Chapter 32 : What a Body Wants, part two
Feb. 18th, 2010 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pascal_curious
The second drive in the rusted out pick up was as quiet as the first, but not nearly as uncomfortable. Amber was not sure what would happen once they arrived at Bernard’s; nor was she sure what she wanted to happen. Part of Amber felt guilty for having agreed to go to his place, like she was perpetrating some sort of betrayal. She knew it was absurd to feel that way. There was nothing to betray.
Bernard parked the truck not far from the road. Amber could see the silhouettes of palm trees in the moonlight. She thought she caught a glimpse of the moon reflected on water but couldn’t be sure in the darkness. Bernard Came around the truck and opened her door for her. She swung her legs around and put her feet on the running boards.
“Wait a minute,” he said putting his hand on her knee. You’re not going to get far in those,” he told her, indicating her high heeled shoes. “Let me help you with those.” He knelt down and slid the shoes from her feet. Amber was suddenly grateful she had taken the time to give herself a pedicure. Bernard helped her down from the truck and took her hand. “I know it’s dark. Just keep hold; I know where I am going.”
The evening air was cool, but the sand was still warm under her feet. Amber thought fleetingly of Pascal’s warnings of rattlesnakes and tarantulas on the night they had rescued Lazlo.
“What about bugs?” she asked nervously. “I don’t want to step on a scorpion or something.”
“It’s too cold. There probably won’t be many out tonight, “he assured her.
“Probably?” she asked.
“I can carry you, if you like,” he suggested. Despite the darkness, Amber thought she saw him wink.
“That’s okay, I’ll walk.”
“Don’t worry. If one stings you, I will suck the venom out.” Amber was one hundred percent sure she saw him wink that time.
Bernard led her toward the silhouetted trees. He stopped just short of them and advised her there was a step up. Two steps up and they were walking on what felt like a bridge. A few steps beyond the trees she saw why. They were standing over an oasis. The moonlight was reflected on the still water and it illuminated the trees and other plants around the water’s edge. She could see the outline of a small building at the other end of the bridge. It was a beautiful place; it didn’t seem possible that it could be real.
“I never really thought of oases as being real. They always seemed to be a fairytale sort of thing to me,” she told him as they stopped to admire the moon reflecting off the water. “I never thought I would find myself living in the desert. The first time I visited, after my husband’s death, I knew this was where I wanted to be.” She stopped and looked up at Bernard. “Does that sound weird?”
“Not at all.” He gave her hand a squeeze.
Amber turned her back on him and rested her hands on the bridge railing.
“After everything settled down a bit, I decided I wanted to go back to teaching. I didn’t need to, but I wanted to. I took a lot of interviews, all as far away from Riverblossom Hills as possible. I had to get away from there. One of the interviews I had was for a job here in Strangetown. I didn’t get the job, but I decided I was going to move here whether I got the job or not. It is just so different here. It’s bright and hot, all of the time. I knew this was where I needed to be. After my husband died, I felt like if I stayed in Riverblossom…” Amber couldn’t think of a way to put it into words that made sense.
“Like you’d never be warm again,” Bernard said quietly.
“Yes.” A chill ran over her that wasn’t caused by the cold evening air.
Bernard put his arms around her and they stood in comfortable silence. It was the rare kind of silence where it was enough to just be. She was surprised to have found it here with Bernard.
Bernard eventually broke the silence. “Do you remember when I took up painting?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “You won an art scholarship didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Amber felt him sigh heavily. “I didn’t go to art school, but I kept up with the painting.” He released her and she turned to face him. “I have a painting I have been working on that I want to show you.”
He took her hand again and led her across the little bridge. They stepped off the bridge and into a building. She felt cold stone beneath her feet and the only light was coming through the doorway behind her.
“Wait here,” he told her .
He let go of her hand and stepped away. She was startled by the sound of a cigarette lighter and a flash of flame. Bernard went around the room lighting assorted candles and lanterns. With the room sufficiently illuminated he returned to her side. He looked embarrassed.
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
“The jury’s still out on that one,” Amber told him with a wink.
“Well, if nothing hasn’t convinced them yet, this will.” He put a hand on her shoulder and turned her around. In front of her was the painting, mostly finished, propped on an easel.
It took a minute for Amber’s brain to register what she was seeing. When she realized that what she was looking at was a painting of her she gasped. Her hands instinctively went to her mouth in a futile effort to hide her gape jawed astonishment. She looked at Bernard, then back to the paining.
“But that’s me,” she said. She turned to Bernard again. “And I’m naked.”
“Yes, it is you, and you are naked.”
Amber thought she could see his ears turning red. She looked back to the painting and chewed her lip ferociously as she thought.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, “But I have to admit that I am more than a little freaked out by it. Flattered, but freaked out.”
“I’d be worried if you weren’t freaked out by it. I’m freaked out by it.”
“You painted it, why should you be freaked out about it?” Amber asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Because I can’t paint anything else.” He ran his hand anxiously over the back of his neck. “I can’t paint anyone else. Every time I try to paint someone, a woman, it starts to look like you.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, wondering if she should start backing away from him slowly.
“I have a stack of them, paintings of you. They were meant to be other people. Some of them were commissioned pieces. They all have your face. Their hair and eyes are different, but the face is always yours.”
“I’m convinced. You are crazy.”
Unable to deny it, he simply shrugged.
Even though she feared the answer would freak her out even further, she asked, “why?”
Bernard didn’t answer her immediately.
“I don’t think I ever got over you.”
“Over me?”
He took a step toward her. Amber held her ground, her desire to know was overriding her instinct to flee.
“I kissed you once, do you remember?”
“Yes.” She remembered well. She had thought of it from time to time in the dark lonely nights after her husband’s death. She had always wondered if the kiss had meant something. She knew the fact that she wondered if it had meant anything to him meant it meant something to her. She looked back to the painting to avoid having to look at him.
A hundred questions flew silently between them. Their mutual silence spoke volumes.
Bernard stepped closer to Amber and laid his hand on her shoulder. She turned to face him. He didn’t speak, but gently caressed her cheek. She knew he was going to kiss her and she wasn’t about to stop him. He slipped one arm around her waist and pulled her closer. A heady feeling overtook her at his touch. Their lips met and she let herself go. She welcomed his kiss and invited more. Two years of loneliness had caught up with her. She savored the feeling of his strong arms around her and the feeling of his body against hers. She wanted this. She needed this. She spared only a fleeting thought about the other whose arms she wanted and needed to be around her before she allowed herself to become lost in the moment.
“Do you have any idea how many times I have made love to you in my dreams?” he asked her as he kissed her neck just below her ear.
“I hope I don’t disappoint you,” she whispered. “Dreams are hard to live up to.” She was surprised by her own impulsiveness.
He kissed her again, hungrily, and his hands found the zipper at the back of her dress. Her heart was beating madly as he fumbled with the tiny zipper. She could feel his hands shaking. She felt the bodice of her dress become loose and let it fall away from her. It became a puddle of taffeta and tulle at her feet. His hands ran over the curves of her body as he drank in every inch of her.
“I’m going to have to do the whole painting over again,” he told her. “It’s not nearly as beautiful as the real thing.”
Amber unbuttoned his jacket with her own uncoordinated fingers and pushed it off over his shoulders. It joined her dress in a puddle on the floor. He watched her make quick work of his vest and laughed at her clumsiness with his tiny shirt buttons. When his shirt fell away he pulled her against him. She could feel the frantic beating of his heart in his chest. He kissed her again and her own heart beat matched his.
He effortlessly picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. He knelt before her on the bed and held he face in his hands.
“Is this what you want?” he asked as he looked down into her eyes.
She put her hands on his hips and answered him with a simple “yes” before pulling him down on top of her.
Amber awoke the next morning with Bernard’s arms around her. She had fallen asleep with her head resting on his chest. She looked up to find him awake, watching her. He smiled at her and kissed her forehead as she looked up at him.
“No regrets?” he asked when she laid her head on his chest once again.
“None,” she said.
She enjoyed the comfort of his arms around her before it struck her that she had no idea what time it was. She sat up and looked around for a clock. She spotted a Big Ben clock on the table next to the bed. It was almost seven o’clock.
“I have to go home,” she told him, her hand resting on his chest.
“I know,” he said with a smile.
“I don’t want to,” she said as she snuggled against him, “but I have a student to tutor at ten.”
He kissed the top of her head. “It’s okay,” he said. “We have plenty of time.” He lifted her head and kissed her. “We can’t make up for ten years in just one evening, can we?”
After a while they slipped back into their clothes from the night before and Bernard drove her back to the house on Coverup Road. They engaged in an extended goodbye at her front door.
“Will I see you again tonight?” he asked.
“Of course.”
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Date: 2010-02-21 07:18 pm (UTC)And WOOT to 50k words!!! Congrats!! I'll have to do a word count on mine... at least from the "beginning" part of Claire and Colton's story... I'm 'curious' now ;)
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Date: 2010-02-21 09:41 pm (UTC)I chickened oput at the end and didn't incliude as much "detail" as I had initially intended.
I can't wait for your next update, I'm still sitting on the edge of my seat.
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Date: 2010-03-01 06:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-01 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 04:35 pm (UTC)I always liked Charles. I felt really bad for him when his french horn got run over, but I LOLed too. I thought, in the final episode, when Charles was trying to train the POWs to play classical music was touching.
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Date: 2010-02-27 05:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-06 11:29 am (UTC)I love your portrayal of the Curious brothers and the other well known Strangetown residents. The letters from Glarn are such a wonderful idea, it provides such lovely snap shots of the family growing up but is heart breaking at the same time.
I also really like your original characters, Bernard especially. Even if he did come in and steal Pascal's love interest lol.
I hope you don't mind but I've friended you so I can keep up with your updates :)
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Date: 2010-03-06 12:38 pm (UTC)My next update is another letter from Glarn, hopefully in Monday, RL duties have prority this weekend.
Thanks again for reading and commenting and I'm glad to have you on my flist!
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Date: 2010-04-05 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-18 05:10 am (UTC)And I, too, love M*A*S*H - hard to pin down a favorite character, but I always liked Colonel Potter and Father Mulcahey. But I have always had a soft spot for Ol' Ferret Face - it's nice to be nice to the nice.
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Date: 2011-03-18 11:45 am (UTC)LMFAO! It's so funny that you would say that. My Stephen (my signifigant other) say that to eachother at least onee a week. Usually when one of us does something nice for the other, like cook dinner, or wash the dishes, or just say something nice.
I wish they made a Trivial Pursuit M*A*S*H edition. Between the two of us we would so kick everybody's ass.