by Della Emerson
(03/19/08)

Suppose we are at the beach on a warm day in the early fall, two middle-aged people strolling at the water's edge. I dash into the surf, dive through a wave, and return to you, dripping, laughing. I see you now -- short, thick-waisted, stocky-legged and barrel-chested, with thinning silver hair that lifts in the wind. The light in your eyes tells me that you are pleased that I am tall and round, with a strong neck and broad shoulders, heavy-footed on land, quick and lithe in the water. Anyone passing us on the beach might think we're an old married couple or longtime friends, but not that we are new lovers.

Back at the house, we sit on the veranda to play backgammon. You take the six-five opening roll in the lover's leap, tapping the board as you jump the bar. "There's something about this game..."

"What do you mean?" I play my five-two safely. The marble pieces are cool and smooth.

"We dance past each other, being aggressive or -- " You toss the bones for a six-one.

"Coy," I finish your thought.

You take the bar point and go on to win the first game. During the second, you slide your foot up my calf. I smile and move my leg out of reach. For three throws of the dice you fail to find the single six you need to send me to the bar, and I gammon you, a dream fulfilled.

We lunch on garden tomatoes, basil, olive oil. You take a sourdough roll from the bread basket, "The ten days last month when you didn't write..."

"Yes."

"Every day I cursed the 'no mail' message."

"I needed time to decide whether you were real."

"And?"

"I'm glad you waited for me." I pop a black olive into my mouth and offer you a dollop of brie on my fingertip. You lick away the cheese and suck my finger clean.

After lunch you lie down on the sofa, saying, "Forty winks." I kiss the bald spot at the crown of your head and walk to the bedroom. High bead-board ceilings. Windows facing east to the ocean, west to the sound. The sun-dappled bed invites me to nap but, restless, I sit on the over-stuffed chaise beneath a window. On a nearby table is the tawny binder, thick with printouts of the e-mails we've been writing each other for months. The calfskin cover is soft to my touch, the heft of the binder reassuring. I zip it open and read the first message from you, "Intrigued by your ad. What on earth is a lapsed atheist?"

Beginning with that simple question, words fly back and forth between Texas and North Carolina, words detailing two lifetimes, words that bring us to this slender island. At clicking keyboards over a thousand miles apart, we reveal ourselves to each other. I flip two hundred pages to your last message, your promise. "Face to face will only be better....As soon as I finish my latest assignment, I'll come to you, dearest Ella."

But I tire of waiting.

In the closet is a carton of scented candles, thick, fat, creamy white, and a box of etched-glass hurricane shades, sparkling in a nest of packing paper. I place candles on the vanity, the bookshelf, on windowsills, bedside tables. Next to each I place a glass shade. When I hear you in the bathroom, your nap over, I change into a bra and white blouse, a full skirt patterned in fiery swirls. I toss my underpants in the hamper and relish the movement of the skirt on my bare bottom.

In the middle of the afternoon, we drive to a marine museum and meander through the exhibits, holding hands, touching and touching. I leave you to go to the restroom, and when I return, I can't find you. I go into a bright room filled with displays of seashells and stop to look at the biggest sand dollar I've ever seen, thinking of the fragments inside it that look like tiny seagulls. As fragile as if made of dust, they would disintegrate if touched, like the wings of a butterfly. When I look up from the exhibit, I see you through a doorway in a dark room, staring into a tank that is lit from within, your face washed in aqua light. I walk up behind you and whisper, "Hi."

You put your arm around me. "Look."

I peer into a tank filled with ocean life and see what's caught your attention. A conch shell, white as the noon sun, with a throat of pale pink that deepens to coral. What looks like a tongue slips in and out of the opening, and I laugh. You tighten your arm around me, pleased by my delight.

We take seats in a lecture hall to learn about a small, gelatinous amphibian that crawls on land during its infancy, then sheds its prehensile legs and becomes ocean-bound for adulthood. The room smells of salt air and antiseptic. The walls are hung with paintings of stormy seas, intense and ill-chosen for this placid place of marine science, and I am distracted. Did the lecturer say "pema"? That's what I'll call this creature of my fantasy, a name that sounds like the fine cotton of my blouse. The speaker tells us that the young pema rubs its underside against shells or mounds of sand for minutes at a time. When it matures and takes to the ocean, the rubbing becomes a prelude to procreation.

As his dull, dry voice relates these facts, you take my hand. In a film showing the mating ritual, an underwater camera focuses on the male, who courts the female by swimming around her in a circle, caressing her with his fins as he rubs himself on her. Your thigh settles against mine. The movements of the male become more prolonged and urgent until the female impales herself on him. She is almost translucent and the dense male organ can be seen entering her. You move your thumb on my hand. The lecturer uses a pointer to indicate the male's ejaculation into the female, who lurches and quivers as the act is completed. The voice drones on, "The females struggle through the breakers to the shore, where they drop their fertilized eggs in the wet sand, bury them, and abandon them. Less than half survive." Eggs, I wonder, or female pemas?

You whisper, "Let's get out of here." Your breath is warm and moist on my neck.

"Wait." The lights come up and the theater empties. "I'm hungry," I say. "Yesterday we passed a restaurant that looked interesting."

In the car, you pull me close, kiss me. Your tongue finds mine, your hand slips into the low neck of my blouse. I touch your face. "Wait."

"What's going on?" you ask, amused. You start the car.

At the restaurant, I say to the maitre d,' "I'm Ella. I called you earlier."

He shows us to a table in an alcove overlooking the waterway. The mainland is a shadow on the horizon and the sun is low in the sky, gilding the water. He lights a candle and extinguishes an overhead lamp, "As you requested," he says, with a slight bow.

You reach across the table for my hand. "Aren't you the foxy one."

I sip the ice water that has appeared in front of me. "Foxy."

We linger over dinner, me spearing one of your shrimp and dipping it into my crab sauce, you sipping from my beer when yours is gone, protesting that you don't want another. "It might take the edge off," you say. We watch the lowering sun that is surrounded by streaked clouds the color of the peaches we have for dessert, slick with brandy and cream. We talk as we sip coffee. You tell me a long-forgotten story, I tell you a never-shared secret. When the candle sputters, you look at me above the rim of your cup. "May I ask what we're waiting for?"

"You may ask."

"So?"

I look out the window as a gull swoops down to the water, flies off with something flapping in its beak.

We walk out into the warm dusk. A breeze off the ocean riffles your hair. You don't reach for me in the car, but you look at me in a way that lets me know what you anticipate when we get back to the house.

I jump from the car as soon as it rolls to a stop, running up the steps, calling over my shoulder, "Wait on the porch. I'll be right back." From the bedroom I hear the wooden rocker begin to creak on weathered boards. I light the heavy candles, surround each with a hurricane shade. Sparkles of light bounce off the walls, and the air fills with the scent of sandalwood. I stand in the doorway, looking at the painting I've created with candlelight.

On the porch I let the screen door slap shut behind me and take your hand. "Let's walk off that wonderful meal." You get up, grumbling, but you follow me.

At the bottom of the plank stairs that descend the dunes, we kick off our sandals, wiggling our toes in sand still warm from the afternoon sun, even though dusk is upon us. A rising half moon bathes the sand in muted silver. Down the beach is a small campfire, illegal. I point and say, "I hope they get away with it."

"Me, too."

I step into the surf. "The water's warm, silky."

"That's a wet walk you're taking." You stand at the water's edge.

I wade in to my knees, drenching the hem of my skirt, putting my hand out to you. "I want to show you something."

When we're up to our waists and my skirt is floating around me, I take your hand and put it to my bare hip. I can barely make out your features in the moonlight.

You caress my hip and say, "Yes, warm and silky."

I dive through an oncoming wave. When I surface on the other side of the breaker, you're with me, your hand between my legs. We're chest deep and I let myself float on the surface, my broad thighs straddling you. I know by your movements that you're unzipping your shorts, and in a moment you are pulling me to you.

"I'm a pema," I say. And I lower myself onto you. You pump up into me and I want to push down on you but I say, "Wait."

You stop moving. Already you have learned to stay still inside me so I can feel the warm fullness, can clinch you and milk you. You bury your face in my neck and whisper, "Not too long." The sound of the surf drowns your words. Your hands move on the wet fabric of my blouse.

The ocean lifts us and drops us down a rolling slope, over the top of a wave and into a trough. The sandy bottom brushes the soles of my feet before we are again lifted toward the moon. Your mouth is on mine, your hands knead my breasts. I taste salt water on your tongue and feel wind on my cheek. A dog barks and I am jolted, but I cling to my vision of us alone in the cradling water.

I tighten down on you, and as you respond, I slip all the way off and say, "Wait."

"Damn!" you shout, reaching for me.

I hold up my hand in a pledge. You're uncertain whether I'm teasing, but you zip your shorts and follow me.

At the dunes, I take your hand and kiss your palm. The air is cool and the ocean breeze chills me through my clinging garments. You grab our sandals, turn and run up the stairs toward the house.

We drop our wet clothes on the veranda and dash through the dark living room. I go into the bathroom, turn on the shower, and you step into the tub with me, glad to be under the stream of hot water. My hands slide down your belly to soap you. Yours raise a foaming lather on my breasts, in the hair at my armpits. I trace the lines of your face with wet fingers, touch my tongue to your neck. We rinse in the stinging warmth and you rise between my buttocks. Again

I say, "Wait."

"Not this time." You take me by the shoulders and turn me to face you. You kiss me and I feel my heat rising. When I start to hurt with wanting, you sit on the edge of the tub and prop my right leg up beside you so that my tender folds are level with your mouth. You spread me with your thumbs and put your tongue to me. My moaning grows louder and the end begins. You stop.

"No!" I scream, grabbing your head to bring you back to me.

"Wait." Your chin glistens in the overhead light.

I reach down, my fingers eager to finish what you started, but you take both my hands in yours and stand, helping me stumble from the tub. You pull a towel from the rack and pat me down. When I move for you to dry between my legs, seeking the roughness of the towel, you stop. "I want you wet there."

I am trembling so I can hardly walk. The bedroom is dusky, cozy, cave-like, and you laugh in surprise when you see the flickering candles. You help me to the bed, smoothing the pale sheets, taking time, and lie down next to me. I reach for you and you say, "Wait."

You taste my breasts as you rub yourself against my thigh, reaching for the bottle on the bedside table and pouring a thin stream of oil onto my ample belly, massaging me with your flat, wide-spread hand.

I breathe deeply, drunk on your touch, on the fragrance of sandalwood. Through half-closed eyes I see dancing stars of light on the ceiling.

You make a pocket of the flesh of my belly and push yourself into it, moving in and out, your face in a grimace from the effort of holding back. You look me in the eye and slide your hand lower, bringing it hard up, mashing your thumb against me, sending shocks from my knees to my throat. "Come in me!" I demand in a gruff voice I don't recognize, grabbing you, and you say, "No more waiting."

You roll onto me and fill me and I buck upward in helpless uncontrolled sensation. I arch against you, lurching and quivering, because I cannot do anything else. When I plunge over the top, you explode, groaning, whispering, "Ella, Ella," as your breathing slows.

I wake to a breeze across my outstretched arms, and before I open my eyes, I imagine how you would look, the morning light striping your back as you sleep in a tangle with me, at peace with your wilted flesh nestled in my nether mouth. I reach for the pen and pad I keep on the night table, beside the oil I use with my fantasies. I begin to draft my next e-mail, to capture the details while I am still under the spell of my imagination, making notes I'll embellish when I get to the keyboard. "Dearest Len. Suppose we are at the beach on a warm day in the early fall..."

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