“Hmm. I don’t know that word either. Is it the right one?”
“Yep. It’s exactly the right one. I trained in Belize for a few months. Trust me, you wouldn’t have liked it.”
“I prefer the sterility of the high mountains. Predators you can see and kill.” He scratched idly at a bug bite until Ben swatted at him to stop. “Are you hungry?” He never really got why he bothered to ask when the answer was always yes. They turned the jeep around, Ben now driving, and headed to a village marked on the map. There wasn’t much there, but they were able to buy some fruit and some bottled water.
By the time they got back to the hotel, they were both desperate for a swim. As soon as they’d dropped off the jeep and motored back to the hut, they stripped, pulled on swimsuits, and headed back out to the drop off, which was now beginning to fascinate them both.
§ § §
There was a distinct line of water where it went from light, tranquil green to menacing black, from warm, almost hot, to chilly cold. Diving down a few metres from the edge, they could swim along the white sandy lagoon floor, which then just…ended, the seabed plunging down a seemingly bottomless cliff. Nikolas was able to hold his breath long enough to swim down until Ben couldn’t see him from the surface. It was eerie watching it. He just became more and more indistinct, and then the dark swallowed him.
The line of surf was now a great deal closer, but they had to swim across the black, cold water above the drop off to reach it. It was choppier and much harder work. They hadn’t realised until they tried it that the surf was actually a great deal further away than they’d thought, and it was enormous, waves well over ten feet, which was a lot when you were swimming in front of them. The sound and power of them awed Ben. They made him feel insignificant and vulnerable, which was a relatively unusual feeling for him. For one moment, he pictured the waves continuing on into the lagoon, a vast tsunami of power sweeping everything away, and he lost concentration for a moment, swallowing a mouthful of water, coughing.
Nikolas caught his arm and indicated they should turn back. The crash of the waves was too loud for them to hear each other shout. They swam back across the cold, dark depths and reached the enveloping warmth of the lagoon. By the time they reached the hut, they were both physically drained. They sat for a while on the edge of the deck, watching the sunset reflected in the water. Suddenly, Nikolas grinned. “Come, I want to do my second favourite thing with you.” Ben was suspicious as Nikolas pulled him to his feet. “I want to take you out and watch everyone wanting you.”
As they showered and dressed in their immaculate suits, Nikolas actually admitted he was starving. Ben reckoned it was the first time he’d ever heard him use that word, perhaps a word that had always had more serious connotations for him than would allow its common, casual use. But they’d only eaten fruit at lunchtime, had swum for hours, and now both of them could feel the burn of hunger. It was an incredibly good feeling, and when Ben pulled out the canisters of pills and offered them to Nikolas, he hesitated and turned them down. “It’s not so bad tonight.” Ben pulled him close and kissed him chastely, well aware if he did more he’d likely not actually get out of the hut or get fed.
§ § §
Nikolas knew as they entered the restaurant that night they turned heads just as much as they had in Alan Lund’s restaurant on Aeroe, but now for very different reasons. Although everyone in the place had dressed up a little for dinner, he and Ben were elegantly attired in bespoke tailoring. They were both tanned, and he was very well aware how strange his bleached blond hair looked with its unique pale stripe on one side. Ben, of course, had a quality of beauty that would turn heads wherever he went. Sometimes, Nikolas could hardly bear to share that beauty with anyone, but as it never ran out or diminished in any way from the sharing, he’d realised it only increased his pleasure looking at Ben to know everyone else was as well—but they couldn’t have him.
As they entered the restaurant, they paused as everyone did to study the glass floor. It was quite something: sunk a little way into the illuminated water, it gave the God-like impression of walkingonthe lagoon. The brilliant white sand glowed in the green light and the whole room was filled with a wavering, watery luminescence. Ben just raised an eyebrow at Nikolas, and they stepped down, following a waiter to their table.
§ § §
While they were waiting for their food, they had a chance to study their fellow diners. Mostly they were couples, some possibly on honeymoon. But there were a few families as well. Nikolas’s game of guessing who was sleeping with who seemed a bit redundant here, as it was fairly obvious the adults present were paired off. Which, Ben supposed, included them. He wondered what Nikolas thought about this—they were now being seen by everyone else in the room as a couple—knowing Nikwouldhave thought about it and considered it from all angles. Neither of them ever wanted to be thought of as in a relationship, gay, in other words. This was not a word they ever used or applied to themselves. After all, Nikolas had been married for many more years than he’d known Ben. Ben, Nikolas used to joke, was only gay for pay—a joke, Ben noticed, he’d dropped after the events on Aeroe. This was something of a testing moment for both of them, therefore. After a few minutes, knowing they were under intense scrutiny, Ben let out a long breath. “Jesus, sniper alley, or what?”
“They’ll get bored soon and look at something else.”
Ben caught Nikolas’s gaze. “You’re okay with this?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. Stop worrying so much about what I think or don’t think, Benjamin. You’ll give the impression I have issues. I’m the most easygoing person I know.”
“So, if I took your hand now…” Nikolas’s hands immediately went under the table. Ben chuckled. “Well,thatdoesn’t look suspicious.”
Nikolas laughed, and to Ben’s astonishment brought his hands back out, reached over and rubbed his hair. “There, now shut up, and tell me something to amuse me.”
§ § §
They ate enormous quantities of fresh lobster and other local seafood, whiling away the evening, in no rush to return to what was on both their minds, drawing out the anticipation. At one point in the evening, the underwater illumination was turned off, and waiters came around the room lighting candles. Nikolas leant back in his seat, studying Ben in the candlelight. He was filled out once more, the gaunt unhappiness of Aeroe quite gone from his perfect features.
Nikolas still couldn’t understand how he hadn’t seen the change in personality that had led Ben to attempt what he had in the bathroom of their cabin. He wouldn’t let his attention wander so again. But then he knew he was the subject of Ben’s intense study, too. He was still being monitored and watched just as closely. It made him smile. They were a matched pair of flawed individuals. Ben appeared to sense his scrutiny and quirked him a small, complicit grin. “Ready?”
Nikolas nodded and murmured slyly, “We’ll have to walk back across the room with everyone speculating on what we’re returning to our hut to do. How…Perhaps even…where…”
“You bastard.”
“They’ll be wondering which one of us is the top and which the bottom, for that’s their only understanding of these things.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Ben was trying not to laugh.
“They’ll see you as the pretty boy who takes it up—” Ben put his palm over Nikolas’s mouth. Nikolas eased it off. “Now they’ll think you’re engaging in foreplay.”
Ben rose from the table and left, alone. Nikolas watched him with great amusement. It would be a sad day when he couldn’t annoy and confuse Benjamin Rider.
§ § §
Ben was still sulking when they got back to the hut because Nikolas was still laughing at him. Ben had come to realise over the past year that Nikolas’s initial promisetheirfirst time had beenhisfirst time was one of Nikolas’s total fabrications. Nikolas clearly had a great deal more experience of sex with both men and women than he let on. Therefore, Nikolas was more flexible in his thinking in these matters when it suited him. He’d clearly decided in this remote place, with people he would never see again, it suited him to be unconcerned what anyone thought. Ben, on the other hand, as he’d admitted to Squeezy, hadn’t even considered sex with another man until his body had betrayed him in a remarkable way during his first interview with Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen, and he didn’t see himself as gay. He didn’t even want Nikolas to think that—which even Ben could see was a bit of a ludicrous stance to take.
