Private Lies (16 page)

Pie in the sky? Perhaps. But an ingenious solution. We have
to give it our best try, he and Maggie had finally agreed.

And they had started the process going by that very first
get-together dinner at Pumpkins.

Their first real ploy had not been as successful as they
might have wished, but it proved that they could be clever enough, subtle
enough, to engineer Carol and Ken's "proximity." They had literally
coerced them that summer afternoon to go to the theater together without their
spouses. It was, at the very least, a beginning. So far their efforts had
brought no measurable results. Indeed, there had not been the slightest signs
of romantic conflagration stirring between them. That, however, did not deter
them. It would take time. Patience. Ingenuity.

Both he and Maggie had perceived that Ken and Carol had a
great deal in common. They were both "artistic" and sensitive. Ken's
ambition to write surely must be an attraction for Carol. And Ken, according to
Maggie, appreciated creative and aesthetic types like Carol.

Naturally, Eliot and Maggie knew that you could not
legislate attraction. But you certainly could coax it along. The power of
persuasion was awesome. Whole nations had been brainwashed into accepting
ideologies. Mind control was a notion that was scientifically based, they had
learned. One merely had to focus on it, devote all one's energies to its
achievement. It required, above all, effort, dedication, commitment.

It had its dark side, of course. They would have to be
manipulative, a somewhat sinister idea, and dissimulating, which was equally
offensive. They would have to playact and, much worse, they would have to lie.
In the end, of course, it would be worth it, especially if any emotional damage
was kept to a minimum.

Unfortunately, Maggie had not spent much time contemplating
Ken's vulnerability to the blandishments of women, although he was, after all,
an attractive healthy man in a fast-track profession where ambition and
sexuality often intersected and few marriages survived. But he had given her no
concrete evidence of ever straying and she had deliberately avoided any
temptation to be curious. As for Carol, well, they had reasoned, she had been
in show business, notorious for its open sexuality, albeit a presumption for
which Carol could offer little personal evidence.

But if such a match could be engineered and, hopefully,
confronted at exactly the right moment, then everything between them would, in
effect, equal out. Barring that, it would be impossible to contemplate a
comfortable future together for him and Maggie.

A wild dream? Maybe. But certainly, if they could pull it
off, an effective solution. If it could happen anywhere, it could happen in Africa. Africa was primitive, suggestive, erotic. In Africa civilization disappeared.

"You'd think they would already have taken advantage
of the opportunities we afforded them," Eliot said. He could not hide his
apprehension.

"Like us," Maggie giggled, putting her arm
through his and embracing him with the other.

"Like us," Eliot said, "except that now, my
darling, we have to be..."

"Alert, disciplined, and discreet," she said,
nodding. They had been over this ground before. She immediately disengaged.

"Also focused," Eliot said. "Not on us. But
on them."

"We stick to the game plan," she said, showing
him a smart salute. "
Mon Capitaine
."

"And above all, remember," Eliot said, pointing
his finger. She took it and with her free hand put it between her teeth, biting
gently. Then she sucked it. "Sounds carry in the bush."

"Lovemaking sounds?"

"Especially that."

He smiled, looked about him, then bent and kissed her,
putting his tongue in her ear.

"I'm dying for you," he said. She unlocked their
fingers and caressed him under the table.

"Me, too. We're not in the bush yet," she said.

He looked into her eyes, saw his own yearning in them, and
stood up. He left some money on the table and walked through the lobby, came
out on the garden. They walked past a large aviary displaying a great variety
of African birds, then moved, her following, to the pool area, which at that
hour, seemed deserted.

To one side was a dressing pavilion and he headed for that.

"Puts you on your mettle," he said. "Makes
you crafty and resourceful."

"Necessity is the mother of invention," Maggie
said, taking his hand and moving toward the pavilion.

They stood against the rear wall of the pavilion, which was
not in the field of vision of anyone who might be in the garden, the hotel, or
the restaurant. He enfolded her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers.

"Not here," she whispered. Opening his eyes, he
saw her looking up. Beyond a knoll a group of men were repairing a road. Some
of them looked down at them and leered, white teeth flashing broad smiles.

To get out of their field of vision, they moved toward the
side of the pavilion, ducking into a door, only to discover that they were in
the ladies' dressing room. They started to embrace. Then Eliot saw her. Carol!
She had her back toward them and was pulling on tights, preparing for her
unwavering exercise routine.

Eliot had forgotten. Since it was winter in New York, she had expressed the desire to go for a swim in the warm morning sunshine in Nairobi this time of year. She would then be expected to do her morning exercises by the
pool.

Quickly he stepped backward, then turned and ran out the
door, leaving Maggie, hoping he had disappeared before Carol had seen him. He
leaned flat against the wall just outside the pavilion, his heart beating a
fast tattoo in his chest. There was no way to begin the walk back to the hotel
without risking being seen by Carol through the window of the dressing room.

To prevent that, he ducked into the men's dressing section.
Ken was just emerging from one of the toilet stalls.

"Eliot," he said. "Thought I might take a
quick swim before we leave."

"Great idea," Eliot said cautiously, inspecting
Ken's face, clearing his throat. "We were just exploring the place, Maggie
and I. Hell of a spot. Beautiful pool, don't you think?"

"Super," Ken said.

"Carol and Maggie are in the ladies' side," Eliot
said.

"Are they?" Ken said, getting into his bathing
suit.

"You didn't come down with Carol?" Eliot asked,
alert now to any suggestive nuance.

"Why would I do that?"

Eliot ignored the question that answered his question as
Ken started to move out through the door. Eliot looked at his watch.

"We've only got a half hour before we meet Jack
Meade," he said.

"We're all packed," Ken called over his shoulder,
then Eliot heard the splash as Ken dived into the pool. At that moment, Eliot
saw Carol starting her routine on the pool deck.

"Close call," Maggie whispered behind him.

He turned and nodded, then waved to the others as they
moved back toward the restaurant, which was now officially opened for
breakfast. Guests were also filling the garden.

"Don't be late," Eliot shouted, making a bullhorn
out of his hands.

"We'll be there," Carol called back.

"Nearly blew the whole thing," Eliot said.

"That was the general idea," Maggie said,
winking.

Such antics would have been unthinkable nearly ten months
earlier when their affair began. "Exploded" was the way they
preferred to describe it to each other. They were behaving like rutting
adolescents, awakened to a sensuality that neither had believed their natures
capable of possessing. They had fallen in love. It was both baffling and
wonderful.

Romantic love, for Eliot, had always been an intellectual
notion, an artistic convention, a philosophical conundrum, a broad symbol
sometimes used to illustrate a bedrock truth about the natural kinship of the
genders.

It had happened to him, he had decided, on another level of
consciousness. He could even pinpoint the exact moment in time when his
sublimation cracked the surface of his awareness, erupting like a volcano.
Often he and Maggie would amuse themselves by arguing over exactly when it had
occurred, concluding finally that it had happened to them simultaneously.

Of course, it had probably been building in their subconscious
for weeks before their mutual epiphany. Before that point, certainly on the
surface of their intense strictly business interaction, they both had been
scrupulously correct. He had, after all, hired her to organize and computerize
data that he had collected over a long period of years. Not that their original
purpose had ever been compromised by their affair. In fact, it had actually
improved their working relationship.

There had been, of course, tiny hints, stirrings, signposts
that indicated their growing mutual attraction. When he was away from her, her
image intruded on his thoughts. And when he was with her he felt an
ever-accelerating awareness of her presence, as if he were studying her with
every nerve ending in his body.

At first he had tried to deny it to himself, berating
himself for what he decided was imaginative meandering, childish fantasy,
erotic foolishness. But soon he was impatient to get to the office, to see her,
to immerse herself in her presence. When their eyes met, they had even begun to
lock briefly, he had the sensation that he was on the verge of disappearing
into hers.

At first he had tried to steer his mind into some logical
analysis of what he was convinced was some transient psychological episode. But
no amount of investigation or dissection of his emotions made any sense out of
it. Finally, it became evident that it, the idea of it, call it love or
whatever, had a powerful stranglehold on him. Consummation became an obsession.

Perhaps it was the light, an orange twilight, that had
suffused her in a radiant glow as she stood by the window that afternoon. Her
face, he remembered, had turned in such a way that the shadows blocked out all
other features and made her eyes appear luminous, like beacons in a foggy
night.

They were talking, debating a computerized classification
in what an observer might determine was a perfectly ordinary discussion. He was
standing not three feet from her, sorting papers on his bookshelves. Suddenly,
he had discovered that he had no understanding of what she was saying, or, for
that matter, of his own words. The full concentration of his mind and body was
focused in another place, on this woman, not her mind or voice but her aura.

She had turned, he remembered, a kind of twisted motion,
held briefly, but enough to reveal the full outline of her breasts. The shadows
changed on her face as she moved toward him as if to assist him with the papers
he was sorting. His body's response was totally foreign to his experience,
troubling in fact, very confusing. Words constricted in his throat. He was
suddenly engulfed in a yearning to touch her, absorb her into him.

It was irrational and certainly involuntary. He hated
unexplained mysteries and irrational certainties. But in this case, he felt
compelled, irresistibly drawn to possess her.

Then, suddenly, she had not stopped in her advance and she
was folding into his outstretched arms. The full length of their bodies
embraced and his mouth spread hungrily over hers, and they kissed in a way
that, if they were able, they would have swallowed each other totally.

Their sense of time seemed to go awry as they entwined
themselves, conscious only of sinking to his leather office couch.

"Thank God," she had said, her first words after
they had kissed. "How long was I expected to wait?"

Her words startled and confused him.

"And I thought," he remembered telling her,
"that I was the only one."

She had giggled like a young girl, sitting up for a moment
to look at him. Then she had stood up, watching his eyes as she began to
undress. He was certain that this act was a ritual way she had chosen to
exhibit herself for his pleasure. He was even then urging his mind to adopt
some mystical interpretation of what was happening between them.

"God, you're beautiful," he whispered. Her
movements were slow and deliberate.

"I have been wanting to do this for weeks," she
said without embarrassment. "To show you myself."

"And I've wanted to see you," he whispered.

She removed her dress, her brassiere, caressing her breasts
in a way that seemed as if she were giving them to him as an offering. Her
breasts were large and full with big round areolas and nipples that stood
straight out. He was still fully dressed when he reached out to her and touched
them, kneaded them, kissed them.

Then he started to undress and she stopped him.

"No. You must let me."

She then knelt down and removed his clothes and squeezed
his hard erection between her breasts, watching him as he rose and fell and her
tongue flicked the tip of his penis until finally he guided her to a sitting
position on his lap and she reached out to insert him into her body.

It was beyond anything he had ever experienced, the
totality of it. And when their orgasms exploded, it was as if they were
mutually claiming the substance of each other.

"Is this really me?" he had asked her as they
cooled, but remained entwined.

"Yes," she had told him. "The real
you." They kissed deeply and it began again.

"And the real me," she had said.

He knew even then that he would not be content with simply
accepting the fact of his overwhelming yearning to be one with this woman. He
would want his logic system to understand it since it was so foreign to his
view of himself and to his experience.

From the beginning of his life, from the first stirrings of
memory, he had followed a preordained track. There were do's and don'ts,
proprieties and conventions.