the waves of heavily charged particles swimming through the airy room; he saw that there was a wide verandah beyond all four sides of the high-ceilinged room, and a paddle fan spun lazily above, French doors were flung open all around, and the tall louvered shutters, banging about in the freshening breeze, gave out to the surrounding banana groves, whipping to and fro in the fresh breeze like a vast undulating mass of torn green flags.
Blades of sunlight slashed through the gathering storm clouds, filling the room with shining golden light. She glanced at him briefly over her shoulder and returned to her easel. But in that instant, her eyes had spoken.
“Mr. Hawke. So you came after all.”
“I wasn’t expected?”
She swiveled on the stool to face him, rearranging her skirt so that now her twin brown knees were visible.
“Frankly, no. I didn’t think you’d show.”
“I need the money, remember.”
She smiled. “Fancy a drink?”
“How did you guess? What have you got?”
“Rum.”
“Love some.”
She nodded, put her brush down, and walked over to a small sideboard that served as a drinks table. Her hair was pinned up on top of her head, stray gold ringlets on her forehead and a single one coiling beside her pink cheek.
“No ice,” Hawke said. “Neat.”
She poured out two fingers of Black Seal into a crystal tumbler and handed him the short glass.
He put it to his lips and drank the rum at a draught, then held out the glass.
“Another?” she asked.
“Hmm. One for the road.”
“Leaving so soon?”
“I meant it metaphorically.”
She laughed as she poured the dark rum and looked at him with fresh eyes. “Are you funny as well as insanely good-looking, Mr. Hawke?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“What a terrible waste you are, Alex Hawke,” she said after a long moment. “If you had two nickels to rub together and weren’t so…otherwise inclined, you could have every woman on this island.”
“I don’t want every woman on this island.”
She looked away, gazing out at a lone bird, unnaturally white, winging away over the tumult of green banana trees, fleeing the approaching storm. “I’m going out there for a cigarette. Be ready when I come back.”
“Ready?”
“On the chaise. Naked.”
“Ah.”
She slipped off the stool without another word and went outside. Hawke stood where he was, watched her standing at the rail, a white silhouette against the darkening skies, her back to him, smoking, the wind whipping the thin skirt around so that it clung to the shape of her clearly naked hips and buttocks, downpour threatening, heat lightning blooming inside the boiling clouds, the rumble of distant thunder drawing near. From a garden somewhere, the perfume of gardenias came floating in with the sweet breath of approaching rain.
He sipped his rum and noticed that the iron railing, peeking through the bougainvillea, was filigreed with rust.
Hawke was standing just as she’d left him when she returned.
“Something wrong?” she asked, taking a deep pull on her cigarette and expelling a cloud of blue smoke.
“No.”
“What is it, then? We’ll only have this beautiful light for a short while.”
“Role reversal.”
“What?”
“You do it.”
“Do what?”
“Exactly what you told me. Naked. On the chaise.”
“
“Yes, you. Do it. Now.”
She walked over to a chest of drawers and angrily stubbed out her cigarette in the large ashtray on top.
“Listen, Mr. Hawke, I don’t know who the hell you are or who you think I am. I am a professional artist. I don’t derive any erotic pleasure from my subjects. I try only to paint the truth of them. Now, if you-”
“So, I’m a subject, is that it?”
“Of course. What did you think? That I had some other-”
“Asia. Don’t talk. Just do what I say. The blouse first.”
She looked at him, hands balled into fists, eyes ablaze.
For a moment, he thought she might rush him, strike him, rake her fingernails across his cheek, pound his chest. But she didn’t. Rather, the anger fled, and she gave him a smile, skeptical, tolerant, languidly amused. She slowly lowered her head and began to unbutton the row of tiny pearl buttons down the front of her blouse. There were a lot of buttons, and Hawke saw that her slender fingers were trembling.
“You are full of surprises, aren’t you, Mr. Hawke?” she said, fumbling with the buttons.
“You have no idea.”
“I was fairly certain you went the other way.”
“You mean there’s another way?”
She laughed, her eyes afire. She was beyond caring which way he went, she realized. Far beyond.
Hawke, his own eyes never leaving her, went over to the stool. He picked it up and placed it beside the Balinese chaise. He sat on the edge of the stool and took a sip of the rum, feeling it burn down into his gut. She finished with the buttons and stood with her hands on her hips, the cotton blouse agape.
“What are you waiting for?” he said. “Take it off, Asia.”
She pulled the blouse off and dropped it to the floor, suddenly looking up at him with a glance akin to defiance but edging closer to something deeper in the heart. She was wearing no brassiere. Her breasts were full and alabaster pale against the mocha brown of her deeply tanned stomach, arms, and shoulders. The rosy nipples were hard, erect in the damp coolness of the room. Pointing at him.
He looked at her for a long time, passion beating inside him like a second heart.
“Now the skirt.”
She lowered her head again, reaching behind her with both hands to unbutton the skirt. She let it fall to the floor, where it puddled around her feet. She stepped out of it and kicked it away with one foot.
Her finely muscled legs were long and lean and brown. There was a thatch of curly gold between her smooth thighs.
He tore his eyes from her body and said softly, “Look at me, Anastasia.”
She complied, holding his steady gaze. Then she cupped her right hand beneath her left breast, holding it as if in offering, closing her eyes, caressing herself, running a finger over one protruding nipple, then pinching it, kneading it roughly between her thumb and forefinger.
Her mouth was open now, but he could see her nostrils flare as she inhaled through her nose. Her left hand was drifting downward over her belly.
“I want to…” she said in a small voice.
“Yes,” he said.
She reached between her legs. Two fingers disappeared into the already glistening flesh between her now parted brown thighs. Her head fell forward again, and she swayed slightly, a low moan escaping her lips. Hawke watched her, deeply moved by the very sight of her. Stirred, he felt himself growing harder and straining with the need for her but wanting to prolong the intensity of this moment, preserve desire, stay perched on the knife’s edge of it forever.
