sheets. There she lay in complete passivity, open and vulnerable. Neither of them could wait any longer. He caressed her baby smooth shaven mound and whispered, ‘My lovely mound of Venus,’ stroking the long, so very sexy cleft beneath with his ample and rampant penis until it parted and he could feel her soft, pink, velvet-like inner lips. Her several orgasms like some sweet morning dew eased the way for him and slowly, with exquisite taunting and teasing,
he took possession of her. She was soft and smooth as silk, tight and perfect. She was his velvet heaven.

She whimpered, tiny cries of ecstasy. She grabbed her hair with her fingers and dug her nails into her scalp. She followed his every thrust with squeezes of cunt and a rocking of her pelvis. Passion took them over, lust was their everything. He quickened his pace and she was right there with him. When she came this time she called in a strained and breathless voice, ‘Manoussos, don’t ever stop!’

They had been there before, they would be there again, in sex and love and passion. Theirs was a transient sex life, a transient love, they had come to terms with that many years ago, agreeing that there were such loves: one’s that go on until death but are no more and no less than what they are. Manoussos and D’Arcy would always at certain times of their life have their erotic sprees, come together and let each other go. They had free love.

In the morning D’Arcy felt a special kind of happiness. Sex and men had come back into her life and she was willing and ready for them. She was delighted it had been Manoussos who had ended her two-year monogamous relationship with Laurence. Manoussos himself had that special feeling he always had when he sailed into erotic waters with D’Arcy. Life and sex were that little bit richer.

They had breakfast in the garden and talked about themselves, his life and loves, her life and love for Laurence, on the intimate level they had missed having with each other for the last few years. Inevitably the talk
came round to the night before and the erotic road they had travelled together, its intensity, how much it had meant to each of them. Where it would go and where it would not, the other men and women who would once again separate them. How it had always been, would always be for them a matter of the right time, the right place. He took her again in the sunshine, standing behind her, bending her over the garden wall, her silk robe raised around her waist.

He adored looking at her like that: full and rounded tight flesh; the orbs of her bottom, the provocative long crack between those cheeks. He fondled them and ran his fingers up and down the crack; he parted them, and viewed her, and told her how beautiful she was, how wondrous the sex had been the night before. ‘Do you remember last night when I . . .’ He teased and taunted her with memories of their out of control lust, the things she said to him during her many orgasms, sex talk, lewd and exciting that she knew drove them further and further down that erotic road the end of which was for them both sexual ecstasy, a momentary oblivion.

She reacted as he knew she would, she was helpless to do otherwise, they wanted each other again, there and then, and there was no reason not to have each other there and then. From the waist down she moved under his hands, ever so slight rotations of her bottom, and she squeezed and sucked in and slowly released her vaginal muscles. The sensations she achieved were to make her feel alive again with sex, ready for him, wanting him. He knew how to set her aflame, how to hold back to increase the pleasure for both of them. By the time he
thrust swiftly, in one powerful movement, she had to place her hands over her mouth to stifle her scream: ecstasy, abandonment to all else in the world, as she rode out her orgasm.

He stayed with her, never eased off on his stroke, and continued until she came again, stopping only when they came together. For D’Arcy to be taken in that position was always to feel a man more; such penetration was a deeper penetration, a more thrilling sensation, it was being filled by a man to bursting point and always left her exhausted, drained of all energy. When he finally withdrew, his hands still on her slender hips, she slipped from under them into a heap on the ground, drenched with their come. He lay down next to her and held her in his arms. Neither of them moved, he too needed time to restore himself.

Some time passed before he rose from the ground and went into the house to return with a pillow which he placed under her head. He made her a fresh cup of tea and spooned large dollops of honey into it. Bringing it to her, he lay down next to D’Arcy, and taking her in his arms, placed the cup to her lips. She smiled at him and drank the tea. He stroked her hair but they didn’t speak. Much revived she sat up and placed the cup and saucer on the ground. She kissed him, a long and lingering kiss. Then she stroked his hair, his moustache, and smiled.

‘You were my first true love and you will always be my first true love,’ she told him.

‘And you were mine, and nothing and no one can change that.’

He was dressed. She knew that it was over, time for
him to go home and change, become the police chief again. And that was the first time she thought about the dinner table at the Kavouria the night before, how clever he had been, and what the repercussions of his cleverness might be. Why did it have to happen? Why couldn’t it all just go away? But it wasn’t going to go away. She held out her hands and Manoussos took them in his and together they rose from the ground. She placed an arm round his waist and he an arm round hers and together they walked through the gardens to a gate less conspicuous than the other entrances to her house.

‘Let me take you to dinner.’

‘That would be nice.’

He kissed her lightly on the lips and was gone. She watched him walk away, the sureness of his step, that Cretan male swagger. He turned once to wave at her and call out, ‘Nine o’clock, at the Kavouria.’ She knew what that meant – they would dine together but he would be back on duty, talking, asking leading questions, observing. Would he have interviewed Melina before then? What more would he learn today that would lead him to Arnold’s murderer? How she wished it could be a stranger to Livakia.

Later that morning the men staying at Brett’s house called by and invited D’Arcy to go underwater treasure hunting with them and Max. All she really wanted to do was have a long sleep but they refused to take no for an answer. Rachel joined them; the Cretan men were too delicious, too perfect, for her to miss a chance of flirtation with them. They took Max’s caique, an hour’s sail to one of his most favourite coves. Once there they
anchored a few yards off the beach and swam in to shore with their equipment.

Life in Livakia was never hurried, whether it be in sex, flirtation, dining, drinking, doping, swimming, work or play. Even the pressures and responsibilities of life were slower to be felt here. There was no rush to dive. D’Arcy stretched out in the sun to doze, Max checked his equipment, Rachel played oopsy-poopsy with the Cretan men and primped herself. D’Arcy gazed around her. What had murder and death to do with such pleasure seekers who harmed no one and in fact contributed to the community in none but positive ways? But then, on reflection, was that really true, that they harmed no one? Why else was Arnold dead? Why had someone taken his life? She sighed and looked around her. Her friends had left all thought of the dark side of life behind them, blanked it off, and were living for the moment. Not a bad way to live, she decided, and joined them.

In a half-sleep D’Arcy listened to Rachel and two of the men. She knew the three well and what was going to happen. The men would have her, discreetly apart from the party, in a cave where they would enjoy her in turn. They were not men for great sexual finesse but were fantastically well endowed and loved fucking foreign women. (Cretan women and especially young girls were impossible to enjoy before marriage. The virgin was all important to Cretan society and sense of honour; to defy the conventions was to write your own death warrant.) These two men especially liked the game of seduction and sex with women who pretended, as Rachel did, that they weren’t interested. They had had her before and she had
denied having sex with them; they would have her now and she would deny this intercourse as well. It amused the men and suited them all. Everyone knew what was bound to happen and everyone pretended they didn’t, part of the Rachel game. D’Arcy fell asleep.

When she awakened they were gone and only the third man was there, talking to Max. The three of them climbed into their diving equipment and, holding hands, waded into the water. It felt cold and refreshing. D’Arcy, like Max, never tired of the sea and especially those first minutes when one submerges oneself and becomes one with the water and the sea world.

They swam together for some time then broke up and followed each other down to the sea bed. It was Max who spotted something. There was great excitement but it turned out to be nothing of great interest, only a shard. He gave it to Spiro. They explored for nearly an hour and then began their ascent. Max felt playful. He circled D’Arcy on their vertical rise, taunted and teased her in an underwater sexual dance. He took her hands in his and they rose through the water together. When they surfaced they pulled off their masks and Max shook the water from his hair and squeezed it from his beard.