“Oh.” I adjusted our things. “You’re my fantasy, that’s why. I can’t seem to help it,” I barely got out.
He opened his arms to me and then gestured to his erection, water dripping from its swollen tip. “A fantasy. Well, come use me. I’m all yours.”
I clenched so hard that an uncontrollable whimper left my lips. I throbbedso hard for him that not even ice could tame down the fire.
His eyes, hot and melting, commanded me to move.
Brando owned an endless supply of élan, and by the time he was through with me, he had to wash my hair, the water had turned cold, and my entire being had turned to liquid. All will to move had drained and floated toward the ocean.
And I was no slouch.
Even when I wasn't dancing on the professional stage, I still moved until every muscle had been exhausted, exercised at least four to five hours each morning (some days up to nine hours or more). Brando was effervescent to the point of inhuman when it came to sex. He was an effing Italian beast. An endless hunger for him seemed to help my cause.
My hair was of no concern, and since it was so hot, I left it wet and stuck it in a bun. After brushing my teeth, I threw on a thin, soft slip the color of a fern and crawled into bed, kicking off the heavy duvet but utilizing the thin sheet.
“Baby,” Brando said, towel wrapped around his waist, toothbrush in his mouth, “you were going to tell me more about Li Galli.”
I threw my arm aimlessly out, having lost all control. Every limb felt like a weight too burdensome to move. The aftereffects of his touch left me sensitive and still tingling in all the right places. “It’s shaped like a dolphin jumping out of the water.” I yawned deep and long. I hadn’t had a nightmare since Brando took me back to Ireland, but due to our packed summer schedule, I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep either. Plus, there was the worry,the feeling…but I didn’t want to think about anything.Not now.Sleep called to me, an insistent siren. Or perhaps I was the siren who called to sleep.
“You showed me that, during lunch.”
“Oh.” I blinked at the light, almost pure white. “Homer. The sirens. ‘Sirenuse,’ they also call it. That’s where the mythological sirens lived. They called to Ulysses with their seductive melodies. Did I just say that twice? No? Good. It’s also been called ‘the dance island.’ I guess because two dancers bought it, one after another. Both started in the ballet, eventually becoming choreographers. Maja once said that it was suited for an audacious soul. Which, I guess, both of them were. Maja danced with…”
I remembered whom she had danced with, but my mouth refused to move. Afterglow and the salty air was a tonic to the plague of insomnia. I drifted off to sleep with a soft caress of ocean breeze. Sucked into the arms of comfort, even further with the constant humming that danced in my blood, I found soul-soothing peace in its ever-present fizz.
I dreamed of my time on Li Galli with Maja, dancing in the studio facing the sea.
“We could be sirens,” she said in Italian. “We call to men with our dance instead of our voices. See here.” She danced and danced, twirled and glided, like an angel through clouds. Gravity could not touch her. Flawless. Effortless. Poetic.
“You are just like me,vnukinja. The world knows your name and what you can do. But only some will see the true magic and protect it. Others will covet it. And, just as me, you will become a legend. You will choreograph too! Yes! That was stunning. You move like a stanza. You are poetry in motion, as they once called me. Well done,vnukinja! Well done!”
Then I was being pulled from the dream before I was ready for it to end. I couldn’t shield myself from the exploring touch. Resisting the urge to wake was futile. “Hah?” was all I could say, my eyes still closed, but starting to flutter open in curiosity.
“I don’t like the way your arms were,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Say that again, this time in English.”
“I thought I was.” I swallowed, my throat dry. “What language?”
“Slovenian.”
“What was I doing with my arms?” I lifted one, finding it as I had left it, but with a little more energy flowing through my veins. I must have been asleep for a while. The air had grown softer, more of a breeze filtered in, and it smelled like evening was on the horizon.
“You were holding your own hands and had them on your chest.”
“Oh.” Like a dead person, but I didn’t voice the thought aloud. He could be superstitious to a fault sometimes. And his comment about me not seeing or feeling dead people earlier seemed to be on his mind. Orsomethingwas on his mind. Rarely did he touch me in my sleep. Well, enough to wake me. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“No.”
I went to touch him, but he moved. It took me a moment to realize he had retreated behind his wall, keeping me locked out. I felt it and sensed it in his body language.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Non mi piace,” he said.I do not like.
“You moved them,” I said, scrambling to keep up. I was awake but still felt liquid, absorbed into the sheet and the atmosphere. “And I haven’t been having nightmares.”
