Catching Moonlight (Man Season) (5 page)

Toby puzzled at him. “What do you
mean?”

“You don’t have to talk quietly. I’m
awake,” a weak voice said. Stephan stood, eyeing
Dio
.
“So, the legend of the
moonboy
is true!”

“
Moonboy
?
What are you talking about?”

“I see now why you rejected me, Toby.
You’re in love with him.”

“What do you know about me?”
Dio
questioned, his eyes flashing.

“I’ve heard the girls in my town,
talking about you. ‘
The boy who never ages.’
That’s
what they call you. They and their mothers and their grandmothers all have seen
you sitting up here on the cliffs at various stages of their lives, usually
when they’re swimming or boating. You’re like some kind of mystical, romantic
dream to them. I’ve been coming here, hoping to find some credence in their
dreams, though personally I think you’re just one of a long line of laborers
who come from the same family, so you all look alike. But
Greece
has a history of legends, and
primitives love their history. I’ll be going now, Toby, unless you want to
press charges. I wouldn’t blame you, I deserve it.”

“No, Stephan, it’s like I said. You
reached a breaking point. Maybe now you’re past it you can find some meaning to
your life beyond wanting to be rich.”

“But what’s the use, if I don’t have
you?”

“You didn’t want me; not really. You
wanted my father’s money.”

“You may be right. Goodnight. And
Toby, thank you for understanding; I’m sorry I caused you all this trouble.”

He walked away. Toby stared after him
then turned to
Dio
. “So, you’re a legend? I’m
surprised he didn’t try to photograph you, like the
Loch
Ness
Monster!”

“I know what that is.
Aella
brings me all kinds of books. But I’m not a hoax. I’m
real.”

“That you are! I’ve waited all night
for this!” She reached loving arms about his pale neck, kissed him hungrily.
“Take me to your bed.”

CHAPTER THREE

Dio
led Toby into a secret chamber
behind the temple; it had one quaint little room with a welcoming fire in a
plain stone hearth and a big, fluffy bed in the corner. To one side were a small
loveseat, a bookcase bursting with volumes new and old, and a wood table with
three chairs – his dinner dishes, now clean, sat stacked and ready to go. Toby
noticed a bathroom attached to the side of the temple.

“A recent addition,” he smiled. “It
has a self-composting toilet, and the water for the sink and tub comes from a
cistern in the yard with a solar-powered heater. Gregory made all kinds of
improvements to the place for me.”

“My father?
So he knew about you? I mean, he
knew who you are?”

“Yes. You see, his family was
descended from
Hera
, and he wanted to try to make
amends for what she did to me.”

“How could he be descended from a
god?”

“My mother used to say ‘The gods are
only sorcerers in disguise’. She was the moon goddess but her powers were not
as strong as
Hera’s
so she couldn’t break my spell.”

“Is anyone strong enough now? Are
there any sorcerers left?”

“There are. But they only use their
powers for greed and political gain these days.”

“That figures.
Dio
,
I’ve been thinking about my dream. Is it true that you could be freed if
someone who loves you offers to take your place?”

He stared into her eyes, the emerald
gaze emblazoned by the fire. “It is true. But no one has ever loved me enough,
and even if they did, I wouldn’t allow them to throw away their freedom in
exchange for mine. Long ago, when
Aella
was a young
woman she grew to love me. I loved her, too. She felt ashamed because she
couldn’t love me enough to take my place. I told her it didn’t matter, that we
could stay here, together, until she died. But she couldn’t deal with the
thought of being old while I was still young. She went far away, stayed gone
for twenty years then returned, with Kosmas, to take care of me. Gregory begged
her to come back. He knew he was dying, and worried about what would happen to
me.”

“Is that why he never married? He
didn’t want people to know about you?”

“No, he never married because he
still loved your mother. And he thought she had abandoned him. He used to come
here at night and talk to me until dawn. He talked about his Lauren, his
psihi
mou
… his
soul. He had lost his soul to someone else, and would never be the same without
her.”

“My mom thought he didn’t come for
her because he’d found a new love.”

“He didn’t come for her because he heard
that she had married. He didn’t find out about you until it was too late. I
watched him die. He sat here, on this couch, until he couldn’t breathe anymore.
That was the way he wanted it, to die here, surrounded by the island and the
sea he loved.”

“He died in this room?” Toby’s eyes
filled with tears.
Dio
walked her to the fire and
eased her down in front of it. He tasted her tears then her lips.

“It’s all right,” he whispered. “He
wouldn’t mind us being here, together. He wanted me to find my soul … and I
have.”

He removed her T shirt and jeans,
made slow, sweet love to her there by the fire. Toby let his kisses wash over
her, warm in the firelight. Her skin absorbed his touch, drew strength and
pleasure and belonging from it. She watched his face, amazed at the beauty of
him. His eyes held centuries of sorrow, pain and suffering. She tried to
imagine never knowing any other place, any other people but those who lived on
the island. Wars and plagues and storms passed by a thousand times – while he
remained young and beautiful. Yet he changed – he knew modern discoveries, he
read books that could take him anywhere in his mind. He wasn’t alone, not
really. No more than she’d been with her nose stuck in her books at school. But
it was time for him to be out in the world, to see it as it really was. She
knew then what she had to do.

“
Dio
, I’m
going to take your place.”

He rose up from her breast, looked at
her with questioning eyes. “I don’t understand you.”

“Yes, you do. I’m taking your place,
here, so you can escape.”

He moved away from her. “You don’t
know what you’re saying.”

“I do. I don’t think I’d mind it. I
love the island, almost as much as I love you! Let me do this for you,
Dio
.”

He stood, began to pace. “You’re not
thinking it through, Toby. You’d be lost here, forever! You could never see
your mother, unless she came here. You would never know what it’s like to grow
older and have children, and see your life come to a close. You would wish for
death a million times. You would cry for all the pain that goes on endlessly in
the world around you. I would never let you face that!”

“Not even if it meant you could
travel, and age, and have children of your own?”

He knelt before her, peering deep
into her eyes. “I would only want to do those things with you. You have brought
me a love I never thought existed. You can’t know how happy that makes me. I
could live on forever, and be content, if I can be with you. But you have to
decide if you can watch yourself grow old while I remain young.
Aella
couldn’t handle it, not many people could.”

“I think I could. Age doesn’t matter
much in this world. I see younger women with old men all the time, and vice
versa. I only know I love you, and I must be with you for as long as the Fates
allow.”

He smiled, and took her lips with
his. The heat passed between them – they settled there again before the blazing
hearth, their flesh merging, making them one. Toby cried out as the room
exploded into a myriad of colors.
Dio
rocked inside
her, moving in a way that brought her higher and higher into the rainbow. He
grunted, shook all over. She enveloped him with all four limbs, drew him deeper
within her, unable to see anything but the colors and the emerald fire in his
eyes.

They spent the night in his bed,
curled up like babes in a womb. Toby listened to his breathing, took comfort in
its rhythm. Her thoughts were dancing from one idea to another. She could see
them living there together, reading and watching the sunsets, and making love.
But then she wondered how she could tell her mother that she wasn’t coming
home, wasn’t going to Stanford, or studying anywhere else.
Moonsea
was her home now – she wanted no part of the rest of the world. But would she
always feel that way? What about ten, twenty years down the line, when she
started to look older and
Dio
didn’t? And after she
passed on, he’d be alone again. Who would take care of him then? Developers
might come in, people like Stephan, and tear down the ruin. Oh, she could go
nuts thinking about all the ‘what ifs’!

“Let your worries go,”
Dio
whispered in the dark. “Just enjoy us being together,
while you can.”

He kissed her
softly,
he tasted salty like the sea. Toby was suddenly hungry again, urged him into a
position to take advantage of his late-night hard-on. She bent down, took it
full into her mouth; savored the flavor, licking it slowly until he moaned low.
She drew him up into a thrilling frenzy, working him with her hands and tongue.
She’d never done that before, only read about it in books – but she blessed
them for teaching her how to make him growl with pleasure. He rose, centered
her hips on the bed and dug his own tongue into her wet, pulsating skin. She
squealed, gave herself over to vertigo, clutching the sheets to hold on while
the shadows careened about her.
Dio
knew
instinctively that she was on the edge – he jumped up and drove himself into
her. The bed seemed on the verge of a breakdown, whining and creaking and
buckling beneath their bouncing hips. The waves of a euphoric, divine passion shot
through them over and over – each time sending them spiraling towards the
ceiling. Then they’d crash and burn and go again. The end came finally, in a
crescendo of colors and moonlight and deliciously hot sweat.
Dio
fell beside her, heaving like an old man having a heart
attack. Toby matched him breath for breath, thinking if she died right then and
there she couldn’t complain.

“Unreal!” she sighed, laughing at the
workout he’d given her. “If you keep on like that, we might both die of
ecstasy!”

“It would be worth it.”

“
Dio
, what
would happen to you if someone did break the spell?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I would
crumble to dust like a vampire in an old movie.”

“Kosmas has been showing you some of
his DVDs, hasn’t he?”

“Yes. But truly, I don’t know what
would happen to me. I’ve imagined the worst, and the best, which would be for
me to start aging, slowly, as all humans do.”

“Is that possible? Wouldn’t it be
wonderful?”

“It would, but I’m more inclined to
believe it will happen in the worst way. And, before I met you, I wouldn’t have
cared. I’d be glad to be done with it. But now, I want to live, to be with you,
Toby.”

He kissed her again. They settled
into each other’s arms and watched the sunrise then fell into a blissful sleep.

The grating music from a Cruise ship
woke them. Toby stretched, peered out a tiny window
Dio
had chiseled out of the cliff- side wall. The ship was passing by the island,
probably on its way to
Crete
, which was nearby. She could see the passengers running
around like ants on the multiple decks – frantic, busy people, seemingly afraid
to stop and relax. They hurried their lives away, became old before their time.

“I think I’ll call my mom today,
Dio
,” she sighed. He was lying close to her, massaging her
nipples to watch them grow hard under his fingers. He nipped at one; she jumped
and smiled. “I guess the sooner I tell her I’m not going back to college, the
better.”

“Are you certain you want to do this,
Toby?”

“I’ve never been more certain of
anything in my life! The moment I arrived on the island I knew I’d found my
home. Maybe the Three Fates did bring me here.”

“I believe they did. You are a
descendent of
Hera
. Maybe pledging yourself to me is
a way of making amends for her actions.”