Aaron Elkins - The Dark Place

"No."

"Well, I do."

"Julie, don’t be silly. The idea of knowing when you’re being watched is based on the invalid idea that some kind of energy flows from the observer to the observed object. The most elementary principles of vision make it clear that light travels the other way around, from the stimulus-"

"Did someone say something about being pedantic?"

"Okay, in simple, nonevaluative terms: It’s stupid. You’re being ridiculous."

"Yes, sir." A long silence. She turned to face him. "But I feel it."

"Julie, the absurdity of it is empirically demonstrable, and there-"

"I liked it when you touched my hair."

"-were several experiments in the late sixties… What?"

"I liked your hand on my hair."

"I…didn’t mean to wake you. I’m sorry." Like hell he was.

She lay on her side, looking at him, her eyes enormous. The wind whispered in the tops of the trees again, and another gleaming rain of pine needles fell. Gideon brushed some from her cheek. Her face was warm.

"Gideon," she said, "you know that conversation we had about being adult and not letting animal passions interfere with a burgeoning, mature relationship?"

"Mmm."

"Did I really say that?"

"I think maybe I did. It sounds more like my style."

"Mmm. Dumb, huh?"

"Boy, dumb is right," he said. "I mean, like, I know dumb, and that’s what that was. Dumb."

She raised her arm, lifting the top of her sleeping bag. He could barely hear her whisper, "Come to me."

Unmindful of the cold, he threw back the cover of his own bag and went, kneeling on the sharp gravel and bending to kiss her. He could hear his heart pounding, feel his chest vibrate with the hammering, but the kiss was chaste and almost austere, a gentle, tranquil touching of lips while their bodies held apart. They moved their heads slowly back and forth, so that their lips brushed softly. Her hand lay lightly on the back of his neck; his fingers traced the line of her cheek.

In another moment, each with a small cry, they were in an embrace of furious intensity, their mouths seeking each other’s lips, throats, eyelids, ears; kissing, nuzzling, licking, inhaling. Urgent and clumsy, they tore at each other’s clothing. Gideon pulled her body roughly to his. It was over in a few seconds, and they rolled apart, gasping.

After a while she spoke in a tiny voice: "Oh, my goodness, was that really me? How embarrassing."

Gideon took a deep, slow breath and let it out. "Wow. Talk about animal passions. I’m afraid I got carried away."

"Yes. Wasn’t it terrific?" She giggled, and he thought: This is serious. Even her giggling sounds wonderful. Watch out, Oliver.

"Terrific," he said.

They turned to each other and embraced, more gently this time.

"Mmm," she said, nestling against his chest, "hairy devil, aren’t you? That’s nice. Very appropriate for a physical anthropologist." She ran her hand down his side to his knees, then slowly up his body and over his chest. "I must say, Dr. Oliver, for a grand old man of anthropology, you are built."

"Thank you, I think. You’re quite well preserved yourself." With his face buried in her hair, he slowly stroked her smooth back from shoulder to waist and cupped her ample, firm buttocks in both hands.

"Ah, Julie, you feel marvelous: solid and soft and sexy and female."

She lay without moving, purring quietly as his hands roved over her, caressing, rubbing, gently kneading. "Gideon," she said, her voice muffled by his chest, "this feels so lovely, but I’m falling asleep. I can’t help it. Do you mind terribly much?"

"Shh, no. Go to sleep. Why should I mind?"

"Don’t you want to despoil me again, you beast?"

" Despoil you-?"

"Well, violate me, then?"

"No, I don’t even want to ravish you. Well, maybe a little."

Her hands worked down over the hair on his belly and grasped and held him. "What’s this then?"

"A mere, mindless, purely physical reflex. Pay no attention." He kissed her hair. "Really, I’m happy, believe me. Anyway, I can ravish you better when you’re asleep."

"You’re sure you don’t mind?" she said, barely awake, her cheek warm against his chest, her breasts pressed to his side.

"Shh, sleep."

He shifted slightly to let her snuggle in more comfortably and lifted one of her breasts for the pleasure of letting its warm, soft weight come down on his ribs again. Breathing in the fragrance of her hair and putting one hand protectively on her shoulder, the other one possessively on her thigh, he settled himself for sleep.

"Hey," he said suddenly, "why are you wearing perfume? Who wears perfume in a sleeping bag? You were expecting this, weren’t you, you hypocrite?"

"Well," she murmured sleepily, her lips moving deliciously against his chest, "a girl never knows."

They woke later and made love again, but slowly this time, laughing, and whispering, and learning each others’ pleasures. When they were done they slept again, only now it was Gideon who lay in Julie’s arms, his face between her breasts.

In the coldest part of the night, just before dawn, Gideon woke once more, cramped and confined in Julie’s narrow sleeping bag. He climbed out, shivering and grumbling, to try to fit the two bags together.

"Put some clothes on," Julie said thickly. "It must be forty degrees."

He slipped quickly into his shirt and jeans and tried some more, unsuccessfully. They finally settled for simply moving the bags together and leaving them open along the connecting sides. When they finally settled down again, Julie warmed him in her arms, then gave him a motherly little pat on the behind, turned away onto her left side, and wriggled her own posterior into his lap so that they lay spoon-in-spoon fashion.

She reached around and patted him again, on the hip this time, and sighed. "Isn’t this nice, Gideon, dear?"

"Ah, God, Julie…it’s nice." He blinked in confusion. He had almost blurted out, "I love you."

She found his right hand and moved it to her breast, gently molding his fingers around the yielding flesh. Then, after she seemed to be asleep, she lifted his hand, kissed the back of it, rubbed her cheek against it, and placed it again around her breast.

"Why are you wearing clothes?" she asked sleepily.

"You told me to put them on. Do you want me to take them off?"

"Well, certainly." But when he began to move, she clamped his arm down with her own, keeping his hand on her breast. "No. Too comfortable. Want to stay just like this. Besides…"

"Besides what?"

"Besides, it feels so decadent being naked next to a fully dressed man. I feel like a harem girl." She giggled softly and began to breathe slowly and deeply.

"Julie…" he whispered. He’d nearly said it again: I love you.

"Hmm?" she said from a million miles away. Then she laughed again, sighed, worked her buttocks still more securely against him, and quieted.

Gideon lay there, his mind inflamed and perplexed. Did he love her? Not likely. Love as he knew it-and he knew it-came maybe once in a lifetime, and he had had his once; an overflowing, never-to-be equaled once.

A cool, predawn wind with a touch of moisture carried the scent of pine bark and sent strands of Julie’s hair drifting over his face. It was the dear that had done it-homely, old-fashioned word. Nora had called him dear sometimes. Or had she? My God, were the memories already dimming?

But they weren’t already. It was three years, three long years in which no one had called him dear and-of this he was certain-in which he had never once said or wanted to say to anyone, "I love you."

He moved his left arm slightly to ease the pressure of her body on it. Julie adjusted automatically, as if they’d been sleeping together for years. She caressed the hand on her breast, loudly kissed the empty air, and in a sleep-furred voice murmured, "Gideon."