Lizzie

13: Cannes — 1890

On Monday morning, the first day of September, Albert departed for Germany, and the villa settled into what Lizzie would come to realize was its normal summertime routine. Early that morning (Lord knew what time Albert had left) she and Alison were served their breakfasts of bacon and eggs with a side platter of cold meat and game in their respective bedrooms, the connecting door closed since Alison professed she was unfit company for man or beast when first she greeted the day. Alison always drank tea with her breakfast; in deference to the American guest, a pot of lukewarm coffee had been prepared for Lizzie by the cook — whose name, she discovered, was Isabel, but whom Alison addressed simply as Cook.

After breakfast, they bathed and dressed, and then took a brisk walk into town, where Lizzie purchased a bathing costume and slippers for Alison’s vaguely promised outing to the sea “sometime later this week”. Lizzie was accustomed to a rather more substantial midday meal than was served that noon on the terrace, and was frankly still hungry after eating more than her proper share of bread and cheese, washed down with white wine. She was beginning, by then, to recognize that an occasional glass of wine with lunch or dinner presented neither a physical nor a spiritual danger, but it nonetheless troubled her to see Alison drinking so liberally, even though the wine seemed to have little effect on her however much she drank of it. Lizzie wondered if she drank whiskey as well. She wondered, too, how she could ever explain to the WCTU, once she was home, that she had imbibed even the tiniest drop of alcohol while abroad. Well, as Alison had said, she was on holiday. There was time enough for a return to abstinence when she was back in Fall River again. And still she could not imagine any of her WCTU friends, or even her co-workers on the Fruit and Flower Mission, behaving as she was now behaving, however far from home they might be. She suddenly thought of Eve and of the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

After their meager lunch, she and Alison sat on wicker lounges on the lawn, taking the sun.

“Delicious,” Alison said.

She was wearing a sleeveless, loose-fitting, white muslin garment she said she had purchased on one of her many journeys here or there. She was quite naked beneath it, the sun silhouetting her long legs whenever she rose to pour warm lemonade or to fetch a towel or a cushion. Lizzie — though she had immodestly forsaken corset, petticoat or stockings — felt nonetheless hot and sticky in muslin underdrawers and chemise, a long-sleeved blouse, and a simple dark skirt. Like Alison, she was barefooted; unlike Alison, she was fearful of moving about on a lawn buzzing with hidden bees.

“There are fools, you know,” Alison said, her voice a murmur scarcely louder than the hum of the insects, “who insist on coming here only during the winter months, gulling themselves into believing the climate is semitropical — whatever that may mean. How they can ignore temperatures in the low forties is quite beyond me. Not to mention the bloody mistral, which can drive one insane within a fortnight. But it’s the fashionable thing to do, and Lord knows we must be fashionable, we British. I prefer the summer months, thank you very much. Are you comfortable, Lizzie? I fear you’re overdressed.”

“I’m very comfortable, thank you,” Lizzie said, though she was not.

“I know people who insist that the summer climate here is blisteringly hot,” Alison went on, voicing Lizzie’s inner thoughts. “You’d think they were talking about darkest Africa. You wouldn’t catch a fashionable Englishman here — unless he’s ailing or infirm — anytime between the first of May and the end of October. Afraid of missing the London season, don’t you know. And afraid of the sun. And afraid of God knows what else. Perhaps riffraff like myself who enjoy nothing better than to lie about soaking up the sunshine.”

Whereupon she closed her eyes, lifted the hem of her odd garment higher on her legs, and fell into a deep, uninterrupted silence that lingered for the rest of the afternoon.

In her room later, running a tub of tepid water (although she had turned on only the hot faucet), Lizzie wondered if this was to be the tenor of her remaining days at the villa. After the whirlwind of the weekend’s social activity, however boring it might have been, she felt somewhat disappointed and knew she would soon tire of a routine that seemed premised on an utter commitment to indolence. Well, she thought, perhaps this is only today. Perhaps Alison is resting after the weekend. And surely there’ll be something more substantial for supper than there was for lunch.

Instead a sort of high tea was served, consisting of soup, a salad, cold meat, cheese, fruit and — of course — wine. Lizzie was famished when she went to bed that night, determined to mention to Alison — subtly, to be sure — that her convalescence required heartier fare. In fact, she did not feel at all convalescent, and she wondered now if Alison’s idleness today had been prompted by concern for a guest she felt might still be ailing. As she drifted off to sleep, she imagined all the sumptuous feasts her friends doubtlessly were being served in Italy.

On Tuesday it became apparent that the day before had been no accident. Alison’s “holiday” routine became clearly established then as only more of the same: breakfast in bed, bathe and dress, a walk to town (already beginning to pall on Lizzie), a walk back to the villa, lunch, sunshine and lemonade, a late high tea, some conversation before bedtime, and then to sleep at an hour that would have been considered early even in Fall River. Lizzie was beginning to think it might already be time to telegraph Geoffrey. In fact, she was contemplating making the journey to Italy without a male escort. Would it really be all that dangerous for a woman traveling alone? She had no desire to offend her hostess — who until recently had been her devoted nurse as well — but surely she hadn’t come to Europe to sit about in the sunshine listening to the bees droning in the grass.

On Wednesday there was yet more of the same. When she attempted to break the somnolent routine by asking questions about the nearby towns of Vence and Grasse, Alison answered her only briefly and then went back to reading a novel that seemed to require her complete attention; she was turning quite brown by then, and the garments she wore when taking the sun — all of them looking as though they’d been purchased in some Oriental bazaar — were shorter than would have seemed modest. She smelled constantly of coconut oil, with which she doused her face and limbs and the exposed area above her breasts. She talked idly of excursions Lizzie now feared they would never make. She dozed, she read, she seemed entirely content to lie about like a serpent, utterly unmindful of her guest’s wishes. Even before Rebecca’s letter arrived in the late-afternoon post, Lizzie had made up her mind to move on as soon as was politely possible.

She read the letter in the privacy of her room.

Yes, Lizzie thought, I shall be waiting for you in Milan.

All that remained now was to break the news to Alison.

And then, on Saturday morning, Alison seemed abruptly to recover from her lethargy, bursting into Lizzie’s room at the crack of dawn, her blond hair falling loose about her shoulders, sunlight streaming through her beribboned nightdress, an excited gleam in her eyes, a wide smile on her generous mouth.

“Good morning, good morning, lazy shanks!” she called cheerfully. “Hurry and eat your breakfast — is the coffee to your liking? If it isn’t, I shall have cook whipped in the marketplace! Hurry, you must run your tub and then get into your bathing costume! I shall give you one of my outlandish Arabian smocks to put on over it — no one shall see us but George! Take along the bathing slippers you bought, there may be rocks! Hurry, Lizzie — oh, what a glorious day it is!”

An hour later George drove them down into the Old Town, where Alison engaged a fisherman in the port to row them in his dinghy to what she described as a “delightfully deserted sandy beach in a hidden cove”. The fisherman seemed to know the spot well, and Lizzie wondered how actually deserted it might be. But the cove was, in fact, quite hidden from sight and surrounded by a semicircle of forbidding cliffs that made it inaccessible except by the sea. Alison extracted promises from the fisherman, sworn to on his mother’s eyes, that he would pick them up again at four sharp, and then she waded ashore carrying a blanket, towels and the picnic basket cook had prepared. Extending her hand to Lizzie, she helped her over the pebbles that bordered the small sandy beach.

“I find it peculiar,” she said, shrugging out of her tentlike smock, “that bathing in the sea has only recently been proclaimed harmless to the health, whereas I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember.” She dropped the white muslin garment onto the blanket she had spread, and stood facing Lizzie, her hands on her hips. She was wearing a dressy bathing costume of navy blue and white alpaca, trimmed with a coarse white pique lace, and girdled at the waist with a heavy lace-fringed sash. Below the skirt of the costume were pantaloons of the same color and fabric, ending in the same lace trim some three inches below her knee. She wore no cap and no stockings. Her canvas sandals were laced à la grecque with white tapes that wound about her ankles and were knotted somewhere below the shin.

“I find it even more odd,” she said, “that anyone in her right mind should choose to enter the sea as ridiculously clothed as either you or I are,” and to Lizzie’s great surprise, she unbuttoned the back of her costume and lowered the shoulders, shrugging out of the short, lace-edged puffed sleeves, slipping entirely out of the overskirt, and then dropping the pantaloons over her legs to reveal herself quite naked except for the laced sandals. Laughing, she ran into the sea.

She dove beneath the surface almost at once, and then rose again some short distance further, her arms extended above her head as though she were diving in reverse into the air itself, her blond hair plastered to the sides of her face, a wide grin on her mouth as she turned to Lizzie.

“There!” she shouted exultantly. “Naked to the tail! And, oh, how marvelously refreshing it is! Strip off that clumsy garment and come join me.”

She stood grinning in water to her waist, her hands on her hips now, her breasts fully exposed to whoever with a spyglass should choose to—

Lizzie turned in panic, scanning the boulders above the beach.

“There’s no one!” Alison shouted. “Come in, come in, we’re quite alone!”

She turned and dove beneath the surface again. This time she stayed under for quite a time longer, frightening Lizzie. When her head once again reappeared, Lizzie let out her breath in relief and took a tentative step toward the water’s edge. Even through her slippers the sea felt colder than any stream or lake she’d ever bathed in back home. The water touched her ankles now, and now her shins. She was dressed as fancily as Alison had been, wearing a black sailor-style costume with a white-duck sailor collar and a wide tie embroidered with anchors, the full skirt ending just below her knees. Beneath the skirt she wore black-gartered stockings and full bloomers attached to the waistband. Like Alison, she wore no cap, and her heavy canvas slippers were tape trimmed and tied up her legs to almost the shins.

“You shall feel warmer naked!” Alison shouted. “Take off that silly thing!”

“I couldn’t,” Lizzie said, and glanced again at the boulders above. She felt the icy cold water touching her thighs through the mohair skirt and bloomers, touching next the recoiling patch of her womanhood, and then her belly and breasts, the sleeves of the costume now as soddenly cold and clinging as the rest of it, and suddenly she recognized that Alison was right, she would feel warmer without the oppressively wet garment against her flesh — but no, she couldn’t possibly.

She held her breath and dove beneath the surface. The sun disappeared, there was only the cold dark water now, her costume resisting passage through it, scooping water into its neck, flooding it in over her breasts, her nipples puckering in response, the bodice of the costume billowing. She thought — and this took no longer than the five seconds that elapsed as she swam the next little distance under water and reached for the surface — she thought, But truly I am alone here with Alison, and she’s already seen me. Her head broke the surface. Gasping for air, she stood erect in the water, shivering.

Certain she was blushing, she lowered the top of the costume over her shoulders, pulled her arms free of the clinging sleeves, and then stepped entirely out of the overskirt. She waded closer to the beach, wearing only the sodden bloomers, stockings and sandals. She glanced quickly toward the boulders again, lowered the bloomers and hurled the entire costume toward the blanket. Naked but for her gartered black stockings and the white canvas sandals, she lowered herself quickly into the water again and swam to where Alison was waiting.

“My. brave Lizzie,” Alison said, and smiled.

“I feel like a bawd,” Lizzie said, her teeth chattering.

“Nonsense,” Alison answered, and rolled over onto her back. “Feel the sun, Lizzie,” she murmured. “Let the sun kiss you.”

They floated on their backs in the sunshine, their eyes closed, their arms outstretched, their hands almost touching. They bobbed gently on the water. The world was utterly still. Lizzie suddenly laughed.

“What?” Alison said.

“Should there be someone on that cliff...”

“But there isn’t,” Alison said.

“But should there be, and should he have a spyglass...”

“Yes?”

“He shall wonder what on earth these four pink-tipped globes are.”

“Oh, Lizzie, you are a bawd!” Alison said, and both women began laughing as foolishly and as fiercely as they had that day in her Kensington home while the shadows lengthened and the tea grew cold.

The servants left early Sunday morning for their day off, making a frightful clatter of their departure and awakening Lizzie before she felt entirely slept out. In her nightdress she went to the small arched window opening on the courtyard and saw first Moira and then Isabel traipsing across it, each of them carrying small fabric bags similar to the one Lizzie used while shopping back home. In a whisper that must have awakened half the occupants in the adjoining villas, George said from the main gate, “Hurry now, you two!” and she watched as the women quickened their pace. Moira said something to the cook, and both women laughed. She heard the massive entrance doors swinging shut with a loud bang, and then more laughter from beyond them, and the sound of the horse’s hooves as the carriage started its descent toward town.

She was ravenously hungry; the fish last night, though fresh, had tasted a bit too much of the ocean, and she had scarcely touched it. She pulled on a combing cape over her nightdress and, barefooted, went silently onto the gallery. Tiptoeing down the stairs to the courtyard, she nonetheless frightened a mourning dove who took sudden flight and soared up over the tiled roof of the villa.

Isabel had squeezed fresh oranges and had set the juice out on the counter alongside the sink. A pot of coffee was steaming on the iron cookstove. A loaf of bread covered with a cloth to keep off flies was on the table, a knife beside it. Lizzie found where the glasses and cups were kept, poured herself some orange juice and coffee, and then rummaged about until she found the sugar bowl in one of the cabinets and the milk pitcher in the top compartment of the square wooden icebox. She found a slab of butter there as well, beside a square block of fresh ice. She was cutting a thick slice of bread from the loaf on the table when Alison came into the kitchen.

“Did the thundering herd awaken you as well?” she asked.

Her blond hair was hanging loose about her face. Her green eyes appeared heavylidded, as though she were not yet fully awake. She wore a muslin nightdress with a frilly collar and sleeves; the early morning sunlight danced through the garment, silhouetting her slender body as she walked barefooted across the tiled kitchen floor.

“Good morning, Lizzie,” she said, and took her hands and kissed her on the cheek. “Ah, good, I see they’ve left something for us to nibble on. They’re not always quite so generous on their day off. Have you... yes, I see you have, good for you. Did you sleep well last night?”

“Beautifully,” Lizzie said.

“And have awakened beautifully as well. I apologize for the stampeding buffalo in the courtyard. Our only consolation is that they’ll be gone till Lord knows what hour tonight — the women, that is. The men won’t come tumbling in till dawn. What time is it, anyway?” She looked up at the wall clock. Sighing, she said, “Well, we can thank them for a bright and early start.” She went to the cabinet, took down a glass and a cup, and then poured herself orange juice and — surprisingly for her — coffee. “I feel dreadful,” she said. “I haven’t made any plans at all for today, and I’m afraid you’ll soon find the life here tedious.”

“No, not at all,” Lizzie said, and wondered why she hadn’t seized upon the opportunity to discuss her departure.

“You’re too kind,” Alison said. “I know I’ve been neglectful. But I promise, if you like, that I shall take you to any of the social mornings, afternoons or evenings we’re invited to from this moment on.”

Lizzie suddenly wondered if she had been declining invitations before now.

“I shall deck you out in all your finery and introduce you to the very cream of our vast empire — male, female and some who are woefully neuter. Your wish is my command,” she said, and made a deep curtsy. “Nor shall I neglect to show you the neighboring sights as well, such as they are. I shall take you to the pinewoods at Juan-les-Pins, and to Grasse and Cap d’Antibes, should you desire. I shall even take you to the fortress on Ste. Marguerite, where that chap in the iron mask was imprisoned. And if one evening you think you might enjoy a visit to Monte Carlo, I’m sure we can find a suitable escort. Do you think you might enjoy that? Wasn’t it beastly of Albert to have run off just when we might have made good use of him? Didn’t you just adore the sea yesterday?”

“I loved it,” Lizzie said.

“And how charming you looked, au naturelle but for your enticing black stockings,” Alison said, and rolled her eyes. “Lizzie, you must absolutely promise to tell me the instant you’re bored, and I shall send for Geoffrey to escort you to wherever your dear friends may be.”

Again, the opportunity. And again, Lizzie ignored it.

“I’m perfectly content,” she said.

“Good, then,” Alison said, and to Lizzie’s astonishment, pulled her nightdress over her head and walked naked out onto the terrace and down to the lawn, holding her coffee cup in one hand as delicately as though she were fully dressed and carrying it out to a visiting vicar!

Lizzie watched her long strides across the grass, saw her hesitate, step aside to dodge what was obviously a bee she spied, and then continue toward one of the wicker lounges. She set her coffee cup down, bending over from the waist like a dancer, her back burnished a deep glowing bronze, and then adjusted the cushions on the lounge, spread a towel over them, and lay down on her belly, her arms bent, her head cradled on them, her face turned toward the terrace and the house, her eyes closed.

Well, it is her house, Lizzie thought, and the servants are all gone, and certainly if she chooses to wander about nude there’s less danger of her being seen here than there was on the beach yesterday. And yet there seemed something innately rude about her casual assumption that a guest would accept her nakedness as offhandedly as she herself did, would not in fact find something a trifle — well, yes — brazen about a hostess who cared so little for propriety. She remembered, of course, that she herself had been as naked as a sparrow when Alison soaked her with alcohol day and night in Paris, but that had been a situation born of necessity, and illness was certainly ample excuse for such a breach. She remembered, too, that Alison had slept naked on the train to Cannes, but then again the quarters had been cramped and the compartment close, and one might generously suppose that Alison had considered herself as sequestered as if she had been in her own bedroom, which in fact the sleeping compartment temporarily had been. And yesterday, in the sea together, their nakedness had seemed somehow appropriate, an exuberant joining with nature, a celebration of the flesh and spirit under God’s own sky and the benign eye of His dazzling sun. (Enticing, had she said? The black stockings? But how? How on earth?)

Nonetheless, here in a house — well, on a lawn, she supposed, which was not quite the same as a sitting room — but even so, here in her home, for such it was, there seemed something inordinately wrong about exposing her body as freely as if she were private and alone. That was what troubled Lizzie most, she supposed. The fact that Alison considered herself as effectively alone as if Lizzie were a stick of furniture or a blade of grass. And if such were honestly the case, if despite all her protestations of neglected hospitality, Alison felt so truly unmindful of her guest as to shed all her clothing without a by-your-leave, well, then—

Well, then what? Lizzie wondered.

Well, then, surely it was time to announce her departure, time to study the routes and the train schedules, time to make her way to Milan. Firmly fixed in her resolve, she walked out of the kitchen and onto the terrace and through the riotously blooming flower garden, and was starting to cross the lawn when Alison opened her eyes and called, “Lizzie, be a dear. Would you bring me my bag? It’s just on the table there.”

Lizzie picked up the bag. Undoubtedly, it was time for the mistress of the house to douse herself with coconut oil, the better to protect her exposed flesh from the searing rays of the sun. She walked to where Alison was now lying on her side, a smile on her face, her breasts exposed, not quite as tanned as the rest of her body, her hip curving, the blond tufts of her womanhood partially visible at the joining of her legs. Lizzie set the bag down on the grass, and sat in the wicker lounge beside hers. She realized, all at once, that she was quite angry, and she could not imagine why.

“There’s a dear,” Alison said, and sat up fully. Reaching for the bag, she moved it closer on the grass and, unmindful of modesty, opened her legs and set it down between her feet. Lizzie looked away. She heard Alison rummaging in the bag, heard a match striking, smelled the unmistakable odor of first sulphur and next tobacco, and turned to see her — smoking!

“It’s such a relief when those ninnies are away,” Alison said, puffing on the cigarette as though she were a chimney afire. “Do you smoke, Lizzie? These are French, and rather strong, but...” Her eyes opened wide. “My dear Lizzie,” she said, “your jaw is hanging agape.”

“You will try to shock me at every turn of the way, won’t you?” Lizzie said.

“But I had no idea...”

“What kind of woman are you?” Lizzie said. “I have never in my life...”

“Oh, dearest, forgive me,” Alison said, and at once dropped the cigarette into the grass and started to step on it until she realized she was barefoot. She picked it up again at once, and flicked it into the nearby shrubbery, as though wishing to banish it from Lizzie’s sight. “I intended no offense,” she said, reaching for Lizzie’s hand, taking it onto her palm, patting it wildly with her other hand, “forgive me, please, you surely don’t think...”

“I don’t know what to think,” Lizzie said. “You take off your clothing, you...”

“But surely...”

“... light a cigarette like a...”

“... the sight of me naked...”

“... practiced tart...”

“... doesn’t offend...”

They had been speaking simultaneously, their words overlapping, and now they stopped simultaneously and stared at each other, each of them a trifle breathless.

“Or does it?” Alison said.

“Does what?”

“Does it offend you? My nakedness?”

“No.”

“Then what...?”

“Not in the way you think.”

“But in what way, Lizzie? Please tell me, dearest. I shall cover myself to my eyes like a Moslem, if you desire. I shall wrap myself like a mummy, I shall...”

“You promised never to mock me,” Lizzie said.

“But do I mock you with my body? How?”

“By pretending I’m not here,” Lizzie said softly.

“But you are here. I’m only too aware of your presence.”

“And trying to shock me. I’m not a child.”

“I apologize for the cigarette. I really never...”

“You should.”

“I do.”

“A lady smoking.”

“I apologize.”

“That is shocking, Alison. That is truly and deeply shocking.”

“I shall never do it again.”

“In my presence.”

“Or beyond it. Never again. If it disturbs you...”

“It does.”

“Then never again. I promise.”

“I don’t care what you do when you’re alone. Once I’m gone, you can...”

“Don’t say it!”

The words were spoken so sharply that Lizzie physically recoiled from them.

“Please,” Alison said softly. “Not yet. Not so soon.” And suddenly she moved to sit beside her and took her in her arms and held her close in embrace and kissed her hair and her cheeks and her closed eyes, murmuring, “Please don’t leave, I shall do my best, oh dearest, not so soon, we’ve scarcely, oh, please, please,” and kissed her on the lips.

Lizzie’s mouth opened in shocked surprise. She tried to twist away, but Alison’s mouth pursued her own, more insistently demanding, her body pressing closer, her naked breasts straining against her. She thought at once No! and pushed Alison away forcefully, and stared incredulously into her face.

The face crumbled.

Panic stabbed the green eyes, and suddenly they flooded with tears.

Lizzie sat stock still, watching her as she wept into her hands, awkward and helpless and feeling unspeakably cruel. At last she reached out tentatively to touch her friend’s hands where they covered her face, and then drew her into her arms, overwhelmed by a sudden wave of unbearable tenderness, pitying her, wanting to comfort and console her. She held her close, her fingers widespread on her back, patting and stroking her, murmuring gently to her, their heads close together, cheek against cheek, the early morning sunlight glistening palely on russet and gold.

When Alison kissed her again, tenderly this time, she felt oddly as if she were somehow distantly and safely removed, an anonymous spectator watching a theatrical performed by two faceless women, merely she and she, herself somewhere else, observing but curiously uninvolved. No longer shocked or even surprised, except by the fact that she was not revulsed, she allowed Alison’s gentle exploration of her lips with mild curiosity, the observer still, the silent witness to a shadow play in the sunlight, distantly aware of the buzzing of the bees in the grass and the musky fragrance of the flowers. She did not move (this was not happening to her) when Alison loosened the ribbons of her combing cape and let it fall soundlessly to the grass. She sat silently when Alison’s right hand moved to the muslin bodice of her nightdress to linger on her breast, and then caught her breath sharply when she felt Alison’s hands gliding up under the muslin.

She thought again No!, and the single unspoken word splintered and ricocheted, No!, shattering any illusion of asylum, the indistinct performers coming at once into sharp sunlit focus, the she and she unmistakably Alison and herself. She tried to twist away again, but Alison’s relentless mouth found her own, and she drew in her breath on a gasp that served only as binding mortar between their lips. Her cheeks were suddenly burning. She felt a rush of blood to her temples, and all at once she was faint, clinging to Alison, dizzily rescuing her mouth, pressing her feverish cheek to hers as she struggled to catch her breath.

Alison took her hands. Silently she drew her to her feet.

She staggered for an instant, almost falling, remembering again the bees everywhere around them in the grass, waiting. Her nightdress dropped whisperingly to the ground. Alison kissed her again. She stood naked and still in the sunshine, her arms limp at her sides as Alison, gently insistent now, found her breasts again, and molded them, delicately caressing the nipples so that they puckered as they had in the water yesterday. Trembling in Alison’s embrace, she felt herself being lowered to her knees, and then to the grass where they lay naked side by side, she trembling more violently now, Alison’s arms around her, her mouth recklessly upon her own, her tongue incessantly probing. She was not sure whether she thought no again, or actually whispered it. She twisted, freed her arms, threw them wide as if in supplication, and then pulled them back when she became aware again of the buzzing of the bees everywhere around them. She did not know what to do with her arms or her hands.

She felt Alison’s tongue gliding over her chin and her neck and the hollow of her throat, trailing liquidly to find her nipples and her breasts. She strained toward the flicking tongue, cupping her breasts in her hands, offering them to Alison’s passion, writhing beneath her, surrendering her threatened nipples — they would surely burst under the onslaught of that savage tongue, she would swoon away and die! She released her breasts abruptly, her hands wildly grasping, her fingers tangling into Alison’s golden hair, pulling her head tighter against her.

Their legs moved, thighs touching tentatively, parting, inexorably entwining, Alison’s limbs becoming her own, Alison’s hand behind her seeking, Alison’s womanhood pressing toward hers, backs arching, gold against russet below, crisply entangled, silvery moist when suddenly they joined. She heard, or thought she heard, the distant murmur of a surging sea, and the sound grew louder and louder, tumultuous and stormy, and she felt a rush of such powerful intensity where Alison moved against her below, her fingers entreating mercilessly from behind, that now she knew for certain she would die. Her eyes opened wide in terror and anticipation, the sun blinding her. She felt herself crumbling, crumbling in Alison’s fierce embrace, yielded in fear and quivering delight to Alison’s mouth and fingers and relentless thrust until at last and mindlessly she screamed aloud, and screamed again rather than explode to smithereens.

She sighed deeply then, and closed her eyes against the sun, arms and legs akimbo, Alison above her, their clinging bodies wet with perspiration, she and she. Still throbbing uncontrollably below, she lifted her face to the kisses raining softly on the corners of her mouth and the tip of her nose and her closed eyes and her tear-stained cheeks.