He fixed his gaze on me as if he were looking at me for the first time. I had to turn away and while I did, he drew closer. I felt his hand on my hair and then on my shoulder, but I didn't turn to him. He sat beside me and then I felt his lips on my neck. I closed my eyes. How I had dreamed of this, I thought. His lips moved to my cheek and his hand turned my face to him so he could kiss my lips. Then he brought his hand to my breast and he pressed his lips harder against mine.
The scent of his damp hair, the taste of his mouth on mine, the feel of his hand on my waist, moving under my jacket and my blouse to find my breast all drummed a rhythm through me that turned the heat up in my body and made my breath hot. I moaned and moved so he could lift my legs and run his other hand under my skirt. When he touched me, my breath caught and for a moment, I thought I might faint with excitement.
"Is this really what you want, Olivia?" he whispered.
"Yes," I said, my eyes full of determination. "Yes. It's what should have been."
He said nothing. Instead, he began to undress me and then to undress himself. Above and around us, the storm ensued, the sheets of rain now slapping against the yacht, the ocean rising and falling to create a frenzied rhythm that I wanted to capture and hold between Nelson and myself.
He made love to me with his eyes closed. Despite the fact that he was really there, really holding me and making me part of him in the most intimate way a man and a woman could become one, I didn't feel as satisfied as I had anticipated. Wild, refusing to be disappointed, I rushed into an orgasm and felt him shudder inside me, both of us gasping like two sprinters on the beach who had fallen into each other's arms.
The rain continued to fall. Neither of us spoke.
"You hated every minute of that, didn't you?" I accused.
"I didn't hate it, Olivia, but what you expect is not something you can command to happen. You're so used to giving orders and having your way, you think you can just apply the same techniques to everything. You can't."
I turned away from him.
"I'm sorry," he said. "These circumstances . . it's just not conducive to . . . it's just not . . ." "Romantic?"
"No, it isn't," he said.
"And meeting Belinda at some hotel is?" I asked with a sharp, cold laugh.
"It was a fling, something to distract me, just as I told you," he said. "I'm not in love with Belinda. I'm in love with my wife," he concluded. It put a lump of lead into my throat.
I sat up and began to dress and so did he. Suddenly, I was feeling very cheap and foolish. I hated it more than I hated not having him love me the way I had dreamed he would. It was better to live in my fantasy than to have this as reality, I thought.
The rain hadn't let up.
"We'll have to run for it," he said contemplating leaving the yacht. I found an umbrella and handed it to him. "What about you?"
"I don't have as far to go," I said.
"Olivia . . . this is . . ."
"I don't want to discuss it any more tonight," I said. "I'll keep you informed and you'll do what you have to do when that time comes."
He stared at me, not with anger, but with genuine curiosity as if I were some sort of alien creature.
"Very well. If this is what you really want," he finally said. "I'm sorry."
"Those two words ought to be eliminated from our language. They are sorely abused," I remarked. He nearly smiled, nodded, opened the door and the umbrella, and then, with one look back, charged into the night and the rain. I watched him disappear into the darkness like some apparition, a ghost I had conceived out of my illusions and dreams.
For a few moments I stood there crying. I couldn't remember when in my life I had cried like this before. I hadn't even cried as much or as hard when Mother died. The tears felt like drops of steam on my cheeks. I finally caught my breath, wiped them away, sucked back my final sobs, buried my self-pity forever, and walked out into the cold rain, not feeling any of it and not even knowing I was soaked to the skin until I had opened the door to Belinda's room and she gasped when she set eyes on me.
"Where have you been? What happened to you?" she asked. "You're drenched."
"It's all over," I said in a voice resembling the voice of someone who was devoid of all feeling. "He knows what's happened and he knows what we're going to do. He also realizes his obligations after you give birth."
"You mean he didn't try to get us to . . . not have the baby?"
"It's not for him to decide, to even suggest," I said.
"He has no rights except the right to be guilty."
"But Olivia . . I'm really frightened," she moaned.