He’d had too much Scotch and too little light. Usually he slept in darkness, but there were nights like this when he couldn’t abide it. He turned on the nightstand lamp, switched it to its lowest setting, and got out of bed. He carried the mug into the adjoining bathroom and poured the Scotch and ice into the sink. When he had toileted and washed his hands, he returned to bed.
He saw no moth either in agitation or at rest. The tapping had stopped—and perhaps had never been real, merely an anguished murmur of his troubled heart.
In bed once more, he glanced at the clock. Ten minutes past midnight.
He told himself not to think, to blank his mind, or at least to conjure in his mind’s eye a little movie of the sea breaking on the shore. Sometimes a mental image of rhythmic waves could lull him to sleep.
He wondered if Maddison had finished her unpleasant task and whether it involved . . . being with another man. Maybe that’s what she meant by assassination. Maybe she was in a loveless relationship with a man who had a cruel hold on her; every time she went into his bed, she might feel as if she were killing a small part of herself, so that she was both assassin and victim.
David could not bear the thought of Maddison with another man. He forced himself to concentrate on an image of night surf rolling rhythmically to a moonlit shore, phosphorescent foam surging on a smoothness of sand and fanning out in pale arcs that sparkled like galaxies of stars, that smelled faintly of the sea.
At 1:40 in the morning, she came warm and naked into his bed, smelling neither of the sea nor of any man, but only of herself, whispering his name. “Davey, Davey, my sweet Davey.”
| 27 |
Even with the confirmation of low lamplight, he thought he must be dreaming, but her kisses woke him to the reality of her presence. Her kisses and her exploring hands. The contours of her body were as familiar as those of his own, but no less exciting for being so well known to him.
He hadn’t set the alarm system; he seldom did when he was at home. But he had locked the door. He was pretty sure he had locked the door. However, the moment was so exhilarating, this fulfillment of his most ardent wish so intoxicating, that he didn’t question how she’d gotten into the house. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was here.
“Davey, my sweet Davey.” Maddison had not before called him Davey, but Emily often had. Like Emily, Maddison was not meekly submissive but an equal partner, and when joined they were not two in pursuit of their pleasures, but one in rapture. He was lost less in the physical sensations of their coupling than transported by a passion of mind and heart, by delight in her satisfaction, by the wonder of her existence, by astonishment at this reunion. He called her Maddison, but a few times he slipped and spoke Emily’s name. When he said that he was sorry, she hushed him and whispered, “It’s all right, all right, all right. I’m whoever you need, Davey. I’m me and her—and yours.”
The first time wasn’t quick, but it wasn’t as slow as David wished. However, they were so energized by pent-up yearning that they needed no pause before continuing. There wasn’t a single moment of awkwardness to any of it, not one instant of bestial awareness or ugly mechanics, not a surrendering but a sharing, not a taking but a giving, each breathless raveling up followed by a long, silken unraveling. And throughout, he felt the world, which had for so long been wobbling on its axis, now establishing a right rotation, the broken past being repaired moment by moment, his long-lost future resolving into view once more.
A still, small voice within cautioned that this might not be the knitting together of a torn destiny. Not all mysteries, when solved, revealed a world of exquisite design or benign intention. Enigmas of physics, when deciphered, might produce a sublime light, but the answers to mysteries of human behavior seldom resulted in glorious revelations.
He heard this inner voice but discarded the warning that it conveyed. Maybe Maddison was trapped in an oppressive relationship. Maybe someone had a hold on her that required of her actions that she despised, so she felt as though she were killing herself with a thousand self-inflicted wounds, resulting in the unsettling metaphor of assassination. He could have listed a hundred maybes, and every one would have justified his trust in her.
Now he gave himself to her, lost himself in her, and fell asleep with her in his arms.
Sometime later, a continuous rhythmic murmur woke him. Still in a gauze of half sleep, he realized that he was alone in bed, and he raised his head, looking for the source of the voice.
In the soft lamplight, Maddison stood naked before the full-length mirror that hung beside the closet door. Whispering to her reflection, she slowly slid her hands over the voluptuous contours of her body. For all of Emily Carlino’s sensuality, modesty had been a fundamental thread of her personality. Although Maddison Sutton could pass for Emily, this delight in her reflection, perhaps more than anything else, confirmed that she was a different person.