Chapter6
Talk of Tight Spaces and Historic Places
The following morning
When Randy awoke with a start, he immediately lifted himself onto an elbow and blinked at the candle lamp on the nightstand.From the lack of light bleeding around the edges of the room’s only window, he knew it was still dark outside.
“Apologies.I didn’t mean to wake you,” Diana said.She was sitting up in bed, an open book resting in the crook of her arm.Reaching out, she smoothed her free hand over his sleep tousled hair.
Randy furrowed a brow.“Have you been reading all night?”The last he could remember, she had fallen asleep with her head in the small of his shoulder, her legs tangled with his and one of her hands pressed to his chest.The thought of what she had been doing a few minutes before made his morning tumescence even more apparent, his member tenting the bed linens.
“No, darling,” she whispered.“But it’s nearly dawn.I wished to finish the entry in this book about the Great Pyramid of Khufu before we go there.”
“That’s today,” he said, sitting up straighter.He glanced over, noticing the page she was studying included a drawing.“What’s that?”he asked, pointing to a double line that appeared as if it was inside the structure.
“The passage into the pyramid,” she replied, tracing a finger from the entrance to where the corridor intersected with another that led up to an open chamber.The initial passage continued downward until it was completely under the ground and beyond the footprint of the pyramid.“I’m going in there,” she stated, pointing to the Grand Gallery.
“What?”
She glanced over at him, her expression blank.“Would you like to join me?The passage is a bit tight, I think.Only a little over three feet by three feet, and it’s at a fairly steep angle, but many have done it,” she went on, not aware of how his face had paled at hearing her description of the tunnel into the pyramid.
“Just a few years ago, some additional chambers were discovered,” she added.“They are apparently covered in red-painted hieroglyphs, and there is graffiti left from the builders.Can you imagine?”she asked rhetorically.“They wrote their names as well as the various names of Khufu, and did it over forty-four hundred years ago.”This last was said with a good deal of excitement.
Although he tried to show enthusiasm, Randy remained reserved in his reaction.“It sounds very interesting,” he replied.
Diana set the book aside and stared at him.“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.Nothing at all,” Randy replied, pulling the bed linens from his body as if he intended to get out of bed.
Despite his nakedness, Diana’s attention remained on his face.She reached out and captured his arm.“Randy, what is it?”
For a moment, he looked as if he wouldn’t respond, but he finally settled back onto the bed and allowed a long sigh.“I...I don’t think I can go in there.”He waved a hand in the direction of the book.
She displayed a look of disappointment followed by worry.“You needn’t be frightened.There isn’t anything in there,” she said.“Everything of value was looted long ago and?—”
“It’s not that,” he said.
She dipped her head.“Will you tell me what has you hesitating so?”
He clamped his mouth shut so hard, she could see a muscle jumping along his jaw line.She leaned over and placed a kiss there.
“I don’t wish for you to...to think me a coward,” he whispered hoarsely.
She scoffed.“I would never think that,” she countered.“Randy, darling, please tell me what’s troubling you.”
Wrapping an arm around the back of her shoulders so he could pull her closer, he said, “I cannot abide small places.Being inside them.It drives me mad.”
“Oh,” she said, her mouth dropping open as understanding dawned.She turned in his arms and lifted a finger to stroke his cheek.“Were you trapped in a cupboard when you were very young?”
He blinked.“How...how did you know?”
She shrugged in his arms.“I did it to Michael once,” she said, referring to her oldest brother.“Locked him in a wardrobe when we were playing hide and seek?—”
“Tom did it to me.I think I was four at the time.”
“He was so angry when I opened the door, he chased me out of the house,” she went on, her attention on her mind’s eye.“I had to run all the way down to my father’s dig site in the Greco-Roman quarter, over a half-mile away,” she continued.“Of course I was in trouble once Father learned the truth of the matter.”
Randy didn’t try hiding his smirk.“Serves you right,” he murmured.
