The tunnel was dark, but there was an almost-full moon out that night and, once inside it, she could see ahead of her the light glimmering on the water-a full moon, or nearly so; no cover of darkness. Yet…the four doubles were working on her brain, making her giddy, reckless. What if? What if she? Well, why not?
And, stopping near the opening on the house side, with the whole length of the tunnel to cross and the whole width of the beach to traverse, she stepped out of her sandals, slowly undid the robe, and laid it carefully over the hand rail. And she walked, nude-the cool beach air coming in from offshore, to caress her sensitive skin-the length of the dark tunnel
As she walked, feeling the breeze, feeling the rough kiss of the beach grit under Her soles, a reckless and sensual scenario of lust was running swiftly through her mind, fed by the too-sudden spree of drinking, fed by the sultry night and the cool kiss of the breeze on her body, fed, most of all, by the mad dreams that had been keeping her in an almost constant state of arousal for weeks now. She was thinking: I'm naked, and unprotected, and vulnerable. There will be moonlight on my body on the beach. Anyone who wanders by can see all I've got. I will hide nothing. I will go to the water and swim. And I will not cover myself with my hands, or shrink away, if I am approached. And I will give myself, fully and completely, to the first person I meet on the beach, tonight, in the moonlight
The thought was daring; more so than any she'd ever allowed herself. And yet it was something she so desperately wanted to do that nothing in the world could have kept her from it. Abandon! Let yourself go! All the way! No inhibitions!
And then, inexorably, the thought crept in: To anyone? To the first person she met on the beach? Male…or female?
And the defiant demon inside of her said, Yes! Yes!
Crossing the deserted beach, so bare, so open to chance, was a strange experience. After all, her-robe-her entire covering, any protection she might have-all these were far behind her now. There was no one to whom she could call for help should she require it Yet…there was a strange feeling of power coursing through her limbs now, as she walked-she forced herself not to run, forced herself to a leisurely pace, to draw it all out-slowly across the sand. It was an oddly new feeling, and she wasn't sure what she thought of it all. And only when the cold surf sloshed excitingly around her ankles did she allow herself to look around.
The moonlight was a delicious color. The beach was bathed in an odd blue light that carried far down the sand; she could see people splashing in the surf far down the strand-just outlines, dark against the reflection of the moon on the sand. A thrill of some new and delightful kind went through her as she realized that they had only to come closer to catch her in the altogether, to… But then an even odder sensation blotted this out
Someone was out there, watching her. Nearby. Someone standing in the shadow of the seawall.
She couldn't make out the figure. All she could see for sure was the light of a glowing cigarette-tip, there in the pitch-black shadows. But even if the cigarette hadn't been there, she fancied she could have told whether someone was there or not. There was an aura of…presence there.
Someone was staring at her. Slowly, insultingly, unhurriedly.
At the thought a sudden chill ran through her.
And a strange thing happened. Perhaps it was the giddiness that the drinks had brought on; she wasn't accustomed to that much alcohol in that short a time. Perhaps it was the odd mood of carefree recklessness, the eerie atmosphere of dream-like reverie, that had overtaken her when she first made up her mind to go naked to the beach. But it seemed, now, that the sounds of the crashing surf died, and the distant yells of the night bathers, far down the beach, went away, and there was no one there, in this strange moment of suspended time, but the two of them alone: she, naked and defenseless in the bright light of the waxing moon; the stranger, anonymous, clothed in darkness, watching her, smoking lazily in the deep shadow.
And the voice said: "You're beautiful."
It was a husky voice, halfway between a man's and a woman's: a deep, throaty, alto sort of voice.
It paused; she saw the unseen watcher take another puff on the glowing cigarette.
"Who's there?" Nan Mikell said, crossing her arms over her little breasts.
"Don't rush things," said the voice. "I want to look at you. You're quite lovely, you know. Don't cover your breasts. I want to see them. I want to look you over, slowly and carefully, before I make love to you."
"Make…love?" Nan said, shivering. "You! Don't come any closer." She drew back; one hand went to her crotch in the classic pose of Venus surprised.
"Lovely breasts," said the voice. "Lovely soft belly. Lovely soft hair on your lovely cunt Won't it be nice when I have my hand where your hand is?"
"Go away," Nan said, stepping back again. Her ankles were in the water now. "Go away. This beach is private."
"I'll bet you're excited, aren't you?" the voice said in that lazy drawl. "I'll bet you're terribly excited, under that feeling of fear you think you're supposed to have." And it was true: Nan had to tell herself that it was true. But the feeling she had on the surface was one much closer to panic and terror. She wanted to scream, to run…yet she stood still, silent all her resolves canceling each other out
"I'll bet your cunt is wet and juicy with excitement now, isn't it?" said the voice. It paused; the unseen speaker took another drag on the red cigarette. Then she saw the red ember describe a crazy arc to the sand and disappear. The speaker was truly invisible now. "Yes," the voice went on. "Feel it with your hand. That's where my hand will be in a moment That's where my lips will be. My tongue."
"Oh, my God," Nan said in a choked voice.
She was sure she knew to whom the voice belonged. The young beach boy, hardly out of his teens, whom she'd seen in the surf near her the other day. He'd been hard-muscled, bronzed, smooth-skinned-and breathtakingly beautiful, with his hard thighs scissoring in and out below the skimpy bathing suit he wore, with his hard buttocks pounding as he ran into the surf. He'd turned to her, just once, and smiled, showing strong young teeth, gleaming white. He hadn't spoken.
But this would be the voice he'd have: deep, but not yet a man's; throaty; pulsing with an innocent lechery that would belie the deliriously dirty words he'd say to her. This would be the way he'd talk: insinuating, commanding.
Something inside Nan Mikell snapped. And all the fear she felt flashed, just once, through her-and was gone. This was what she'd come here for, after all. This was the experience she'd dreamed of: the dark, quiet lover, coming to her alone and in near silence, ready to do her bidding. No, more: ready to do all the things she had never had the courage to ask a man to do. All the things she needed so desperately.
Her hand flashed again to her crotch, felt inside, touched her button, dabbed deliriously in the wet God, she was hot!
"Come," she said in a voice so husky she could hardly recognize it. "Come out in the light where I can see you. You can do anything you want. But come to me…naked…like I am." She was breathing hard as she said this; her hand went furiously back and forth in the auburn bush. Little chills of intense sexual anticipation went through her, near the pain threshold. She closed her eyes and opened them again.
A flash of moonlight lit a hand, emerging from the shadows, holding a large piece of cloth-a toweclass="underline" no, a robe. The hand dropped the cloth on the sand. The figure stepped out on the beach before her, its every detail framed in the ghostly moonlight