Lydia Gordon
A degraded honeymoon
CHAPTER ONE
A long time later, after her whole life had been turned upside down, Catherine Mason would remember having perceived the harbinger in the storm. She would realize that her trepidation, and her bizarre fascination with the then unexplainable feelings that gripped her, had derived from a sixth sense, warning her that she had more to fear that day than the elements, that she faced a danger much greater than the mere wrath of God as personified in the fury that poured from the sky.
It was not the kind of storm one was accustomed to seeing in that part of California. Though not by any means a real tornado, the balmy green-clouded stillness that had immediately preceded it would have sent old-timers in West Texas or Kansas scurrying to the shelter of their cellars. The clouds took on that unreal looking greenish glow; the light left the sky as swiftly as if there'd been a sudden near-total eclipse; a vacuum-like stillness seemed to descend over the rolling, vineyard-planted bills. It was almost summer and it was not cold. It was neither cold nor hot. Yet it looked cold, cold in a way she'd never seen it look before, and riding beside her young husband in the front seat of their second-hand Chevy the sensuous nineteen year-old blonde shivered involuntarily, folding her bare arms protectively oven the flimsily-shielded swells of her high standing young breasts. She gazed apprehensively through the windshield at the surrealistic painting created by the low-hanging clouds, then slid suddenly across the seat toward her husband, pressing her slender, bared thigh hard against the gear-stick in order to get as close to him as the bucket seats allowed.
"It looks absolutely weird out there!" she gasped, dropping her hand to his knee and feeling him tense slightly at her touch.
"It's just gonna rain," Bob Mason said, his eyes roving quickly over Cathy's supple young body before he returned his attention to the road. "And maybe hail a. little. Giulio's vineyard's another thirty miles or so. I was hoping we could make it there before it broke." He paused, peering intently into the distance before them. "No chance," he added, shaking his head.
Following his gaze, Cathy watched the sudden intricate web-work of lightning that was scrawled over the bank of clouds. It seemed to fade but gradually, like a hieroglyph drawn in disappearing ink. She winced at the clapping of thunder, which seemed to follow a long time later, so long that she'd begun to think it would not come. Then to the north, in the direction they were driving, she distinguished the gray wall of rain, still and solid-looking against the backdrop of clouds above and beyond it, standing up unmoving as though it were drawn on the sky in careful, slanting lines.
"You really think it's worth stopping at the vineyard?" she asked as the last sound of the thunder died off.
"Giulio makes some of the best wine in California, especially at the price he charges if you get it straight from him. Besides that, I haven't seen him in a couple of years. He's getting old."
Cathy sank back in her seat, drawing her hand back to her own softly contoured thigh as she watched 'another white streaking of electricity imprint itself on the sky. She waited, counting one, two, three, four, for the thunder. And still she winced when it came. Past the window flashed a neon sign reading Motel. She thought: I would like to have stopped. She glanced back at her husband out of the corner of her eyes. Furtively she observed his handsome profile, his slender but well defined chest and arms. Her eyes dropped lower,, then she looked away. It was funny, she thought. She and Bob had been married just a few days less than a month. They had just finished an extravagant and luxurious honeymoon, a gift from his aged and well-to-do grandmother. Now they were going to really begin their married life, and already, though she hardly dared admit it to herself, she was beginning to have misgivings. It wasn't that she didn't still love Bob, she loved him as much as she ever had. But it was beginning to seem that love, spiritual love, wasn't enough to make a marriage work. She needed something else, that unknown magic something she'd naively taken for granted would appear when they were married, sleeping together, making love. It hadn't appeared, and during the weeks that had elapsed since their wedding night when she'd gone to bed with him for the first time, relinquishing at last the cherished virginity she'd guarded stubbornly to the end, she'd almost ceased to hope she would ever know that magic of which she'd so wistfully dreamed.
Yet now, frightened and yet excited by the storm that was so swiftly descending upon them, she thought she would like nothing so much as just to curl up with Bob in a warm bed in the enclosed shelter of a strange roadside room. Now she would like to make love with him inside while the storm raged without, as if she thought that somehow their sex could feed itself off the excitement and energy that was about to erupt in the sky.
But she would never have the nerve to suggest that to Bob. Not now, anyway, the apprehensive young bride thought to herself as the lightning again crackled across the sky and the first great white balls of hail battered the roof of the car and pelted the road like so many falling golf balls, as her own thoughts went racing back over the last whirlwind weeks to the first night, when she'd been so full of fear, so full of hope.
They'd been married in a small civil ceremony in Santa Monica, and that had been followed by a modest reception at the home of some of Bob's relatives. Then finally the reception was over and, slightly intoxicated, nervous and happy, they took the long limousine ride to the Ramada Inn in Hollywood, where they would spend their first night together before catching a noon-day flight to Acapulco. Even now Cathy would almost feel the excitement that had fluttered in her stomach as they took the elevator up, as they walked down the long, lighted halls to their suite, as Bob unlocked the door and lifted her from the floor and carried her through the door. Holding her strongly in his arms, he kissed her hard on the lips, then let her gently down and returned to retrieve the small overnight bag from the hall.
"Do you want to have a drink… first?" Cathy remembered saying in a choked, quivering voice.
"No. We don't need a drink."
As he looked into her eyes she saw the determination set in his face. Then he set the bag down on the plushly carpeted floor, guided her gently but firmly across the lounge and through the door to the bedroom. Cathy felt her heart pounding in her breasts as she was confronted with the elegant, queen-sized bed, waiting, she thought then, like a sacrificial alter. She looked at the bed, then turned nervously to face Bob, a shiver running through her as she met the steel lust in his eyes, as he let his gaze dropping from her flushed and sultry face down to the full tightly rounded swells of her breasts straining against the lacy blouse she wore beneath the light beige jacket that matched her skirt.
"God, baby," he said in a hoarse whisper. "Have I been waiting a long time for this."
"I'm scared, Bob," she answered breathlessly.
Then his arms were around her, pulling her to him, his lips covering over hers and his tongue snaking deeply into her mouth. She felt his hands crushing against her spine and shoulder blades on the outside of her jacket and blouse, then dropping to the tightly rounded half-moons of her buttocks to pull her loins forcibly up against his own so that suddenly she felt the frightening bulge of his erection press hard against her warm thighs and the tender mound of her pubis. His tongue was still thrusting halfway toward her throat, his lips pressing so hard against hers she was sure they would bruise, his hands clawing animal-like at the pliant firmness of her tightly flaring ass. Then, as her legs almost buckled beneath her from her building excitement and fear, Cathy was released from her husband's grasp. A little sigh escaped her lips as his mouth drew away from hers, then her eyes widened as he pushed the jacket from her shoulders and with trembling hands started undoing the buttons down the front of her dress.