The Seduction of Suzanne (9 page)

Frightening, heart-clenching desire, overwhelm-ingly intense. 

Growing up on the island, she had known the boys who were her age from the time they were all children together. They had been friends and playmates. Occasionally she had thought about dating one or another of them, but she’d never felt a strong enough pull towards anyone to endanger a friendship trying to deepen it into something more significant.

Her first tentative ventures into romance had been with visitors to Great Barrier Island. Teenagers who came with their families to spend a summer on the island were happy to share long days with her on the beach, to hold hands and make out under the pohutukawa trees.

But always at the end of the season they would leave again, promising to write. One or two letters would come, and then she would be forgotten.

After a couple of years where the same thing had happened, she decided it was all a waste of time and tears, and swore to be just friendly with summertime acquaintances, nothing more.

Then there had been Gavin, so good-looking she imbued him with all sorts of characteristics of virtue that turned out to exist only in her own mind. He fired her blood so much she swooned around fantasizing about him for days on end. In her head they had a hundred sweet, tender conversations, delicate kisses and impassioned promises. For him she reversed her decision to avoid summer romances, with absolutely disastrous results.

The crash and burn was devastating. She shrank from offering her heart to anyone after that. Handsome young men made her shut down, draw away, blank-faced with a churning gut.

But she didn’t want to spend a lifetime alone. At the very least she wanted children someday. But not with anyone who made her heart race, made her forget wisdom and sanity.

When she went to Auckland to study teaching, she looked forward to meeting a genuine young man her age. She wanted a chance to build a long-term relationship, a rich friendship. She deliberately picked one of her classmates, Michael. He was shy, and awkward enough she occasionally wondered if teaching was the right career path for him, before putting aside the thought as disloyal. And he wasn’t exactly good-looking. In fact she felt completely safe with him because he didn’t stir her body at all. She knew she could stay clear-headed with him. He was no threat.

They had what Michael had liked to call a meeting of minds, and could talk easily to each other for hours. She enjoyed watching his confidence grow through their training, as he blossomed into a wise and compassionate young teacher. They had even kissed sometimes. However she never felt a strong desire for more than that, and when he didn’t press the issue, she settled contentedly into a virtually platonic relationship with him.

It was she who had broken it off, in the final term of their course. After carefully observing the two of them during several weekends on Great Barrier Island, her father had taken her aside just before they were to leave on a Sunday.

“
Suzanne, I don’t have anything against Michael,” he had said gently, “but I wonder why you see him as anything more than a friend. Can you honestly tell me that there is any spark between you two? If there is I can’t see it, and it seems a real shame for you to be with someone who doesn’t make you . . . well . . . thrilled to be with him. You deserve real love, sweetheart, not just friendship.” He had looked at her earnestly from under his bushy eyebrows as he spoke, gauging her reaction to his words.

“Of cours
e we have a spark, Dad,” she said indignantly, taken aback that he should doubt it. “I love Michael!”

“Or perhaps you are in the habit of thinking you
do,” said he soberly.

Feeling more furious with him than she had ever been before,
Suzanne had sat in stony silence as he drove them both to the ferry. Despite her anger she stiffly gave him a hug goodbye, a ritual she would not relinquish, regardless of her feelings. Then she stomped aboard the boat.

It was a week before she would admit to herself that her fury had been a knee-jerk reaction, covering her sudden fear that he was right about her relationship with Michael. Or more, he was right she needed more. She didn’t want to need more. She wanted to settle for safety, find fulfilment without threatening her guarded heart.

She wanted for this to be enough.

And it wasn’t.

In the dark fastnesses of her woman’s soul she wanted more, but lacked the courage to chase it.

She couldn’t hold on to Michael, knowing he wasn’t enough to keep her happy. He deserved a wholehearted love.

Deeply apprehensive, she broke the news she couldn’t be his girlfriend anymore. He took it calmly, once she reassured him that it wasn’t because of anything he’d said or done.

“I don’t want to stop being friends, though,” he said. “That would really hurt, because I can talk to you about things that I can’t tell anyone else, and you always understand.”

If anything, their break-up had seemed to strengthen their friendship. Michael often came to stay for a weekend or even longer in the holidays, now that she lived alone. He would bring a stack of videos if it were winter, or the weather forecast was particularly bad, and she would catch up on all the movies that she never saw on the island, or they’d stay up late talking. When the weather was fine they would usually go tramping, which he particularly enjoyed. Suzanne never stopped being glad that the end of their romance hadn’t damaged their friendship. These days – knowing rather more about the world – she wondered if her increasingly self-assured friend might someday produce a boyfriend for her to meet.

Yet she hadn’t had any significant relationship with a man since she had broken up with Michael. Sometimes being steadfastly single made her feel out of kilter with the rest of the world. More often she simply felt lonely, despite her friends and the other talkative, nosy individuals on the island.

This intensity of attraction she felt for Justin Walker was a total break from the norm.

She simply wasn’t equipped to deal with it. Not in any sense of the word.

Despite Anita’s urgings, the jungle of casual sex was an untracked wilderness to her. She had no idea how to find a way into or through that. Or even if she wanted to go that way.

But a deeper relationship was out of the question. He was a short-term visitor to the island. She had no future with someone like that.

He was also the most attractive, physically arousing man she’d ever met. She could barely think straight around him. Even holding a conversation was a significant effort of will.

He belonged exactly where she had originally placed him: in the “Too Hard” basket.

And then she spent several delirious moments remembering just exactly how ‘too hard’ he had been by the end of their kiss.

She ground her teeth together in frustration. Just thinking
about
him turned her brain to mush, and he wasn’t even present.

And that was where things got really dangerous. She knew what came of
believing in a handsome, unprincipled man. And she had no basis for believing he was anything else. She didn’t trust her own judgement. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust the growing urge to follow him around like moronic lapdog, panting and eager to please.

And
yet. . .and yet. . .

If he left the island this second, and she never saw him again, how long would it take to stop thinking about him, stop wondering if there was something more she should have done? How much would she regret
this. . .cowardice? Might as well call it what it was.

Cowardly avoidance of life. Cowardly denial of her human potential to live and grow freely, to approach the world with the joy and wonder she’d carried into her teenage years but not beyond them.

Sometimes she felt so dried up and useless, years of loneliness behind her and decades ahead.

She had not been designed for solitude, and even the deepest friendships were not enough.

She wanted to try. She wanted to try to be a whole person. She wanted to know Justin, really know him as more than a beautiful, charming beach boy. More than the stereotype of a handsome seducer she had such difficulty seeing past. Know him as a flawed and complete human being and discover who she herself might become with such a person.

For the first time in seven years, she wanted more from a man than just to be left alone. She wanted him. His body, his laughter, his warm, approving gaze on her, heating her body like sunshine.

She wanted to try and see if maybe, just maybe, she could climb onto this merry-go-round and enjoy the ride until it stopped and left her in a new, better place.

She realised then that she had made her decision, and although it left her stomach churning with nerves, she knew her choice was the right one for her.

For this man.

Within a few minutes, she was asleep.

Chapter Six

The next morning she woke later than usual, a consequence of her restless night. With a sigh she hauled herself out of bed and walked slowly to the kitchen, already contemplating the best way of getting in touch with Justin.

Obviously he would see her as fickle, or even unstable, blowing cold and then hot without apparent reason. In retrospect she had obviously overreacted to that kiss. It was just a kiss, not that significant. Never mind the years since her last passionate embrace. He didn’t know about those.

She must have looked like a fool, pedalling away furiously as if all the demons of hell were pursuing her.

At the doorway of the kitchen she stopped in her tracks. There was a figure sitting silent and still in one of the deck chairs on her verandah. His back was toward her, those wide shoulders and that golden head unmistakable in the clear morning light. He looked out to where her driveway curved and disappeared into the forest, apparently absorbed in quiet contemplation.

Suzanne
quickly turned and scuttled back to her bedroom to throw on some clothes. In summer all she wore to bed was a thin little T-shirt and underpants. The thought of Justin seeing her like that left her whole body suffused in a blush.

It took only moments for her to change shirts and put on some shorts and a bra, and to pull her hair into a thick pony-tail. A glance in the mirror reassured her the dark circles under her eyes were not too pronounced.

Aiming for nonchalance she returned to the kitchen and opened the French doors onto the verandah. As he heard her, he twisted to look in her direction. His gaze travelled slowly from her face down to her bare feet, and then up again.

The blue of his eyes was darker than usual as he said in his smooth, deep voice: “You look even more delectable when fresh out of bed, and still sleepy-eyed.”

Her blush returned full force, and he smiled knowingly.

“Um, can I say the word,
stalker
?” she responded tartly.

He smiled engagingly at her. “I know. Shocking isn’t it, for me to just turn up and help myself to a seat on your porch. Very bad manners. But then you pedalled off too quickly for us to arrange our next meeting, Madame Tourguide. And you never gave me your number” Then his face turned serious. “Of course, if you really want me to go away, then say the word. I’ll go.”

She hesitated a moment, two. She wanted to send him away, with all the doubts and second guesses and tumult he brought with him. But she had come to a different decision last night, and she would stick by it. When the silence drew out and she still said nothing, he turned away.

“You have such a lovely place here,” he said, gesturing at the forest that began at the edge of the lawn. “I’ve been listening to the birds and watching that one.” The resident fantail was catching tiny flies in the sunshine, performing its usual aerobatic loops and dives. “Soaking up the peaceful solitude. It’s so private and secluded. I nearly drove right past the turn-off. It’s hard to spot until you see the red mailbox.”

“I don’t see your car.”

“I parked it back in the trees and walked the rest of the way. I didn’t want to rouse you if you weren’t already up.”

“How long have you been here?” she asked in surprise.

“Nearly two hours. I didn’t want to wake you, but I also didn’t want to miss you. Yesterday made me think you were an early riser.” He smiled wryly, and
Suzanne realised he meant their bicycle ride at seven the previous day.

“I slept in this morning,” she offered. “So you’ve been sitting out here for two hours?”

“Yeah. I’ve been enjoying the bird song. There’s so much less forest at Medlands that you don’t get to hear it there.”

“I know. I love the beach, but I wouldn’t want to live so close to it. Um . . . would you like something to drink, some tea or coffee?” she asked tentatively.

“Coffee would be great,” he said with a pleased smile.

“All I have is instant. Is that all right?”

“It’s fine.”

“Hold on then. I’ll be back in a sec.”

The kitchen seemed very dark after the bright sunlight as she ducked back inside and put the kettle on to boil.

She spooned instant coffee into one mug – she had to chip away at the contents of the jar a little to loosen enough to fill a teaspoon. She never drank the stuff. Hopefully it would taste alright. She put some chamomile into a strainer for her own mug. Pouring the hot water over the instant coffee, she called out: “Sugar or milk?”