Stuart Woods - Under the Lake

Howell stared at the railing. “Yes, I’d better take a hammer and a nail to that, I guess,” he said.

“I remember this place from a long time ago,” she said. “When I was a little girl.” She seemed about to say something else, but then suddenly blurted out, “It’s a gorgeous day, how about a swim?”

“Sure,” he said, while she was already untying the knot of her shirt. She ran down the stairs to the dock, leaving her shirt, jeans, and shoes in a trail behind her. There was no underwear. Struggling with his own clothes, he saw only a flash of the tall, full body before she was into the water. A moment later, he dove in and surfaced, shouting, gasping. He had forgotten how cold the water was. She still had not come up, and he looked around for her. Ten seconds passed, then another ten. She must have been under for nearly a minute, he thought. He forgot the cold and started to worry.

Something brushed his thigh, then she was on his back, ducking him under the water. He’d had no chance to draw a deep breath, and he struggled to free himself from her and get to the surface. She pushed away, and he thrashed upwards, gasping at air. “Jesus!” he shouted. “You want to drown me?”

“No, I don’t want to drown you,” she said, swimming over and putting her arms around, his neck. She kissed him; he put his arms around her and held onto her buttocks. They sank together from a lack of swimming, and he was the first to break free and return to the surface. She came up a moment later. “You’ve got to learn to hold your breath longer if you’re going to have any fun in the water,” she shouted, then made for the dock.

She pulled herself up and sat, trembling, rubbing at the chill bumps on her body. He climbed out beside her. “I’ll get some towels,” he said. When he came back, she was on the deck, still naked, piling their clothes on a chair. She took the large towel, dried herself thoroughly, did the best she could with her hair, then wrapped the towel about her and flopped down into a reclining deck chair. He dragged up another.

“How’s the back today?” she asked.

“Terrific,” he replied. “That was some sort of miracle, you know. How did you do it?”

“I don’t know. I’d never done it before. I think Mama did it through me, somehow. She says her powers will come to me when she’s gone – that it’s already started to happen. I guess it has. It’s more than the healing, too. I get flashes of thoughts, sometimes, from lots of people. I can nearly always tell what the other kids in the family are thinking. Never with Mama, though. She can be as much a mystery to me as to everybody else. Only Dermot seems to read her easily.”

“It’s hard to believe that you… well, that you’re all brothers and sisters,” Howell said.

Her face clouded briefly. “I don’t want to talk about that, please.” Then her expression changed, became laughing, mischievous. “You know, I think I enjoyed your backrub yesterday as much as you did.”

“You couldn’t possibly have liked it as much as I did,” he said.

She laughed aloud. “Well, nearly as much.” She reached over and kissed him, gently. “I wanted to do that yesterday, but I might have forgotten myself.”

He kissed her back. Oh, God, he thought to himself. What is going on here? There were a couple of times in his life when he had been seduced by a girl, but never as directly as this. He felt himself drifting into a soft haze. Whatever it was, they were both experiencing it. He slipped a hand under her towel, parted her, and stroked gently for a moment. She sighed and opened her legs slightly. He kissed her again, then moved slowly down her body with his lips and tongue, pulling away her towel. She was fresh from the lake water, and he was amazed at the sweetness of her.

In what seemed to be one long motion, she took his head in her hands, pressed him back in the reclining chair, threw a leg over his body, and drew him inside her. She had moved so gracefully, aimed so perfectly that she had not even needed her hands. She began to move slowly up and down him in long, smooth movements.

Howell lay back and looked up at her, her head thrown back to receive the sunlight, her pale, red hair stroking her shoulders as she rolled her head, an expression on her face that seemed as much acute thought and concern as passion. She opened her eyes and looked at him with surprise, moving faster, silently opening and closing her mouth, her eyes going in and out of focus. “It’s happening,” she said, huskily. “Come with me! You must, you must!”

He sat up and hugged her to him and did as she asked, without effort, pouring himself into her in floods until, at last, he had only the strength to lay his head on her shoulder and hold on. She ran her fingers through his hair and rested with him, both of them twitching involuntarily. Then she pushed him gently back into the recliner and stood up. She passed a hand over his eyes and said, “No, just rest, don’t get up.” He did as she asked. A moment later he opened his eyes, and she was standing over him, her jeans on, tying a knot in her shirttail.

“Don’t go,” he said, attempting to rise.

She pushed him back in the deck chair and kissed him. “I must. Mama will wake up soon. I need to be there.” She kissed him again, then started for the stairs.

“Leonie,” he called, and she stopped and turned. “Why me?”

She paused, and for a moment he thought she would tell him. Then her expression changed, and she shrugged. “Why not?” She ran down the steps and away.

Howell gathered up their towels and started toward the bedroom, feeling just a bit pleased with himself. It was a nice thing, having a sex life again; it did wonders for the ego. It was the best of all worlds, he thought. The relationship with Scotty was such that he felt no guilt about sleeping with Leonie; they had both made their declarations on that subject. On the other hand, Leonie didn’t know about Scotty. He didn’t feel inclined to tell her, either. After all, Scotty was only available in the evenings, and Leonie had said she could only see him in the afternoons. He felt a little guilty about feeling so good about that, but pushed the thought aside. He didn’t need guilt right now. Then his eye fell on Elizabeth’s letter.

He picked it up and weighed it in his hand. At least two pages of her heavy, cream writing paper. He dreaded reading it; she would probably beg him to come back, making him feel even more guilty. He tore it open and sat down to her bold, precise handwriting.

Dear Johnny,

If I were a braver person I would have come up to see you, or at least called you, but I’m not, so I’m taking the coward’s way out.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since you left. I felt when you went that you probably would not come back, but then I thought you might come back out of a sense of obligation and not because you wanted to. I don’t want that, and, after a lot of agonizing, I think it would be better if you didn’t come back in any case.

I may as well tell you, too, before you hear it from somebody else, that I’ve met a man that I’m strongly attracted to. You don’t know him; his name is Winston Behn. He’s not one of the people we ran around with, he’s a fashion designer, and a good one. (Definitely not gay.) We seem to have a lot in common, and I’ve grown very fond of him very quickly. I don’t know if it will work, but I have to try.

I know you feel badly that it was you who drew away, but I don’t think you should. I honestly think you did the best you could. We never fought or tried to hurt each other, and I have a lot of good memories. A part of me will always love you, and I’ll always think of you as my friend. I hope you’ll think of me that way.