The Lover From An Icy Sea Read online

  Daneka recruited her vaginal muscles in an all-out, last-ditch effort to hold her ground. Kit called a halt to his retreat. Front lines eyeballed front lines. And then Kit’s synapses bugled a thirsty charge. He lunged forward until he was stopped by her cervix. Daneka’s reaction was a sharp intake of breath, followed by an equally thirsty counter-charge.

  For the next five minutes, juggernaut met juggernaut under an already broiling southern Italian sun whose rays streamed in through the window as if conspiring to do both armies in. The previous night’s wine poured out of them and onto the bed sheets like the blood of battle. Above the waist, mouths and hands traded attack for counter-attack in well-coordinated kisses, gropes, squeezes, scratches, pounding, kneading and pleading. Below the waist, grunts on the front lines did bare-knuckled combat in a salty swamp.

  Just as the battle was about to be decided in delirious favor of both combatants, Kit pushed himself up on his hands so as to bring his pelvis up tightly against Daneka’s. She, in turn, arched her back, grasped both legs just below the knees and pulled them up against her chest. They met in a silent scream of rapture, like two pieces of marble at odd angles to one other, yet indistinguishably, inseparably joined at midpoint.

  A few seconds later, they did separate—then collapsed. What “Elysium” best describes—the few minutes before, the seconds of, or the few minutes thereafter—is something that neither was in any humor to debate. They were spent, deliciously spent, and that was all that mattered. After an interlude, Kit was the first to speak.

  “Veni. Vidi. Vici—though not necessarily in that order,” he pronounced to the ceiling in lame grandeur. At that instant, and out of his peripheral vision, he caught sight of a single index finger. Its wag in mid-air suggested that unilateral victory was not precisely his to claim.

  “Venimus. Vidimus. Vicimus.” Daneka corrected with a woman’s willingness to include even the adversary in victory. Kit chuckled. Daneka took his chuckle as a bugle call, sprang up and straddled him.

  “Re-match, darling? Quid pro quo? Me, topsy-turvy? You all bottomsy?” she asked with just the hint of a challenge in her voice. “Say ‘hello’ to one little mermaid,” Daneka teased as she pinned Kit’s arms back against the bed and brought her breasts down to within easy reach of his tongue and lips. He obliged with a nuzzle, a lick and a quick kiss to each.

  His intentions had been purely playful. Daneka’s might’ve been the same. Whether fortunate or unfortunate for both, his little play produced an unexpected reaction. Daneka returned the first breast to his mouth. He took it in greedily. The first breast and nipple satisfied, she gave him the second—for which he showed equal enthusiasm. He looked up into her face and saw her watching him. His greed was clearly exciting her. The tip of her tongue on her own lips mimicked Kit’s as he hop-scotched first across one breast and then across the other. Her excitement—her unconscious mimicry—in turn produced an instantaneous reaction in him, which she now felt prowling about between her legs.

  She released his arms. But some indefinable pleasure in her domination, however benign, kept them where they lay. Maintaining her crouched position, Daneka slid—as if oiled—down his thigh until her chest was directly over his pelvis, then reached up with both hands and bunched her breasts around his tentative erection. With her tongue, and by means of some contortion Kit wouldn’t have thought possible, she alternatively licked her own nipples and the tip of him.

  Just seconds earlier, one part of him had been tentative—but that part was tentative no longer. He propped his head up on a pillow and watched her intently as she masturbated him with her breasts. From time to time, she reached between her legs, paused for a few seconds as she closed her eyes, then brought her hand back up and smeared both him and her breasts with a fresh effusion.

  The liquid sounds and sight of her should’ve been enough to bring him to an easy climax. But they weren’t. His greed exceeded the simple desire of an ejaculation. He wanted her capitulation, her total resignation. And if language was the key, he’d use it—even her language.

  Kit reached down under her armpits and dragged her—still crouching—forward until her head was level with his. He then blew the hair aside from her ear, leaned forward, and whispered:

  “I wanna fuck you. Fuck you hard. I want you to take my cock into your cunt—”

  Daneka’s reaction cut him short and rendered any further language superfluous. As she raised her upper body up off of his, he looked up at her eyes. They’d gone blank; had receded immediately into her other world. At the same time, she reached down between her legs with both hands, grabbed him with one, spread herself open with the other, and plunged down with a vengeance.

  She rode him—even Kit could’ve found no more delicate way to describe it. With her head thrown back and her hands clutching the headboard for support, she rode him—into one, two, three successive orgasms. He’d only recently come with her, and it was a long time before he’d come again. But she, with her magic, managed to keep him erect. Occasionally, as she continued her inexorable humping, she’d sense he might be losing his erection. When she did, she wasted no time. Without altering her rhythm or her angle, she’d bend down close to his hear and whisper:

  “Fuck me … fuck me … fuck my ravenous cunt.”

  It was fuel for both their fires. He’d regain his erection, and she’d continue to ride. She had a fourth, then a fifth, until he finally rose up against her and they climaxed simultaneously. The faint, warm sensation of him shooting up inside caused her to bang the headboard first with her fists, then with her head. She grimaced in pain, but still she banged. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Tears became sobs. Sobs became one prolonged wail.

  Kit grabbed her wrists. She struggled against him. He let go of her wrists and encircled her with his arms, pulled her in with a straitjacket embrace. She struggled harder to get free, all the while sobbing, wailing, transferring her blows from the headboard to his chest. Kit became frightened. This struggle was unnatural. She was possessed by something, and that something seethed in her like a coil of angry snakes—as much beyond his control as beyond hers. If he were unable to tap into and break this possession, he feared she might do one or both of them some real damage. Not physical damage—he had too tight a hold on her to let that happen—but emotional damage.

  He realized he’d just crossed over with her—not only that he’d accompanied her into that netherworld of which he’d already caught a horrid glimpse twice before—but that he, with clear intention, had led her there; had taken her by the hand and dragged her over at a moment when they were both vulnerable, both defeated by an adversary neither was even remotely equipped to contend with, much less defeat. He’d led her to the brink, and then pushed her over and jumped in after. Together, they’d fallen headlong and tumbled to a place to which Kit would otherwise never have ventured. His rejection, until this moment, was born not out of fear or repugnance, not even out of a lack of curiosity. He knew what humanity was capable of. He’d read history, surfed the ‘Net, read up on everything from self-flagellation to the ecstatic rituals of the Хлысты. That which was simply too hideous to describe or display in either was still available to his imagination—and his imagination, he knew, could unlock all doors.

  There were those who thrived on orgiastic sex, and Kit knew it. There were those who’d work their way through bodies and orifices until there were no more to be had—searching, always searching, for some other, newer sensation. There were those for whom multiple partners, group sex, simultaneous penetration in as many ways and in as many places as humanly possible was simply yesterday’s news—who then sought some higher—or lower—form of sensation through pain and degradation, whether inflicted upon others or upon themselves. He knew this, too. There were those for whom no beauty was too pure, no age or relation inviolable, no principle unbreakable. Kit had seen first-hand, heard about, or allowed himself to imagine everything from chicken fucks to snuff films.

  Love, he also kn
ew, was generous. For love—and, in particular, for the love of this woman—he would travel to any depths, would tolerate any decadence, would suffer humiliation, even emotional evisceration. He would do any and all of this out of love for her—provided she would come out with him at the other end, made whole again, and never look back.

  He wondered whether Denmark would hold some clue, some key to the door she kept shut; whether the solution to the mystery of Daneka lay in Denmark, and whether he was about to find it; and whether, in finding it, she’d allow him to lead her back out the other end—for all time—to become, finally, his true soul mate.

  Chapter 47

  She was calm now, composed—her breathing and heartbeat steady. Much to Kit’s chagrin, however, the incident would not prove to be an epiphany. In preference to reflection, Daneka chose the nearest, quickest exit: humor. With a low chuckle, she turned only her head towards him, too exhausted to move any other body part.

  “Now, that’s what I call a breakfast of champions!”

  However keen his disappointment, even Kit knew that trading quips was far less likely to lead to conflict than would a forced introspection. They had a plane to catch, a continent to cross, and a thousand tiny tasks to attend to first. Introspection, he reasoned conveniently, could wait.

  “Or maybe of champignons,” he answered—a smirk just catching the corners of his mouth.

  Daneka tweaked his nose. “You’re my little champignon! Shower, darling? Together?”

  “The pair that showers together, flares together,” Kit deadpanned.

  “Oh, no, no!” she corrected. “The pair that showers together, flowers together. We’re in full bloom, darling, or hadn’t you noticed?” She tweaked his nose again, slid off the bed and walked into the bathroom. Kit sat up and watched her through the door as she bent over to adjust the hot and cold water faucets. The sight of her from behind provoked in him that same instinctive desire that is provoked in the male of every species when his eyes trip accidentally upon a view from the rear of a female bending over. But no—not now, not again, he reasoned: they had a plane to catch.

  * * *

  They showered together in businesslike fashion, but took a child’s delight in soaping each other. Daneka’s expert technique with the suds facilitated yet another demonstration of Kit’s remarkable resiliency. Once she’d rinsed off the soap, she dropped down on both knees to relieve his renewed excitation.

  They lost another five minutes: he, somewhere in paradise; she, in enough water to drown half a dozen good men—as Kit had neglected to turn the shower nozzle away from her slightly upturned face, while she adamantly refused to interrupt the task at hand—or, as it were, at mouth.

  They dried off; shaved whatever each felt needed shaving; brushed their teeth and hair. Kit suggested he’d go up to the front office to check them out and settle the bill.

  “Sounds fine, darling, but the bill’s already been paid. I did that from New York before we left,” she said to him through the medium of the bathroom mirror, in the reflection of which she was beginning to apply her make-up.

  “Uh-huh. Then I owe you one.”

  “For the room, darling, or for the shower?” she asked. Kit noticed a glint in her eye and just the merest curtsy of laugh-lines in her reflection.

  “For both.”

  “Well, now, if you’re absolutely going to insist… You know, of course, that it’s an hour and a half from Naples to Milan—and then just over two hours from Milan to Copenhagen. Since neither of us fancies cards, and since I can’t think of a single good book I’d like to curl up with, and since I absolutely abhor bad jokes … Well, then, you may just have to devise something a little different.” Her eyebrows arched and she blinked several times in quick succession as if to suggest that the matter was quite settled—unless, of course, Kit still had doubts as to how he might fulfill his obligation.

  He had none.

  * * *

  When Kit returned to their room several minutes later, she’d done it all: dressed; re-arranged their flight reservations and car rental for a drop-off in Naples; packed their bags; even arranged for a porter—who was just now knocking at the door—to take their bags up to the car. And she’d done all of it in as much time as it had taken him to walk to the hotel lobby, pick up a receipt for a bill she’d already paid, and walk back to their room.

  What is there this woman can’t do? he wondered.

  Moreover, they’d not once spoken about her job—the thing, Kit assumed, that took up most of her waking hours in New York, and at which she was clearly a star. The fact that she hadn’t made a single telephone call back to the office suggested to him either that she had things so well under control she could afford to let it all run on autopilot, or that she was simply so self-confident, she knew whatever needed her attention could, and would, wait.

  He suspected that most men in her position and with comparable responsibilities would be frantic with worry at this point as to how the company and its business could possibly survive without them; alternatively, that they’d be bored silly without fires to start—which they could then heroically put out; without procedures to devise, administer, tinker with, then discard and replace with new ones; without ceremonies and meetings to attend, business lords and ladies to flatter, lackeys and adversaries to browbeat, berate, cajole, coerce, undermine—in short, to do the stuff of “work” while the real work went on elsewhere.

  What, then, is she doing with me? he thought to himself.

  He suddenly noticed she wasn’t dressed in her usual way, and that her make-up was—he wasn’t sure how else to put it—stark. The outfit she’d chosen could hardly be described as ‘sexy’ or ‘glamorous.’ He even wondered how it had come to share the same wardrobe with everything else he’d ever seen her in. It was, in a word, homespun. Her hair, too, was arranged in a way that made her look almost girlish. One of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen—with a sense of fashion, style and fit that made everything she wore look custom-tailored—now presented herself like a peasant who’d never set foot outside her own village.

  And then it dawned on him: she was going home. However much life had changed her between then and now, however sophisticated and urbane she’d become in the ways of the world and in how to effectively manage her life and the people in it, she was now—at least in dress and demeanor—deferring to something more primitive, more rudimentary. It was, Kit thought, almost as if she were regressing; and yet, he wouldn’t have thought it possible that a woman of Daneka’s accomplishments and abilities would, under any circumstances or for anyone, regress.

  As they drove to the airport just north of the Gulf of Naples, she was bubbly and even girlish; she spoke unselfconsciously, without reserve or restraint, and also without artifice—and her enthusiasm became infectious. However much he loved Italy and knew he could’ve stayed for weeks, months, maybe forever, Kit was now looking forward to Denmark in a way he had once, as a small boy, looked forward to Christmas.

  The drive from Positano to Capodichino Airport was relatively short. They found the airport; found the rental car return; dropped off the car; collected their baggage; checked in; proceeded to their departure gate; waited a brief twenty-five minutes; boarded for the first leg of their flight. Within minutes, they were airborne.

  Kit had forgotten neither his obligation nor his promise to fulfill it. At the same time, something about this particular flight felt distinctly unerotic. Naples to Milan was domestic: perhaps that was it. In duration and distance, the flight felt like New York to Buffalo; Miami to Tallahassee; Los Angeles to Sacramento. It could’ve been that. But Daneka also felt different to him. She sat with her purse in her lap, her knees pressed together, her feet flat on the floor. When she wasn’t peering out the window, she was checking her watch.

  They remained silent. An hour and a half later and right on schedule, they landed in Milan.

  Chapter 48

  At Malpensa Airport, they made their way easily from thei
r arrival gate, through Customs, and on into the international lounge, where they found their departure gate and settled in to await their boarding call. The Italian Customs officials, Kit noted with some amusement, had been distinctly uninterested in Daneka. Whether it was her lack of make-up in combination with the peasant plainness of her dress, or rather the boisterous presence of a group—just behind them as he and Daneka came through—of tall, blond, scantily-dressed and strikingly good-looking girls in their late teens or early twenties, Kit couldn’t be certain. What he could be certain of, however, was that Daneka had also registered their presence. From the unguarded and Danishly disdainful expression she wore on her face, it was clear to Kit she wasn’t feeling any particular solidarity with this group of Nordic sisters.

  “Swedes!” she hissed and nudged him forward towards the waiting lounge before promptly collecting both their passports from an official whose attention was clearly focused elsewhere—and so, who hadn’t even bothered to compare the portraits in their documents with the faces of the two people standing in front of him.

  They found a couple of empty seats and sat down. Other passengers continued to stream into the lounge alone or in pairs, occasionally in families, and Kit began to wonder what had become of the girls. He announced his intention to wander over to the smoking section to have a cigarette. Daneka simply nodded.

  Apart from wanting to satisfy his curiosity, Kit had had another thought that was now directing his feet to the duty-free shopping area. While en route, he passed by Customs—the girls were still there. Other passengers were being waved through with barely a glance, much less an inspection of their carry-on luggage. The girls’ bags and knapsacks, by contrast, seemed to be under intense scrutiny. Kit wondered ironically what weapons the Customs officials might be looking for as they satyrically emptied out the contents: thongs, bikinis, underwear—even birth control paraphernalia—all the while exchanging smiles with the girls and quips with their colleagues. One in particular appeared to have enough command of English to use it with the girls, all of whom had no problem responding to him—or even trading quips with one another—in English. The official then provided translations for his colleagues, whose chortles and smirks told Kit whatever part of the story wasn’t directly audible.