Chapter 16
16
I n the dark of the bedroom, Ethan’s pale skin had a luminous glow, and his eyes were incandescent. She knew from the first moment she saw him that he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen, but now, as she unbuttoned his shirt one little pearl button at a time, she was gasping for need of him, like if she didn’t have him, she would die of something like thirst. It wasn’t thirst, of course, but something just as insistent, urgent. He peeled the white shirt off and revealed a pale chest with a smattering of blond hair, masculine, inviting her touch. She pressed her hand to him, feeling the smoothness of his flesh, the wiry hair, the muscles working beneath. She sought a heartbeat, but could not find it before he took her hand and trailed it down his stone-hard belly.
He leaned in and kissed her again, pressing her into the bed, as she unzipped his wool trousers and helped him out of them. She gripped his cock, biting her own lip to keep from gasping. He was so thick, so hard. She had never wanted anything so much. She had been with a boy before, a boy who had a girlfriend and met up with her at his house after school some days, tearing at her clothes and rutting against her as she rocked against him, both of them meeting a basic need.
This, Flora knew, was different. Ethan’s body was not like the soft, over-warm, sweaty body she had known. He was strong, intensely muscular, cool, steady, confident. He slipped her sweater over her head, shimmied her out of her riding pants. She felt, for a moment, badly dressed and unsophisticated. Sylvia, she imagined, had drawers full of silk and satin and lace, while Flora wore cotton panties and a too-snug sports bra.
“Sorry,” she whispered, “I?—”
“Your body is perfect,” Ethan growled, his lips running over her flesh. He took her by the wrists and pinned her to the bed, and she felt his teeth scrape ever so softly against her breast, her nipple. She whimpered and arched her back in reply. Her body was pulsing with need, and she wrapped her legs around Ethan, inviting him into her, begging for him. He pressed himself against her and when he found that she was so, so ready for him, he shuddered.
“We could stop,” he said, as the head of his perfect cock teased her, pressed against her. “It’s not too late.”
“Oh my god, Ethan,” Flora whimpered, and rocked her hips so that he entered her.
He thrust against her then, groaning, his husky voice making the room vibrate.
“Shhhh!” Flora half whispered, half giggled.
“She won’t wake,” Ethan said, pressing his lips her temple and rocking against her. She rolled her hips, urgent against him, gasping and digging the tips of her fingers into the ropey movement of his smooth, muscular back.
He pressed his mouth to her neck, and she felt the pin-prick sharpness of teeth against her throat. It gave her a light-headed, buzzy, otherworldly sensation, like something was trying to click, a thought, an image, a word shimmering like a lightening bug at the edge of her vision.
“I-I’m going to—” she stuttered and rocked her hips, and all of the tension, all of the frustration, all of the desire from the past few months washed away like a wave swelling and crashing. A surge of pleasure so consuming, starting in her lower belly and rippling out, powerful, but deep, like a bass note being played inside of her.
“Yes,” Ethan growled, and his thrusts became urgent, seeking his own relief.
Flora held him close and pressed her needy, open mouth to his neck, her tongue to a taut tendon. He seized, his firm body becoming rigid, and groaned like a beast. She loved it, loved that she could turn him into an animal. She smiled up at the ceiling in the dark.
They lay beside one another not speaking for a long time after. Ethan’s breath was so slow that Flora wondered if he might be sleeping. Finally, though, he sat up.
“I have to go,” he said. “I can’t be here when she?—”
“Go, it’s fine,” Flora said, propping herself up to look at him, as much as she could, in the dark.
He looked at her for a moment, reaching out to sweep a stray tendril of hair from her face.
“Thank you,” he said. “We probably shouldn’t do that again… but thank you.”
She smiled at him. “I think we both needed it.”
He got up and tugged on his pants, then his shirt, wearing it open as he walked to the door. “Get some sleep, Flora. We’ll see each other again soon.”
She smiled at him, then snuggled into the bed, her face against the feather pillow. She smiled, closing her eyes as he shut the door.
In the morning the house was tomb quiet, and Flora woke alone, swished mouthwash, and dressed in her clothes from the day before. She made coffee in the kitchen with stale grounds, couldn’t find any cream, and sat at the dining room table drinking it, black and bitter, hoping that Ethan might appear. She imagined the coy way she would smile at him, imagined the hushed tones they would speak in, whispering innocuous good-mornings and shy how-did-you-sleeps. Ethan didn’t get up though, and by the time her unappetizing coffee was cold, she knew there was nothing left to do but get to work.
The air was thick with fog, so dense it seemed to muffle the sound of her footsteps as she stalked out to the barn, her coat pulled tight around her. She went through her morning chores with a feeling she couldn’t quite explain. There was a tenderness to everything, to Rainshadow, that she hadn’t felt in a very long time, a feeling of belonging she’d longed for. She fed the horses, rubbed their velvet muzzles, watered them, and after they’d eaten, she let them out into the paddock to graze, both of them bolting out into the mists, ghostly in the grassy field.
When she saw a familiar yellow car trundling up the long driveway, Flora felt her blood cool.
What could Blythe possibly want? She had wanted to savor the day, the simmering, warm feeling Ethan left her with.
She stood still-as-stone watching as Blythe got out of the car and looked up. When she saw Flora, she put her hand to her heart and visibly relaxed.
“Flora,” she said. “Thank god you’re here. I thought for sure?—”
“For sure what?” Flora asked. She felt her heart thump once, hard.
“Have you been here all night?”
“Yes,” she said, and her heart thumped again.
“Flora, there was a fire. Your house burned down. Your mother is dead.”
Flora stood, staring at Blythe. The words were like a puzzle she couldn’t put together, all different shapes that didn’t make sense no matter how she tried to make them fit. Mother. Fire. House. Dead.
“What?” she asked, incredulous. “Blythe, what are you talking about?”
“Come on,” Blythe said, getting back in her car. “I think you need to come with me.”
The rest of the morning was a blur of smoke and ashes, fire trucks and police stations. Flora answered questions honestly, with a flat affect, still numbed by a feeling of swimming, gauzy unreality. She drank the coffee they handed her. She nodded or shook her head. She said “Thank you” when people said they were sorry. She identified her mother, who looked like a charred, gray, waxy mannequin.
“That’s her,” Flora said, but it wasn’t. Her mother was a living woman, and this was just a thing, no life in it at all, no memory of life, nothing.
“Do you have any family you can call?” a county cop said, a man with dark, short-clipped hair whose mouth was a straight line.
“No,” Flora said, “but I’ll be fine.”
“You have a place to stay?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Outside, in the parking lot of the county building, Blythe took her hand. “Come stay with me,” she said. “Don’t go back out there.”
“I belong at Rainshadow,” Flora said, pulling her hand away. “If you won’t drive me, I’ll walk.”
Blythe nodded, her face drawn. “I’ll drive you, Flora.”
At Rainshadow, Flora saw Sylvia before she even got out of the car. She had caught Zeta and was leading her from the grazing paddock to the arena. She stood, watching, as Flora emerged from the car.
“I won’t get out,” Blythe said, her voice hushed, as she met Sylvia’s eyes, the two women gazing at one another.
“That’s fine,” Flora said, and zipped up her jacket before tugging herself out of the low-slung car seat into the brisk, still-foggy air.
“Hi,” Flora said, walking up to Sylvia, her hands shoved in her pockets.
“Where have you been?” Sylvia asked.
Blythe started her car again, and Flora turned to wave at her once as she drove away.
“The police station mostly,” she said. “My house burned down. My mother is dead.”
She said it without emotion, without affect, and Sylvia responded in kind, almost as if she had expected the news. Sylvia nodded, looked up into the gray sky.
“So I suppose you’ll be forced to stay here. You have nowhere else to go.”
Flora leveled her gaze at Sylvia. “I think Ethan would want me to,” she said.
“Flora,” Sylvia whispered. “Please?—”
Whatever she was going to say, Flora didn’t stay to listen. Instead, she reached out, startling Sylvia as she took the horse’s lead.
“I’m going to train Zeta today,” she said. “You go in and rest.”
Sylvia stood watching her, stunned, as Flora led the horse away.