P. Parrish - The Little Death

“My watch runs slow,” Louis said.

“Get in,” she said.

He slid into the cocoon of leather and orange dash lights. The door shut with a soft shood sound, and the tinted window went up. It was quiet, the outside world gone.

“Where are we going?” Louis asked.

“For a ride,” Sam said.

The Jag pulled away from the curb. A couple of turns and a detour through a residential area, and they were on the road that ran along the beach, heading south.

The condominiums soon gave way to mansions set on sweeping lawns on one side of the road, private beaches on the other. The farther south they went, the bigger and more isolated the huge estates seemed to become. Greek temples gleaming white in the moonlight, mini-Versailles palaces, sprawling Spanish villas glowering behind gates.

Louis strained to look back as they passed a huge place that looked for all the world like that onion-domed cathedral in Russia.

“So, where are you from?” Sam asked finally.

“I live on Captiva,” Louis said.

“Really? Do you know where Marco Island is?”

“Over by Naples.”

“I have a little beach house over there.”

Louis had been to Marco Island years ago on a case. It was a rich playground, gated-community kind of place. He wondered what her definition of a little beach house was.

“This part of the island looks different from the north end,” Louis said.

When Sam glanced over at him, her surprise was there to read in the soft glow of lights. “How do you know that?”

The lie came easily. “I’ve been to Reggie Kent’s house.” A pause. “Have you?”

She smiled as she shook her head. “No, I don’t have much reason to go up there.”

The car slowed, and she turned right. The headlights lit up an high iron gate. “We’re here,” she said.

“Where?”

“My place.”

He didn’t even see her push a button, but the gates were slowly opening. He could see the lights of a small house on the left. But it was a looming structure far down the driveway that drew his eye. It was high and turreted, that much he could see. There were only a few feeble lights on inside and no outdoor lighting at all. Louis could only stare as one image came to his head: an old Spanish castle, like the one in the movie El Cid .

The car came to a stop.

“Yes, it’s awful, I know.”

He looked over at Sam.

“It’s the oldest home in Palm Beach, a real Mizner, and we’re restoring it,” she said. “I’m staying in the guesthouse.” She nodded to the house on the left.

There was no point in pulling punches at this point. “Where’s your husband?” Louis asked.

“Rome.”

She put the Jag in gear, pulled left into a gravel driveway, and cut the engine. The guesthouse was Spanish in style and looked new. To Louis’s eye, it looked like it could comfortably house a family of ten.

He felt a flush of heat. He was out of his element. And Joe was suddenly there with him. What the hell was he doing here? Was this some stupid revenge thing?

“Is something wrong?”

He looked over at Sam. Sam with no last name. Sam with a husband somewhere in Italy. Sam with the soft white skin and smell of cloves.

Suddenly, very suddenly, it hit him. He felt off balance, out of place, off his game. And where that sort of feeling normally put him on guard, now he felt only…

“Louis?”

… liberated.

He leaned over the console and kissed Sam. Her lips were soft, the clove smell strong. The dart of her tongue into his mouth surprised him.

When he drew back, it took her a moment to open her eyes. “Let’s go in,” she said.

The details of the house registered in a blur. A beamed ceiling, living room of plush furniture, dark wood, and thick carpets. Paintings on dark green walls with dim lights over them. She led him down a hall and into a bedroom. Soft lights, odd straw wallpaper, dark furniture out of a rich man’s safari dream.

A huge canopy bed dominated, ripe with white pillows and topped with a meringue of a comforter. Silky netting hung from the canopy, stirred by a paddle fan overhead.

She saw his expression and laughed softly. But she didn’t say anything. She just came to him and kissed him deeply. Then she pulled his shirt from his pants and raised it over his head. Her lips were hot on his chest, and he closed his eyes.

Joe was suddenly there again.

It had been so long.

Her hands were urgent now at his belt. He started to help her, but she pushed his hands away. He let her do the rest, and when she stepped back to look at him, he didn’t move.

“You’re beautiful,” she said.

Then, slowly, with a smile, she reached behind her back. He heard the zipper, then the turquoise dress puddled at her feet. She gave him only a moment to look at her-cream white skin, full breasts, long legs that met at a carrot-red thatch.

He laughed softly as his eyes lingered there.

She read his thoughts and laughed. Then she came to him and pressed her body against his.

Joe was there again for a second, then vanished.

It had been so long. It had been too long.

Her lips were hot at his ear. “Forget her,” she whispered.

And he did. For the next hour, there was nothing but the feel of engulfing warmth, the smell of sweat and salt spray, the tangy taste of her skin, the sounds of her cries in his neck.

Then, suddenly, the game changed. She turned him onto his back and straddled him, taking control. Each time he was at the brink, she would pull back, teasing him, her hair damp with sweat on his chest, her mouth devouring him.

When he could stand it no longer, he threw her on her back and entered her with a ferocity he had never felt before. She clung to him.

“Die with me,” she whispered.

Her body gave a final shudder that triggered his own. He collapsed on her, panting. It was a moment before the room swirled back. Another moment before he realized her arms had fallen from his back and she was not moving.

“Hey,” he whispered.

Nothing.

He slid onto his side. Her body glowed with sweat in the candlelight, her head to one side, her eyes closed.

“Hey,” Louis whispered. “Are you-?”

Her chest wasn’t moving. He scrambled to his knees and gave her cheek a tap. “Sam, wake up!”

Nothing.

“Jesus,” he whispered. His eyes darted to the phone on the night table, then back to Sam. Without thinking, he slapped her hard.

Her eyes sprang open, and she gasped, drawing in a ragged breath. She seemed dazed, and then her hand came up to her cheek as her eyes locked onto his.

“I’m sorry,” Louis said. “God, I’m sorry, Sam. You were out cold, and I had to-”

Her eyes had gone as dark as a night sky. She turned her head away as she rubbed her face. “I think you’d better go,” she said.

Louis didn’t move.

“Just go,” she said.

He was so stunned he didn’t know what to say. Hell, what could he say? She had just ordered him out of her bed. He slipped out of the bed and found his clothes. When he was dressed, he looked back at the bed. Sam had turned on her side, away from him.

He went out to the living room and let himself out the front door. It was only when he saw the black Jag parked in the driveway that he remembered he had come there in her car.

Louis glanced up at the moon. It was probably only about three miles back to the hotel. He went down the driveway and scaled the gate. He turned north on the beach road, and started the walk back.

The roads narrowed, the lots shrank, the towering hedges disappeared. As Yuba had said, the north end was different from the rest of the island.

This was where Reggie Kent’s home was, up on the far part of the island where the “real people” lived. The people who ran the bookstore, the florist, the dry cleaner, the people who might not have inherited their millions but had socked away enough to stake a small lot in one of the modest neighborhoods of older bungalows that made up the north end.