"Please. Let's not talk about it now."
"I'm sorry. You're not in any shape for this kind of discussion," she
said gently. "But it was just that we're alone now--the way we were
alone this morning--and I thought perhaps I could make some sort of
amends."
I didn't know what she was talking about. I was in a sort of mental
fog, I guess.
But the fog lifted abruptly when she put her hand on my thigh.
Involuntarily I caught my breath. This was a Joanie I had never known
before.
The hand moved--slowly, tremblingly--across my thigh. The moment
she touched me, I stiffened with desire, and I felt confused and
bewildered, embarrassed before her, not understanding what she was
doing. But then she was lying full length next to me on the bed, and I
was on my side facing her, and suddenly I had forgotten all about the
fight with Riccio, and I was one hundred percent alive again.
My breath came in short gusts. Joanie was smiling strangely. She
took my hand and lifted it until it was on her breast. She clasped
it against her left breast, and for the first time in reality I felt
that marvelous mound of flesh in my hand, and it was warm and firm,
the nipple jutting up steeply, and there was the pounding of her heart
behind her deep bosom, and she let out a little sigh and wriggled her
body in pleasure as my fingers grazed the terribly soft flesh just
about the nipple, and tightened once again on the entire wonderful
globe of the breast.
She said softly, "I've wanted so much to tell you, Al. But the words
would never come. I kept running away instead of telling you. I liked
to see you involved with Bonnie and Sandra and Harriet, because that
gave me an excuse not to tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"That I love you, Al."
My other hand moved up her body, up that smooth sweet flank, over the
taut muscular sleekness of her satiny buttocks.
"I love you too, Joanie. Right from the start, I loved you. From the
very beginning. And all those other girls kept getting between us."
"They won't any more."
"No one will get between us."
"Al--do you still hurt?"
"Not very much."
"I've been thinking about this ever since the boat this morning. I was
going to come to your cabin tonight, to give myself to you. But then
you had that awful fight--I volunteered to stay here--and suddenly I
couldn't bear to watch you any more, I had to get into the bed and have
you touch me, and touch you, and _oh! oh, darling!_" she breathed as
my hand swept past her knee, over the satiny flesh of her thighs. Her
breath began to come faster and faster, and I had to bite down on my
tongue to keep myself from rushing things. I wanted to burst out crying
for sheer joy at having this splendid female at last in bed with me.
Even if I were too battered to take full advantage of her magnificent
body, it was still something I had dreamed about like a small boy
dreams of a vanilla ice-cream mountain.
"Be gentle," she whispered. "Be gentle, my darling, be gentle."
Her strong arms cradled me gently, and suddenly I was with her, feeling
that powerful yet womanly body throbbing beneath me. Her eyes were
open, and there were tears in them, but she was smiling, and my mind
went back over all the hundreds of times I had wished for this moment
to be taking place. It _was_ taking place now, she beneath me, her firm
breasts flattening against my chest, her body against mine, her breath
coming in irregular little bursts.
I felt her trembling with fear and love, and I vowed to myself that
this would be an experience for her that would wipe out whatever
nightmares lurked in her mind. I remained still a long while, holding
her tight and loving her motionlessly, waiting, letting her body accept
what her mind was doing.
And then I felt her quiver and her muscles contract, and I knew she
was ready and I began to move, and she moved too, frightened and
nervous at first, then joyous as the warm flood of sensation stirred
her. I could tell that this wasn't her first time, but that she was
inexperienced, perhaps had made love to the long-gone deceitful one no
more than two or three times, but now her body radiated love the way it
had once seemed to radiate light.
I felt none of the pain of my fight. Everything was warmth and love and
the merging of two human beings. I arched slowly back and forth while
Joanie gasped and whimpered.
Then she came to life.
All the superb power of her body was unleashed in a frenzy of
excitement that probably astonished her. She tightened constrictingly
around my body and she arched her back so high I was lifted high
in the air, and she began to move, wildly and inexpertly and with
complete natural grace, her body gripping me and every muscle of hers
rippling and flowing, and I felt the thunder, the booming explosions,
and felt the shudder ripple through her body too, and then the arched
back subsided and I slumped down limp above her. I felt drained and
completely exhausted. I opened my eyes and saw Joanie smiling at me.
We lay that way for a long while, her body strong and firm beneath me.
"Am I too heavy?" I whispered after a while.
"Don't be silly."
But I felt that I was crushing her, and so I rolled over to one side,
and there were her splendid breasts with the nipples still stiff.
I touched her breasts as though I were handling the jewels of the
madonna. It was with complete reverence, and nothing of lust, that I
tenderly kissed her body. What we had just completed might have looked
to an outsider like an animal-like act of savage lust, but to us it had
been different.
It had been something like a sacrament.
We lay side by side for a long while. I began to ache again from my
bruises, but in the afterglow of loving Joanie I hardly cared.
"Happy?" I asked.
"Very."
"Me too," I smiled.
"It's too bad, though--"
"What is?"
"That we wasted so much time," she said. "All these days we could have
been together."
"There'll be plenty of time ahead of us."
"I know, darling." After a moment's silence she said, "I was such a
sick girl until this afternoon. And now--now you've liberated me, Al. I
was afraid. Afraid of people, afraid of sex, afraid of being in love.
So I hid behind masks. I played volleyball and went water-skiing and
tried to pretend I wasn't a woman."
"Don't talk about yesterday, Joanie. Let's think about tomorrow."
"All right," she said. She nestled up against me again, and I put my
head on her breasts, and closed my eyes.
I dozed off for a little while. I woke when I heard the outside door of
the cabin slam. I looked around, half surprised to find myself in bed
with Joanie, and she smiled at me.
"It's Jack," she said. "He's been with Naomi."
"I better go talk to him," I said.
Joanie looked around alarmed, as though she didn't want Jack to know
she had been to bed with me, and then she smiled, thrusting down this
outcropping of her old frightened self. I swung my feet off the bed and
stood up. I was weak, but generally okay. I walked slowly toward my
bedroom door. Interestingly enough, Joanie had taken the precaution of
locking it--to prevent any interruptions of what she had made up her
mind to do.
I walked into Meehan's room. He seemed very serious, much more so than
I had ever seen him before.
"You all right?" he asked.