Midnight rainbow

The room was hot when they awoke, the Mexican sun broiling through the closed curtains. Their skin was stuck together with perspiration and made a wet, sucking noise as Grant lifted her off him. He got up and turned the air-conditioning on full blast, and stood for a moment with the cold air hitting his naked body. Then he came back to the bed and turned her onto her back.

They scarcely left the bed that day. They made love, napped and woke to make love again. She couldn’t get enough of him, nor he, it seemed, of her. There was no sense of urgency now to their lovemaking, only a deep reluctance to be parted from each other. He taught her the unlimited reaches of her own sensuality, tasting her all over, making love to her with his mouth until she was shivering and shuddering with pleasure, mindless, helpless. She told him that she loved him. She couldn’t keep the words unsaid, not now, when she’d already told him anyway and soon the world would intrude on them again.

Night came, and finally they left the room. Walking hand in hand in the warm Mexican night, they sought out some shops that were open late. Jane bought a pink sundress that made her tanned skin look like honey, a pair of sandals and new underwear. Grant wasn’t much on shopping, so she blithely picked out jeans, loafers and a white polo shirt for him. "You might as well change," she instructed, pushing him toward the dressing room. "We’re going out to eat tonight."

There wasn’t any talking her out of it, either. It wasn’t until he was seated across from her in a dimly lit restaurant with a bottle of wine between them that he realized this was the first time in years that he’d been with a woman in a strictly social setting. They had nothing to do but eat and talk, sip the wine, and think about what they were going to do when they got back to the hotel. Even after he’d retired, he’d kept to himself on the farm, sometimes going for weeks without seeing another human being. When the need for supplies had forced him to go into town, he’d gone straight there and back, a lot of times without speaking to anyone. He hadn’t been able to stand anyone else around him. But now he was relaxed, not even thinking about the strangers surrounding him, accepting their presence but not noticing them, because his mind and his senses were on Jane.

She was radiant, incandescent with energy. Her dark eyes shone; her tanned skin glowed; her laughter sparkled. Her breasts thrust against the bodice of the sundress, her nipples puckered by the coolness of the restaurant, and desire began to stir inside him again. They didn’t have much more time together; soon they would be back in the States, and his job would be finished. It was too soon, far too soon. He hadn’t had his fill yet of the taste of her, the wild sweetness of her body beneath him, or the way her laughter somehow eased all the knots of tension inside him.

They went back to the hotel, and back to bed. He made love to her furiously, trying to sate himself, trying to hoard enough memories to hold him during the long, empty years ahead. Being alone was a habit deeply ingrained in him; he wanted her, but couldn’t see taking her back to the farm with him, and there was no way he could fit into her world. She liked having people around her, while he was more comfortable with a wall at his back. She was outgoing, while he was controlled, secretive.

She knew, too, that it was almost over. Lying on his chest, with the darkness wrapped around them like a blanket, she talked. It was a gift that she gave him, the tales of her childhood, where she’d gone to school, her food and music preferences, what she liked to read. Because she talked, he found it easier to return the favor, his voice low and rusty as he told her about the white-haired young boy he’d been, his skin burned dark by the hot, south Georgia summers, running wild in the swamp. He’d learned to hunt and fish almost as soon as he’d learned how to walk. He told her about playing football during high school, chasing after the cheerleaders, getting drunk and raising hell, then trying to sneak into the house so his mother wouldn’t catch him.

Her fingers played in the hair on his chest, aware that silence had fallen because he’d reached the point in his story where his life had changed. There were no more easy tales of growing up.

"Then what happened?" she whispered.

His chest rose and fell. "Vietnam happened. I was drafted when I was eighteen. I was too damned good at sneaking through jungles, so that’s where they put me. I went home, once, for R & R, but the folks were just the same as always, while I was nothing like what I had been. We couldn’t even talk to each other. So I went back."

"And stayed?"

"Yeah. I stayed." His voice was flat.

"How did you get into the secret agent business, or whatever you call it?"

"Covert activities. High risk missions. The war ended, and I came home, but there was nothing for me to do. What was I going to do, work in a grocery store, when I’d been trained to such an edge that people would be taking their lives in their hands to walk up to me and ask the price of eggs? I guess I’d have settled down eventually, but I didn’t want to hang around to find out. I was embarrassing the folks, and I was a stranger to them anyway. When an old colleague contacted me, I took him up on his offer."

"But you’re retired now. Did you go back to Georgia?"

"Just for a few days, to let them know where I’d be. I couldn’t settle there; too many people knew me, and I wanted to be left alone. So I bought a farm close to the mountains in Tennessee, and I’ve been hibernating there ever since. Until your dad hired me to fetch you home."

"Have you ever married? Been engaged?"

"No," he said, and kissed her. "That’s enough questions. Go to sleep."

"Grant?"

"Hmmm?"

"Do you think he’s really given up?"