Darkest Love (25 page)

And now! Now Annie was going to ruin it.

It was the morning after the sex. They'd awoken to a blazing Sivu sun. Sola had left early, muttering something about her tribeswomen and their suspicions. Rain and Annie were left alone to cuddle and gossip and exchange impressions.

It had been going well until Rain rose, strode to the oil stove to boil water for coffee and made a statement that made Annie want to cry:

“You know, I never wanted to choke Sola once.”

He'd said it as the first bubbles hissed and boiled in the pot. Annie could hear them–a hiss like a snake getting closer in the grass. Rain's words bit her and sank into her blood. They were pumped around her body like venom by her weary, hurt heart.

“I was worried the impulse would hit me,” he continued. “Can you imagine if I did it? Can you imagine it if the princess went back to her warriors and said the white man hurt her? She'd have to admit everything after that. She probably would too. And it would get back to me through the grapevine.”

He turned and winked, missing Annie's mood. She could feel the blood draining from her face, and her chest clogging up at this admission. It hurt her more than she could really understand.

“And by the grapevine I mean a
head-skewering
. They really get their message across, these Kaamo, through the medium of a spear in your damned head.”

He frowned now, peering at her, worried. Annie sat on the bamboo bed, blankets up to her knees. The sun through the window, scorched her bare shoulders like a Western room heater placed too close. Her bottom lip started to tremble.

“Annie. What is it? You look like you've seen a ghost or something.” Rain crossed the hut with three steps and knelt at her side.

He had become so much more considerate since his awakening, and since their engagement, and since he fucked the princess. Annie couldn't help wondering if it was because of all those factors or just one in particular?

Did any of it have to do with her at all?

Did he even love her?

Sometimes she felt like an accessory.
More than sometimes
, she told herself, in that angry moment, watching his hand crawling up her leg in concern. She curled her lip at it in distaste.
He barely knows I'm here most of the time. I have to dance around HIM. Always, always. I am the lapdog who waits for her master to be in a good mood.

It was he who decided on their engagement. He who set the limits on their intimacy. He who allowed their love to grow incrementally. So painfully slowly.

She had waited so long it had almost killed her.

And now that they were engaged… Annie was exhausted from the journey. Looking back, she could scarcely believe she had done it: she had secured Rain Mistern, the untamable man. Rain Mistern, the bad boy of anthropology. She had finally done it, after all those years of people laughing at her, saying she was just another slut he enjoyed playing for as much as he could get.

Ohh.
Annie could feel her lip trembling. The memories were bad. Not only was she his plaything, she was the most desperate one of all. Most of Rain's ladies were smart enough to bail after he burned them…but not her. Annie Childs did not know when to give up.

That was what people said: “She hangs on like a barnacle. She's a clingy, spiky little barnacle on his rock. If someone came and scuffed her off, Rain wouldn't even care. He'd laugh along with everyone else. He already does.” That had been Ellie Gould, a colleague from Edinburgh University. Annie had overheard her at a conference.

The men were even worse. “Rain hit on one of my exes,” said Hugh Paxton, a New Yorker who was respected for his work on commercial land-surveying digs. “Yeah, she slept with him. She said she expected to have to tell him, ‘no sadistic shit'. Put the handcuffs away, buddy. You know? But she didn't. It didn't go there. Mistern doesn't even try it with the classy chicks. Only with Annie Childs.”

How everybody had laughed!

It was that memory that burned Annie now.

“Ann? Honey, what's wrong?”

Rain was still staring at her, eyes catching the light from the window and reflecting her own hung head back to her in the shining surface of his eyes. Annie didn't like the way she looked in there: meek, pathetic, bare-breasted, and submissive. A little trashy.

Rain's hand was climbing up her tattooed wrist now, caressing. Annie scowled at it. How she hated that tattoo! She'd gotten it after a dreadful six months when three guys betrayed her, luring her for sex. They'd reeled her in with promises of tenderness and commitment. Then they'd dumped her one by one. Told their friends about it, too.

“What do you mean, you never wanted to strangle Sola?” Annie bleated. “You never wanted to brutalize her?” It was such a harsh word. Was that how he thought about it?

The word brought up all the bad feelings Annie stored inside. Like a pouring rain, it released everything: the smells in the earth and mulch and leaves. All the trash that Annie had stuffed down in her heart was coming up. It trickled out in this flood that Rain had produced.

He had the power to change her weather. Like a Christian God, he could send fire, flood or famine. Emotional famine and floods of feeling and fire that heated her loins!

He was truly the God in this relationship. She was the subject.

It was time for a new fire.
A fire of anger.

Finally!

“Rain, why do you like to hurt me?” Annie demanded.

Rain stopped. His eyes widened. His sun-wrinkled lips parted in surprise. But when Annie looked into his eyes she was happy to see her own visage looking more assertive.

Her head was up. Her bosoms pointed up. Her eyes blazed right back, returning his fire.

“What?” he asked.

“Why do you like to hurt me?” Tears fell rapidly, dripping on the blanket and on Annie's legs. They snail-trailed down her ankles and tickled her toes. “Why do you have to be violent during sex with me? Is it because I'm already damaged?” She sobbed. “You don't mind hurting me some more?” She almost hadn't been able to get that last sentence out. It was a croak, rising from a dusty place in her chest. “You would never do it to the princess. Why with me?”

Rain was perfectly still. After gripping her shin for a moment longer, he shifted. Annie could tell something big was happening. He had thought about this, and prepared it. Whatever came next was important, and difficult for Rain to say.

Annie knew that whatever it was would be real, and that she should take it seriously. It had his true emotions behind it.

“Ann, I know I have a problem with sex. And with some of my attitudes…about women. I know that and I want to say…you've helped me.” He squeezed her hand. “You've helped me. And I hope I've helped you. That's why I let it go further and further, after we started to connect. God,” He averted his eyes, looking agitated now. Then he turned back. “Don't you remember that you were the one who suggested S&M? You said you wanted to explore your own feelings. You wanted to explore why you are attracted to a certain type of man. Jerks, you called them.”

Annie was sniffling. “It's not the guys. It's me. I bring it out of them.” She sobbed violently. The next words hurt more than anything she had ever said: “I am a punching bag.”

Rain took her in his arms. He leaned forward, grabbed her, and pulled her in for a hug, stroking her window-warmed hair as she bawled into his shoulder. After a minute or so he let her pull back, and looked into her eyes.

“I guess…I guess men respond to a woman's demeanor—the way she carries herself and the sorts of things she says. When a woman has tattoos…” He squeezed her wrist, smiling. “…and when she's adventurous, and sexually open, and has a streak of the tomboy in her. Well…I guess…guys think a certain way about her.” He winked, trying—probably hoping dearly—she would take it lightly.

And indeed, Annie's heart warmed at the effort he was making. This was not like the old Rain at all. “So yeah. I guess that's why your relationships always went the same way. It was you. But Annie…” He hurried along, past that phrase, worried she would get upset. Annie's heart swelled for him, because he'd already calmed her down, and the extra effort made everything inside her rejoice. “But Annie, don't get upset about it. Because now, you've got me. You'll always have me.”

They embraced in the sunlight. The square of light from the window moved across the room, traveling in counterpoint to the rising Sivu sun. Soon the room was covered in light. It reached to the door, like a red carpet at an awards ceremony.

The carpet was unfurled. Now it was time for the hugging lovers to disentangle. They would rise from the bed and walk down their golden carpet—it was even more glorious even than a crimson one—then step through the door, out into the world, ready for their new life together.

“Sola would not survive alone for a day,” Rain said. “Her tribeswomen do everything for her. Stupid girl. I had to teach her to sharpen a stick. She almost cut herself with my knife! A newbie girl scout would survive in the forest longer than her.”

“That stupid, is she?”

“Oh yeah.” Rain winked. “And a hopeless forager. The only thing she can recognize is a magic mushroom.”

Annie was happy again. She was lying on the dunes with Rain, staring at the river. She didn't know how much of his Sola-bashing was sincere, and how much of it was just to make her feel better, but she didn't care.

It was definitely working.

Annie squeezed Rain around the waist. “Was she exciting to fuck?”

He paused. “Not really. I thought she would be. But her moves were too leaden. She was weighted down by all that spirituality. Everything had significance….like, she would only suck my dick if the trees were blowing the right way. It became very tiresome.”

Annie laughed at that. She knew now that Rain was probably lying to preserve her feelings, but it was nice to hear.

“And the fact that she was a virgin?”

He squeezed Annie's butt. “That didn't make it more exciting at all. Too much blood. Guh.” He pulled a face. “I felt like telling her to mop it up: ‘You may be a princess on this island, Sola, but your blood is not sacred to
me
. I see no difference between that and the blood of the boar you struggled to kill. I want neither of those substances splashing on me.'”

“Squee, squee, grunt.” Annie made a boar noise, even as she realized the conversation was getting vulgar and nasty.

“Oh yeah. She makes noises exactly like that during sex as well. Squeaky grunts like she's in pain. At first it was hot, but soon the pig associations took over and it all felt a bit bestial. Especially because of her fat ass. And backwards beliefs.”

Okay, now Rain was pushing it a bit too far,”
she thought.

“Did you know that the Kaamo sacrifice newborn girls if they are born with any disfigurations?” he went on. “And they consider
hair at birth
a disfiguration? About 20% of their newborns go in the lake, with a rock tied to their little feet. They just throw them in the river.”

“Wow.”

“Sola could overrule it if she wanted, but she doesn't. She
orders
it. She told me she enjoys doing that because there's a feast the next day to honor the child's soul. She's a cruel girl. A pig queen for a backwards, evil tribe.”

“A
fat-ass
pig queen,” Annie qualified, getting into it.

“One who thinks far too much of the healing properties of her own blood.”

“Pig Queen! Pig Queen!”

“Pig Queen!”

The last avowal came from the scrub behind the dunes. Anne and Rain turned to see the princess standing there. Her hands were on her hips and a look of enormous hurt and fiery anger was in her eyes.

* * * *

“I didn't mean it, Sola,” Rain craned around to stare at her.
Oh, Lord.
The princess's face was a fright. All the blood had drained from her cheeks. A blaze was shining in her eyes, more brilliant because it was framed by a face so pale she barely looked like Sola anymore.

“Pig Queen?”

She had just been repeating that phrase for the last minute, clearly deeply hurt. Rain cleared his throat. Beside him, Annie piped up.

“It is a compliment in our land, Sola. Pigs are well-regarded. Loved.”

The princess was silent.

“I can see how that may have caused pain,” Annie continued. “And confusion. We will try to be more careful in the future.”

The princess stood so still and silently that the waves lapping on the shore could be heard, crashing and frothing, as if they were whispering to the princess.
The land is her guide
, Rain thought.
She listens to it. And she knows in her heart the pig is not a noble creature.

“You had better watch out.”

With that chilling phrase, a vicious whisper, Sola was gone.

* * * *

Later that night while Annie was preparing Mi Goreng on the mini oil stove, a strange noise came in through the window.

Rain slid his chair away from his journal, wiped a slick of sweat from his forehead, and peeped out of the window. He knew the shape of their hut, the colors of the sunsets, and the sounds of Sivu by heart by now. He had memorized the ambience of a Sivu night the way he had memorized the prime numbers. And there was something he didn't like about that bleating horn.

It sounded just a little too much like a Kaamo war horn.

“It's probably just a late boat arrival,” Annie said from the stove, but Rain could see she was anxious. Since Sola overheard their insults, they had both been on edge, giving each other comforting pats and nuzzles that they both knew were a cover for anxiety. What if Sola turned against them? One word to her musclemen and both Annie and Rain's necks would be snapped like wafers.

“Why don't we head back to Sydney early? We can jump on the supply helicopter,” Annie said at one point. “It's flying out tonight.” It didn't sound like a bad idea.