Chapter 39
CHAPTER 39
Max
That had been awkward. Beverly had leaned in to kiss me, and I’d had to stop her right there and then and tell her I was seeing someone. She’d looked surprised, but had accepted it gracefully. Nodding and words of “she’s a lucky girl” had followed. I didn’t want to tell her that I was the lucky one—that would probably just make her feel worse. But then when the manager of the boat had leaned over and told me he’d just seen some tiger fish, I jumped at the opportunity to go fishing, even though I hated it. I hated touching fish; I hated looking at fish. They repulsed me, ever since I was a child and had fallen into my grandfather’s koi pond. I was only three and at that age the fish had seemed so big and terrifying. I’d been so traumatized, especially when one had started nibbling on my toe.
But here I was, sitting on a little boat, some distance away from the luxurious, nice, fish-free houseboat, with my line in the water, while a man talked to me about how great the tiger fishing was if we went a little further down to the rapids.
“No, this is great here. I love this spot,” I lied. Sure, it was beautiful here: the call of fish eagles above my head; the sound of the water lapping against the grasses which came all the way up to the banks; the vervet monkeys playing in the big tree branch that hung over the water. This was paradise on earth. What was not paradise on earth was the fact that the manager was now suddenly standing up and winding his fishing line in frantically.
“Caught something,” he said, yanking the fishing rod backwards. “Feels like a barbel.”
“Great,” I said, trying to sound happy for him because he looked thrilled.
He wheeled in the line, fighting what was clearly a huge fish, and when it emerged from the water, I thought I was going to vomit.
“Grab the net!” he shouted at me as the fish flopped around, fighting the line to get back in the water.
“Me?”
“Quickly or the line will break.”
I reluctantly picked up the net and angled it towards the fish, but looked away. The idea of seeing the entire slimy fish out of the water made bile rise in my throat. I felt the massive weight in the net and only turned again when I didn’t. The manager had taken the fish out the net and was now asking me to take a photo of him and the fish before he released it. I took the photo, trying not to look directly at the fish itself, its big mouth opening and closing as if it were drinking air down in big gulps.
“It’s strictly catch and release here,” he said to me as he gave the slimy thing a quick kiss and tossed it back in the water. “But you still get a hell of a rush from catching it,” he said, looking almost high on it.
I nodded and agreed, even though I felt sick to my stomach. I picked the net up again and was just about to put it away, when I heard something motorized behind me. I turned. Something pink was darting across the water, getting closer and closer to the boat.
“What the . . .” I leaned over the side of the small fishing boat and stared as a familiar-looking thing came straight for me. But it couldn’t be, could it? Yet the closer it got, the more I recognized its shape, size and the noise it was making. I looked over my shoulder. The manager was rinsing his hands and rebaiting his line. The pink thing started to veer off to the left so I quickly scooped it up in my net before it motored away. I pulled it towards me and did a double take as I looked down and had my suspicions confirmed. I looked back at the houseboat and saw the net curtain in Ash’s room billowing in and out in the breeze. I picked up the binoculars that had been given to me for birdwatching and quickly raised them to my eyes. And there, only revealed for a second at a time as the curtain billowed out, was Ash’s very shocked-looking face staring at the door.
Oh, Ash! I smiled to myself and then quickly turned the vibrator off, slipping it into my pocket before the manager saw.
I knocked on Ash’s door the second I returned from fishing. There was no answer, but I could hear shuffling inside.
“Ash,” I called again.
“Go away,” she fired back quickly.
“I’ve just come back from fishing,” I said, trying to hide my amusement, not to mention the heat I was feeling at the thought of her playing with that toy alone in her room.
“And I caught something very interesting. Want to know what it was?”
“Not really.” She sounded pissed off, and I wasn’t quite sure why. The last time I’d seen her, she had been anything but pissed off, leaning over, letting me gaze down her top.
“I’m going to tell you anyway,” I said, dildo safely tucked away in my pocket. “A very odd fish, actually. Unusual.”
She didn’t respond.
“Strange color – pink.”
I heard something, as if she’d just gotten off the bed, or a chair.
“Such a strange species to find in a river too—a dolphin.”
The lock in the door clicked loudly. “Dolphin?” she asked. I could hear she was right behind the door.
“I know, right? Strange. I was totally surprised, and what was even stranger was that it was motorized. Want to see it?”
The door flung open and she stood in front of me in a gown.
“Give it to me!” She stuck her hand out forcefully.
I took the dildo out my pocket, held it up and waved it about in the air. “This what you want?”
“ STOP IT ! What are you—” She grabbed me by the arm, pulled me into her room and slammed and locked the door behind her.
“It’s, it’s . . .” She stared at it open-mouthed and then snatched it away from me and threw it at her bag. It missed, hit the floor, and then turned on again. It vibrated so hard, it started to snake round the floor in circles.
“Shit!” She jumped for it and desperately tried to turn it off. “This thing won’t go off!” She began hitting it against the wall, over and over again, but it persisted.
“Pass it here.” I held out my hand.
“I’m not passing it to you.” She bent down and started beating it on the floor now. I knelt, pulled it out of her hands, and turned it off.
“How did you do that?” she asked, a little sweaty from the exertion of bashing her dildo against the wall and floor.
“The button needs to be pushed in twice to turn it off.”
She snatched it back from me and shoved it back into her bag.
“Well, not that I need to know that, since it’s not mine and I’m certainly not using it.”
“Then why was it on when I caught it in a fishing net?”
She glared at me, face going red for a moment, and then I saw something change in her eyes. She stood up straight and pushed her shoulders back.
“So what if it’s mine!” She was clearly taking a different tack now and I smiled. “Nothing wrong with it being mine.”
“I never said there was.”
“I am not ashamed of the fact I pleasure myself!”
“And so you shouldn’t be. You are a very, very sexy, sensual woman, and you should . . .” I stepped closer to her. “Pleasure yourself whenever and wherever you want to.”
“Exactly!” She folded her arms across her chest and the gown pulled open a little, a sliver of red lace flashed at me and my crotch twitched. God, it was hot enough imagining her clenching around a dildo in here all alone, but in red lacy lingerie? My mind was officially blown. That image was almost too much to handle.
“How was it?” I asked.
“How was what?”
I looked down at her bag and then back up to her. “Better than me?”
Something flashed across her face. A strange wash of emotions that ended in something that I recognized as defiance. “Amazing!” she said too quickly.
“Amazing?”
“Waaaay, waaaay better than you.”
I stepped closer and eyed her up and down. “I seriously doubt that.”
“Stop it.” She pushed me back. “Stop flirting with me. Just stop it!”
She seemed genuinely angry, not cute, flirty, playful angry that gave rise to sarcastic witty banter and hot as hell flirtatiousness. I stepped back immediately.
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong, you ask?”
“Yes, what’s wrong? I’m confused here. You’re acting like I did something wrong?”
“Maybe you did,” she said softly.
“Well, please tell me so I can make it right in some way.”
“What was her name, by the way?” she asked.
I had no idea what she was talking about. “Who?”
“The woman I saw you kissing earlier?”
“Beverly,” I stated factually.
“Oh my God, what’s with you and women whose names begin with a B. Bianca, Beverly, who’s next . . . Brigit?”
“I don’t know any Brigits,” I started. “And I was not kissing Beverly—she kissed me and I pulled away and asked her to stop. And then I went fishing to avoid her. And you know how much I hate fish!”
She looked at me as if she didn’t believe me in the slightest.
“Nothing happened with her. I swear. I went fishing. She went back to the lodge. Nothing happened.”
“Max, I’m not stupid. I could see something happened between you two. It was so obvious.” She looked furious now. She took a step closer to me and I could almost feel the anger oozing off her.
“We hooked up about a year ago in Namibia. But nothing happened with her now. I promise you.”
“Hooked up?”
“Past tense,” I reiterated.
“I see.”
“Why? Jealous?” I asked, and took a step forwards.
“ NO ! Not jealous, but—call me old-fashioned—I don’t think I like the idea of the guy I was making out with last night, whom I’d decided to have sex with, who I’d even put red lacy underwear on for, kissing another woman while I had just shaved myself awkwardly in a shower that does not lend itself to shaving that part of yourself!”
“You shaved yourself for me?”
“That’s all you took from that?”
“What kind of underwear?”
“This stupid underwear, Max!” She opened her gown and I gaped.
“Fuck!” was all I could manage. The sight of her stole all the words in the world.
She released the gown, but didn’t close it. Instead, she covered her face with her hands and shook her head.
“I feel like such an idiot,” she said through her fingers.
My heart suddenly ached. I walked up to her and pulled her hands away from her face, slowly.
“There’s no need to feel like an idiot. Not with me. Ever!”
I leaned down so I was looking her directly in the eye. “Ash, nothing happened with her. Nothing ever could, not after what you and I did last night. There is no other woman in the world I want to be with, other than you.”