OCR Text |
Show 156 shore and away from sharks. Her smile returned, lovely. Stirring up the phosphorescence of the water, I marveled again at i t , though I did not yet know that Phosphor is the Morning Star, sometimes called Venus. Also called Lucifer. Lucifer matches to l i g h t a f i r e . All we knew was how great i t was to laugh and splash in the place of Venus's b i r t h. Yet the shark pressed s t i l l upon our minds, that primal shape, dorsal fin slicing through the dark ocean, a l l that space out there no place for people, and we returned to the friendly beach. As I was sorting through the clothes looking for my shorts, the white ballooning Navy skivvies, she touched my arm, shyly but wonderfully bold: "Don't get dressed yet." Our two hours were not nearly up, the sand was fine and supporting. By then we trusted each other completely with our nakedness, trusting our bodies as they rolled up into one b a l l , trusting this ancient way of behaving, this old f i re of the flesh. Once more I gave her a fraction of the love her husband could not give her now, gave her flesh a recollection of past joy, gave i t a present groaning pleasure, and perhaps a sharp willingness to desire the future. She gave me no less. And yet, again, she could not support the after-feelings. When she dropped me at the Deauville I leaned down through the window to kiss her but she did not respond, her eyes dark in the night. "Shacking up doesn't mean a t h i n g , " she said, looking out from the seat, gripping the wheel with both hands. "Right." "Not a thing." "Nothing." "Nothing." |