The Lover From An Icy Sea Page 36

  He devised a strategy, then looked around for tools. He spotted an ottoman and two heavy armchairs—exactly what he needed. He picked up the cushy footstool and moved it directly in front of Daneka, then dragged the armchairs to their respective positions about three feet below and at a forty-five degree angle to the outside of the footstool. Next, he reached behind her; took hold of the napkin securing her wrists; moved her to the center of the triangle formed by stool and chairs. With his free hand, he gently pushed her to the ground so that her breasts and belly lay on the ottoman while her knees rested on the floor.

  He let her lie in this prone position, to wonder in silence, while he tied napkins to the legs of the two armchairs. Her gasp was audible when he then reached up to take one ankle, extend her leg, and bind the ankle to the chair. By the time he’d finished with the second, her first gasp had evolved into a low moan. With this manoever, he’d removed both the temptation and her ability to gain relief from the caress of one thigh against the other.

  He stood up and inspected his rigging. She was quite secure now, entirely immobilized. The picture was almost perfect. He gathered together all of the pillows he could find in the living room, ran upstairs to their bedroom and retrieved the pillows from their bed. Bondage was one thing; discomfort another. He piled the pillows he’d taken from their bed one on top of the other and moved the lot under Daneka’s head. He found that four were sufficient for her neck to lie at a comfortable angle. He took the other, smaller pillows he’d found on her couch and placed one each beneath her knees and feet. Then he took the remaining pillow he’d brought down from upstairs, doubled it over and slipped it between the ottoman and her pelvis. This had the immediate effect of raising her abdomen another six inches and straining the ties at her ankles almost to the threshold of pain. He then walked to the dining room table, picked up the bowl of fruit, and returned to where Daneka’s head lay. He sat down and began to unpeel the banana.

  “Time for dessert,” he whispered.

  “May I talk now?” she asked in what sounded to Kit more like a rasp than a voice.

  “You certainly may not, darling. I need your mouth, tongue and teeth for something else right now.”

  A low laugh came back to him by the same route her question had taken. She then puckered her lips in anticipation of having them filled with something other than fruit.

  “No, darling, you’ve first got to earn your banana.” He picked up a strawberry, pulled the stem off and placed it right in the center of her puckered lips. As she gently closed her lips on Kit’s fingers and the fruit, he released it, then withdrew his hand after having first massaged her gums for a moment with thumb and index finger. “One for you—one for me,” he said as he pushed a strawberry aside in the bowl. There were a dozen altogether, and he fed her six in exactly the same way.

  “Oh, dear—we’re fresh out of strawberries!” he said as he fed her the last of her portion. He took one of the two peaches in the bowl and split it in half, removed the pit, and fed it to her—followed by the second half once she’d swallowed the first. “All right now. I think you’ve been a very tidy little girl and have earned your banana. There’s only one problem with this banana. You can’t eat it.”

  Daneka first grinned, then obliged Kit once again with a pucker. He took the fruit in his hand and began to rub the tip of it over her lips. At the first touch and before she actually caught the scent of it, she lunged forward with her mouth. She immediately realized, however, that it was indeed a banana, and her eagerness gave way to a groan. When Kit next began to insert and withdraw the fruit from her mouth, however, he could only marvel at her dextrousness. Her teeth didn’t once touch the smooth flesh of the fruit, while her lips worked their usual magic. It excited him almost as much to watch her with the banana as it would’ve excited him to be in its place.

  He eventually withdrew the banana altogether. “Well, darling. I believe it’s now my turn.” He picked up the bowl, stood up, walked down to the ottoman and sat back down. He had six remaining strawberries, one peach, one banana—and a fair idea of how he might employ each of them. One after the other, the six strawberries went into Daneka, then into Kit’s mouth. He split the single remaining peach, smeared the open faces of it over her exposed vulva, then popped them into his mouth. The peach juice could certainly account for some of the wetness of the pillow on which Daneka’s breasts, belly and lower abdomen rested—but only for some of it. And neither the strawberries nor the peach could take entire credit for the swollen condition of her outer lips, the rhythmic pulsing of her inner lips, or the fact that both sets of lips had long ceased their natural inclination to close.

  He put just the tip of the banana inside her to see how she’d respond. If ever he’d thought Daneka could no longer surprise him, he was about to be disabused of that notion. He pushed it in about an inch, then stopped. She took it out of his hand and, by the sheer strength and determination of her vaginal muscles, sucked in all but a couple of inches. A first view of the icy cliffs of Antarctica could not have thrilled him more: it was majestic and wonderful at once—and she, a miracle.

  He grasped the portion of the fruit that was still visible and pulled it gently back—but not entirely—out. With about an inch to go, her muscles began to contract once again—and the banana to disappear with the effort. She and Kit continued this trick for only a few minutes, as the fruit was beginning to lose its firmness. He took it out entirely—and ate it.

  He then unbound her ankles, unbound her wrists, took the napkin away from her eyes and kissed her as he’d kissed her once before at the Boathouse. “Let’s go upstairs, darling,” he said. His wish coincided perfectly with her own. He grabbed the four bed pillows and followed her up the stairs. She walked to the bed and lay down immediately on her back. He climbed on top of her, kissed her once more on the mouth, then moved his mouth down between her legs.

  What met his tongue was the sweetest, most exciting fruit punch he’d ever tasted. She came long and effortlessly in his mouth. Denmark was a quiet country—and so, from the neck up she came into a pillow. He then climbed on top, entered her, and within seconds released all of the pent-up energy of the previous couple of hours. She came immediately again with him, and this time it was his mouth that muffled her screams.

  Several minutes later, he rolled off. “Darling,” she whispered. “Would you be horribly offended if I douched? I’d love to keep all of it right there until morning. But the yeasty beasties, you know—I’m sure they’d have a field day.”

  He kissed her forehead. “Always thinking, aren’t you, my little mermaid! Of course, I wouldn’t be offended. Please,” he said indicating the door to the bathroom.

  When she came back five minutes later and slid back in under the duvet, he curled up behind her and kissed the nape of her neck. Any further verbal declarations of love at this point would’ve been superfluous. The fact of it to both of them was crystal clear—and plain as punch.

  Chapter 61

  When Kit awoke the next morning, it was to gray skies and warm but womanless sheets. He got out of bed, dressed, went downstairs and found her in the kitchen.

  “Morning, darling. ‘Sleep well?”

  “Yes. And you?”

  “Very well, thanks.” He waited to see where and how the conversation would next go. Would she mention anything about the previous evening? Would she, perhaps, pay him the kindness of a compliment? No. Stone silence from a statue with a sponge. “Any coffee, Daneka?” More silence. Maybe, Kit thought, she’d misunderstood him. Maybe she’d thought he was asking whether they should start a coffee plantation in Africa. Meanwhile, she continued scrubbing the counter.

  Kit stood up, walked up behind her and took her wrists. “Coffee?”

  “Oh! Sorry, darling. I didn’t hear you.” She took a cup and saucer down from the cabinet. Kit sat back down in his chair and looked out the window. Denmark—he thought—could certainly be a drag. He wondered whether anyone had ever thought to name a sh
ade of gray ‘Denmark Dreary.’ He looked back at Daneka and saw that she’d gone back to her scrubbing. He stood up again to get a better angle—to see what it was she was scrubbing. There was nothing. The spot was spotless.

  He decided to risk making his own coffee and opened the door to the refrigerator.

  “What are you looking for, darling?”

  “Uh, the coffee. Beans. Grind. Anything that suggests caffeine.”

  “I really think we should be drinking more milk. Why don’t you have a glass of milk instead?”

  “‘Milk’ doesn’t quite satisfy my yen for caffeine.” he answered.

  “Oh, all right.” She pushed him aside rather less than lovingly. He shrugged and sat back down. He watched her reach in and grab a tin of coffee, set it on the counter, then grab her sponge again and begin to wipe down the shelves in the refrigerator.

  “Coffee, Daneka? Café?”

  “Yes, yes. I’m getting to it.”

  Kit decided this was a good time for a smoke. The scene was just too bizarre, he thought. He stepped outside the front door and lit up. It was drizzling. Drab Denmark. But then he thought again as the nicotine finally lit a fresher, happier fire in his brain. Today is a day for gardening. What more could a guy want? He took another drag and decided to walk around the property. There it was—exactly as he’d sketched it out in his imagination the evening before—before everything else, that is. He saw what looked like a toolshed and opened the door. Sure enough: shovels, rakes, trowels—even a Japanese weeding knife. Daneka was nothing if not thorough—at least in her acquisition of the implements of gardening. He inspected her tools more closely and discovered that most of them had never been used. That, or she was so careful and thorough in their clean-up, they just looked as if they’d never been used. Well, this was one thing he was about to change; they’d get a good workout over the next several days.

  He closed the door and continued to survey the property, then reached down and dug up a handful of earth. The soil was good: neither too sandy nor too loamy—just the right combination of both—and so, he wouldn’t need to trouble Daneka with picking up compost. He also wouldn’t need to trouble himself with thoughts of how he was going to pay for it.

  They hadn’t yet discussed the issue of money for plants and whatever else he might need to do the job. He was hesitant to bring it up—as he was hesitant to bring up the topic in connection with anything else they did together—but he knew he really couldn’t afford it. He was already stretching his overdraft privileges to the breaking point, and it was she who’d picked up most of the tabs along the way. It was just a different life-style, a different perspective, a different capacity for living the good life—even if they both knew how to enjoy it.

  He hoped she’d bring it up and allay his anxiety—that she’d simply acknowledge he was a capable gardener, but a penurious one, and so not really able to give her more than the gift of his hands, his love and some talent. He decided to return to the kitchen in order to see whether she’d made any progress with the beans.

  When Kit opened the front door and walked in, he was quietly pleased to see she’d indeed put a pot of water on to boil, had ground the beans, had even poured the ground coffee into a filter. At the same time, he was less pleased to see she was still scrubbing the refrigerator—that she’d moved on from the shelves and was applying all of her energies to the walls. Kit gave them a cursory glance: they were beyond clean. If she was still finding spots, he was at a loss to know where.

  “I wonder whether you wouldn’t mind helping me with the living room today,” she said without looking up from her scrubbing. “I think it needs a thorough cleaning.”

  “I thought you were going to visit your mother, Daneka. We have a whole week to clean. I was really looking forward to getting started on the garden.”

  “Oh, I’m going all right, darling. I just thought we could straighten things up a little bit. You know—a little vacuuming here, a little polishing there.” The pot had begun to whistle. Daneka, apparently, didn’t hear it, as she had her head and shoulders in the refrigerator so as to get a closer look at the spot she was scouring into oblivion. The hyperbole came naturally to Kit at that instant: the whole place reeked of cleaning fluids and disinfectant. He stood up and turned off the gas, then filled the coffee filter to the brim.

  “Look, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you just finish up there, and I’ll take care of the rest, okay? You go see your mother, and I’ll clean up the living room and bedroom myself. The kitchen looks pretty much done to me—except for my cup and saucer, which I’ll be sure to rinse off and put into the dishwasher when I’m finished.”

  “Oh, this kitchen’s filthy!” she said. “I could spend five days on it alone! But if you really wouldn’t mind?”

  “Not in the least. Why don’t you just put that sponge down and run on up to powder your nose before you leave? I’ll have my coffee, then get straight to work on the rooms.”

  “Well, if you really don’t mind,” she said more to the back wall of the refrigerator than to Kit. At least, he thought, the view of her rear was pleasant enough to contemplate—even if the reason she was flashing it was rather less so.

  “There!”

  Finally she quit, re-emerged from the refrigerator and rinsed off her sponge. Kit filled the coffee filter back up, then watched it drain. It was less painful to watch water run through coffee grinds than to watch Daneka rinse her sponge—and they were taking about the same length of time.

  “Why don’t I show you where I store all of my cleaning utensils, and then I’ll walk you through what needs to be done in each of the rooms?”

  “I already know where you store your cleaning utensils, Daneka, and I can probably figure out for myself what needs to be done.” Kit was trying desperately to keep a level voice—at the same time, trying to understand all of this from inside her head.

  “You do?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, in that case—”

  “Yes. Now, go powder. Everything’s in good hands here. I promise. I think you’ll be delighted at what I can accomplish with a mop and a pail of soapy water.”

  “Oh, just let me show you where I keep the pails and which one I use for the floors, which one for the bathroom, which one for the kitchen—”

  “I know where you keep your pails, Daneka. But if it’s important to you that I use a particular one for the floors, perhaps you should point that out to me.”

  “Oh, but it is, darling! We can’t be mixing our germs now, can we?

  We just played sexual Star Trek with a fruit basket twelve hours ago, and now she’s worried about a couple of kitchen germs ending up on the bathroom floor? Kit was beginning to wonder how far into Daneka’s head he’d have to climb to find the circuit breaker: this particular horror show was turning really, seriously horrid.

  She finally finished rinsing out her sponge; placed it carefully next to the sink; aligned it with the side of the basin; dried off her hands with a dish towel; folded the towel carefully and put it back on the rack to dry; stepped a few feet away, looked back at the rack; returned to it to adjust the corner of the towel perhaps half an inch so that its edges were in perfect alignment with the horizontal edges of the rack; stepped away and looked back again. Kit was relieved to see that she now seemed satisfied with its revised position. At the same time, he again felt an urgent need to step outside for a second cigarette. Daneka left the kitchen and walked up the stairs.

  When she came out the front door ten minutes later, he was on his fourth cigarette and second cup of coffee. Wanting her out of his sight was a feeling Kit had never had about Daneka, and it disturbed him. If only they could be apart from each other for a few hours, he thought, perhaps this feeling would simply disappear.

  “Darling, anything you need me to pick up in Rønne?” she asked as she opened her car door and climbed in.

  “No, not a thing. I’ve got everything I need to get started. I’m sure that preparing the
beds will take me the better part of today.”

  “Oh, I don’t want you to spend that much time on them, darling. Just put the pillow cases out to air and hang the duvet out the window. When I get home, I’ll show you how to make them up.”

  “Sure thing.” Kit was crushed. She either hadn’t heard him at all, or had clearly misunderstood him. He began to wonder whether this matter of making her a garden—like the gift of the lichen—was simply all in his mind. “Have a nice time with your mother, and please give her my warmest regards.”

  Daneka started the car and began to back out. Her only acknowledgement of Kit’s last request was a half smile that seemed to come to him out of some other toolshed of little-used tools.

  Chapter 62

  With her gone, he could breathe again—and did: lustily, creatively, freely. He would also work fiendishly over the next several days to find some way to convey to her, in the form of a free-flowing garden, what he felt—even if it might eventually be to no avail.

  * * *

  The routine was always the same. He’d wake up to empty sheets, find her cleaning in the bathroom or somewhere downstairs, would then manage somehow to get her out of the house. Once she’d left, he’d set to work: clearing the beds; turning soil; planting—mostly seeds, but also some plants she’d brought back from her mother’s greenhouse. They’d managed to reach a compromise—seeds would do just fine, she’d insisted; the two of them weren’t going to be around anyway to appreciate the flowers. Seeds, of course, were cheaper than plants from the garden center in Rønne; the plants she brought from her mother’s, cheapest of all. He might not see the product of his labors—at least not until next spring, but that, too, was all right.

  He’d retire his tools each day at about the same time, careful to wipe them down as she’d shown him. Then he’d turn his attention to some other task she’d set out for him to do inside the house—and try to complete it just in time for her arrival. Daneka wasn’t lazy. Nor was she using him to do jobs she really didn’t want to do. Quite to the contrary: she always re-did them when she returned, usually far into the evening, sometimes far into the night.