Rapture's Rendezvous

“It's been a long time between kisses, Michael,” she said, tracing his lips with a forefinger. “I know of your restlessness. Your needs. Why is it you haven't pulled my clothes from me and thrown me across the bed? Has this trip changed you somehow?” She jerked her hand free, with lips suddenly straight and sealed, studying this man's blue eyes, the gentleness to the curve of his jaw and the hair that had now grown to curl in gold at the top of his shirt collar.

She had always marveled at his stubbornness when she had suggested that he wear the popular pomade that was used to slick a man's hair. Instead, Michael had preferred letting his hair lie in loose waves, curling at the ends, having liked being different, even though the sleekness of hair was more fashionable for men. He even parted it on the side, instead of in the middle, and these things made him appear more handsome than most men of his same age.

“Or is there another woman, Michael?” she whispered between clenched teeth. “Is that it? Did you meet another woman? Among the foreigners did you find someone who could please your sexual fantasies even better than I?”

Michael turned his back to her, knowing that the answer lay in the depths of his eyes. He knew that all she would have to do would be to take one look now, while his thoughts were so full of Maria, to reveal the truth to this woman who had been his steady female companion for two full years now.

Marriage had never been spoken of between Alice and himself. The sensual side to their relationship had begun shortly after Alice had become his private secretary, assisting him

in his business, the mammoth Hopper Shoe Company that had grown to be known all over the country.

Alice, being closer to Michael's age than Maria, had already left a trail of tumultuous love affairs behind her, and this alone was reason enough for Michael to have chosen not to ask for her hand in marriage. He had been watching and waiting for the right woman … a virgin … an innocent… to take as a wife.

Maria. Oh, how he now ached for Maria. She was all that he had wanted in a wife, and even more so, being so gifted in beauty and bodily proportions. “Oh, God,” he worried further to himself. She had trustingly given up her own virginity while in his arms. And now he had let her slip through his fingers. She was now gone from his life, to never be again. . . .

“Michael,” Alice stormed, moving to his side. “You haven't heard a word I've said. Please tell me. What is it that's bothering you?”

Michael went to a desk and opened his journal, reading a few entries. “When will you begin typing the report, Alice?”

“Is that all you have to say, Michael? Are my skills as a typist suddenly more important than my skills as a lover?”

Michael scowled, slamming the palm of his hand on the desk top. “You must remember that you do get paid for clerical services,” he said darkly.

“Michael.. . please. . . .”

“The journey was a long one, Alice,” Michael grumbled. “I am tired. Please excuse the sharpness of my tongue.”

An abundance of white lace was revealed when Alice slipped her jacket off. She smoothed her skirt with her fingers then went and sat down on a cushioned chair behind the smaller secretarial desk that sat facing Michael's. She rolled a sheet of paper into the Remington typewriter that Michael had purchased for her own private use shortly after she had been hired as his secretary. In only a matter of weeks she had mastered this new “contraption,” as Michael still continued to call it.

“Hand me the journal, Michael,” Alice said, straightening her back. “If work is what you want, work is what you shall get.”

Michael closed the journal and carried it to her. “I would like to have the report ready for the union meeting upon my arrival in Saint Louis,” he said. “You see, I also have duties to perform. I was asked to make this trip with a specific purpose in mind, so it is only proper that I be ready for any questions from those union members who put their trust in me.”

“But, you are so somber,” Alice said, reaching into a top drawer, pulling out a cigarette.

Michael struck a match and lighted it for her, then relighted his cigar. He went and sat down behind the larger desk, positioning his. feet to rest on the top, crossing his legs. He inserted his hands into his breeches pockets, fitting his thumbs to hang over the outside. “The immigrants are a sad lot,” he reflected. “Well, I should say most of them are,” he quickly added. Maria's face flashed before his eyes, making the pulsebeat throb in his temple. If he let himself, he could even feel the touch of her lips….

“Most of them you say?” Alice asked coolly. “How can you tell one from another? All the ones that I have seen are dressed in drab clothes and slouch so as they walk, like scared peasants.”

Michael pushed himself up from the chair, trying to keep from lashing back at her. He knew that to do so would be to reveal too many truths to her. Instead, he went to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a glass of port, then slouched down into a heavily upholstered chair, turning the glass in his hands, watching the overhead light reflect into it, like diamonds on display. “These .. . uh . . . peasants. . . .” he murmured, then jerked his head up to glower at Alice. “They are soon to discover what a mistake it was to come to this land of opportunity. The peasants? They will soon find out that only drudgery awaits them. Yes. They are afraid now, having left the only way of life behind them that they have known since the day they were born. But wait until they reach the town of Hawkinsville and meet up with Nathan Hawkins. Then they will really have just cause to be afraid and walk as though defeated. Because they will be. Only the union can give them hope. Only I can intervene and see that the wrongs are made right.”

Once again his thoughts returned to Maria. He was glad that she wasn't a part of this train carrying these people to a life of impoverishment. At least Maria and her brother had been paid passage by their father, instead of by the likes of Nathan Hawkins.

“So you found out that what we all suspected was true?” Alice asked, flicking ashes from her cigarette into an ashtray. “Everyone aboard that ship did have their passage paid by Nathan Hawkins? They are all headed to work as slave labor for this man's coal mines?”

“It appears so, Alice,” he grumbled. “It appears so.”

“That's so horrible, Michael,” Alice said, mashing her cigarette out, then opened the journal and began to study it.

Again Michael pondered over having discovered Maria and Alberto as part of this ship's passengers. He had thought the ship had been taken to Italy only at Nathan Hawkins's expense. It was Nathan Hawkins's ship.

Michael had only lucked out himself by having played the role so well of a buyer for a winery, saying that all other ships had been booked completely, and that he had a deadline to meet, convincing the ship's captain to let him travel along with him this one time. He smiled to himself, remembering even having been given the private cabin of the bastard Nathan Hawkins, since Hawkins hadn't taken this voyage himself.

Michael knew that if Hawkins ever found out the true identity of the man who had used his cabin in every way possible, the craggy face of Hawkins would grow even paler than Hawkins's eyes, which always appeared empty… unfeeling.

Damn. Michael so hated himself for not having found out the destination of Maria and Alberto. When he had asked Maria, she hadn't remembered, and when she had suggested she search in her violin case where she had the name written on train tickets, Michael had thought it hadn't been necessary, having thought they would have plenty of time to discuss this later. But as time went on, their moments together had been spent talking about other things besides where the journey would end for the both of them.

And then there was Alberto. Alberto had refused to even talk with Michael, let alone discuss such congenial and simple matters of life that Michael would have so liked to have shared with him. No. Alberto had been close-mouthed. He had mainly been there to protect Maria, whom he had hovered over as though he was the husband of the beautiful female at his side.