Chapter 6

“Why did you kiss me?”

“Sorry, I don’t know, I just felt like — I thought you were –“

She blushed, shut her eyes, and let out a nervous sigh. I looked down at her hands and saw that she began to wring them anxiously. I felt immediately terrible for her. I felt awful too because the kiss was nice. I could feel in my gut that I liked it and wanted more of it.

I brushed the sand off my clothes and sat upright, facing the ocean. She did the same.

A dark rain squall now blocked the setting sun, darkening the evening and making the sunset melancholy. The water glimmered with a golden glow. The clouded sky was grey-green and seemed to swirl like a mix of watercolors on a wet canvas.

“It’s beautiful here,” Nephele said, still with the pain of rejection she was eager to forget in her voice.

“My husband and I used to come here all the time,” I replied.

Nephele sat back with her hands stretched out and dug into the warm sand behind her. A loose bang fell across her face. She brushed it aside.

“Oh, I had no idea you’re married.”

“Was married. He died in the war.”

Nephele breathed in deeply. As she breathed in, her chest rose. I caught a glimpse of her tank top going taut against her breasts, and a lewd thought flashed through my mind, but I chased it out before it became anything more than an abstract thought. I responded,

“It’s alright. It’s already been two years since his death. I’m over it. As much as I can be anyways.”

“Still, I’m sorry,” she said. “War’s a helluva thing.”

That statement caused a flash of anger in me again.

“Too bad there are people all too eager to fight it,” I replied tersely.

She averted her eyes towards the horizon. I kept a dead stare on her. It was evident she wanted to rebut my slam. But she recognized the obvious — that it would be useless to argue whatever justification she had for the war. She knew now that I didn’t want to hear it. That I’ve heard it all. So, she bit her tongue. Chose silence instead. And I was relieved she had. She wouldn’t know that she had killed Eli, and she did not know what I was capable of doing or the darkness in my soul, but now was not the time for her to finally find out.

I cooled myself down, steered clear of attempting any more escalation, and instead offered an olive branch. I should learn more about her. Now was a perfect opportunity.

“So, what made you want to be a pilot?” I asked.

She glanced back at me, then back out at sea. There, a line of pelicans skimmed the edge of the horizon. Her eyes followed them.

“As far back as I could remember, I wanted to be a pilot. My dad was a pilot, you know. I was an air force brat. Grew up on an air force base. So, yeah, I guess it was always in my blood.”

“Of course, I like it. I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t like it.”

“Must be nice to be able to do something you like to do.”

“What about you? Do you enjoy running the bar?”

“It pays the bills.”

“But do you like doing it?”

The question made me bark a laugh. It was naïve of her to think there was an option for me to follow a dream. It wasn’t an option for anyone in Estea to follow a dream. All that mattered in Estea was keeping your head above water. She only gave a smile in response to my laugh. I answered her.

“Yes, I like running the bar. It’s what we wanted to do, Eli and me. We bought the bar right before the war. I mean, it was really his dream. It was his father’s bar, and he always wanted to take it over. I just sort of went with it. If I had a choice, I probably wou-“

I cut myself short. Frowned at the level of surprising honesty that was about to come out of my mouth. Something I never really gave myself time to think about before the war, and neither had the luxury to think about after the war.

I was about to say: that I never had a plan for my life except to go along with whatever Eli wanted to do with his life. The sudden epiphany made me laugh again. She cocked her head like a confused dog at my strange outburst.

“What?” She chuckled.

“Nothing,” I replied.

Nephele dug her hands into the sand.

“Doesn’t sound like nothing.” She replied innocently and frankly.

“Well, to be perfectly honest, I never really wanted a bar. But here I am.”

“You’re doing a good job with it.”

“Well, what would you rather be doing if you could have it any other way?”

“I… I don’t know. I guess I never really knew. I don’t know what it’s like to want to strive for something. I never felt what you felt, that it was in my blood to be something. My parents were ranchers. That might have been me too, but it wasn’t my dream. It was just a life I knew. This bar was a dream. The only dream in my life. But it wasn’t my dream.”

“Some people discover their own dreams later in life. Meanwhile, Eli would have been prou –“

She stopped herself from what might have been another transgression. She was afraid to piss me off again. She dug her feet deeper into the sand. Crossed her arms as if it were cold. It was getting a little cold. The rain squall was getting near, bringing a cold wind.

“Thanks. I’m sure he would have. I’m sure he’d be proud to know that I never managed to find a buyer for it. Anyways, the bar’s mine now. It’s a part of me. And I’m a part of it.”

I paused, thinking about what exactly I meant by that, but quickly wrote it off as a cheesy and meaningless superlative and changed tack in the conversation.

“So… you got anyone back home?” I asked. I was careful not to look at her when I asked the question. I stared at the dull silver sunset beyond the looming thunderheads, squinting my eyes as the sun was still bright.

“You mean like a partner?”

“You’re going to ask that after that kiss?”

“I just wanted to know if you were planning on making me your side-chick. Don’t I have the right to know that?”

That quip made her laugh. The laugh was nice to hear. It’s a strange thing about wars you never think about in a time of peace — a beautiful laugh is hard to come by, so when it does come, it’s surprising to hear. A nice thing to hear. And Nephele’s laugh, I had to begrudgingly admit, was beautiful. It was golden. Not a crude, rough, cruel, or frenetic laugh like the laughs you often hear in war. It struck me as extraordinarily odd that it would come from her, the poster child of this war.

“Well, people get lonely in a war. It’s quite common, don’t you think?”

“I guess you’re right. But for the record, I wasn’t hoping for you to be my side chick. No, I don’t have anyone back home. Not for a long time.”

“Since I’ve been in a relationship? Not since I joined the air force. Nine years. Shit, ten years, now. Damn, a whole decade. Time sure flies.”

“That is a long time.”

“I’ve just had other priorities.”

“Like becoming the best fighter pilot that’s ever lived?”

“I guess so. But sometimes, I wonder if I would have done things differently if given a chance.”

“Well, it’s never too late for a second chance.”

I caught her eyes. She smiled at me. I smiled back and felt that fluttering excitement well up in me again. But then, remembering that I had rejected her advances only moments ago, she averted her eyes back to the horizon and cleared her throat.

“When I go back home, things will be different. Anyways, I feel really stupid for kissing you. I guess it’s been so long that I’m severely miscalibrated.”

“That’s alright,” I laughed. “In a weird way, I kind of appreciate it. Makes me believe I still got it.”

“Oh, you still got it,” she replied immediately. Then she blushed and added,

“Can we just keep that embarrassing moment between us? The guys would have a field day if they ever found out.”

“My lips are sealed.”

The conversation came to a standstill again. But it wasn’t an awkward silence. It was a natural silence. Comfortable even. It was as if she were someone I had known for a very long. I glanced back furtively at her. She caught my eyes again and smiled again. She really was beautiful. I began to imagine what might have happened if I had accepted her kiss. If I let it linger just a bit longer and let it develop into something more. The thought aroused me greatly. I had never been with a woman. What if I had allowed that kiss turn into something more?

“Something wrong?” She asked.

My turn to feel nervously embarrassed, with my taboo thoughts only a slip up away from becoming a reality. All it would take was initiative on my part. I could see it in her eyes that if I suddenly pounced on her now, put my hands on her, pressed my body into hers, and kissed her madly, she wouldn’t only allow it, she would revel in it.

I might have been on the verge of doing just that, but then a fat raindrop plinked the top of my head. Then another on my arm.

“Oh no. We are about to get dumped on,” I said.

The curtain of water rushed over the ocean towards us like a grey wall. It passed quickly over the bay, hissing across the sand as it made its approach.

“Your car!” Nephele gasped.

My eyes went wide, now realizing what she had realized.

“Oh shit, the top is down!”

We jumped to our feet and ran as fast as we could just as the rain squall started to hit us. But it was too late. By the time we got to the car, the sky was already pouring out its heart.

Sure enough, just as we had left it, the top was down, and the car’s interior was getting absolutely drenched. And we became drenched. My clothes clung heavily to my body. And Nephele’s to hers, and her hair, with the weight of the rain, covered her eyes, reminding me of a wet, shaggy dog.

Nephele tried opening the passenger side door, but the door was locked. She next tried clambering over the door but slipped backward and fell into a puddle. I laughed hysterically as I helped her to her feet.

She tried brushing the mud off, but it was too much, so she quickly gave up and jumped into the puddle again. A streak of mud made its way onto her cheek. She hadn’t noticed, so I put my thumb on her cheek to wipe it but froze in terror when I realized the special intimacy of that simple act and how nice it felt to touch her warm skin.

My hand remained on her cheek. Her hand went up to meet it. Her eyes were locked on mine. Doubtlessly, she wanted me. Now, I wanted her. I knew it without any doubt. I stepped closer to her. Our bodies touched and exchanged warmth. My hand traveled from her cheek to the back of her head and brought her in to kiss me.

The heavy rain that thrummed against us made it so that all else was drowned out. All other touches, sounds, sights, and smells were nothing more than white noise in the background. The only thing in my world at that moment was that kiss.

We held nothing back. We kissed each other madly. I pushed her to the side of the car. I breathed her in. I kissed her neck and sniffed the rose-scented perfume. My hands traveled all over her body. It’s been so long since touching another person so intimately that I touched her desperately. She touched me in the same way. Likely for the same reason. Then, when I had touched all of her but still wanted more, I slipped my hands up her soaked shirt to her breasts. Her nipples were hard and felt lovely against my hand. But it wasn’t enough for me to just feel them. I wanted to see them. So, I lifted her shirt, and she raised her arms to facilitate slipping her shirt entirely off her.

I threw it into the car.

We held no fear that anyone could see us here. No one ever came to the lighthouse anymore. We were completely alone and free to do with each other what we wanted.

I went down, put my lips around a nipple, and sucked on it, raking it with her tongue.

Nephele tensed up from the feel of my tongue. She arched her back to put her chest out.

“Oh God,” she breathed.

I went to her other nipple and, as I sucked, watched her face contort with pleasure. She clutched her hair with her hands. She could barely keep herself together from the touch of my tongue, which got me hotter. I wanted more of her. There was just one problem.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I muttered.

I took a step back. But she wasn’t going to let me get away this time. She grabbed my wrist, pulled me strongly towards her, held me, then switched places with me. She put me against the car door and said,

“Then I’ll teach you.”

That wasn’t exactly what I meant. But the assertiveness of those words rendered me helpless to do anything else. I had to let her teach me.