'This is the spring that feeds the swimming pool," she said. "Julia and I used to play here. Sit."
She eased him down onto a flat rock. Monks started to get his wind back. The dizzying surges were leveling off, leaving him bristling with unimagined perceptions. He turned his head slowly, seeing the swelling hillsides split into deep, secretive crevasses, watered by streams that emptied into the great sea. Trees burst from the earth with their fierce erect trunks, then gentled out into feminine branches that lifted long-tipped fingers in supplication to the sky. All of nature was fueled by this huge engine, the generator of life.
And everywhere within it, death was waiting – hidden, seething with menace, razor talons ready to strike.
"Are you ready for the lady in black?" she said.
He turned toward her voice. The blouse was gone and she was stepping out of her skirt, tossing it aside. Her fingers worked at a knot between her breasts. She unwound the garment sensuously, then tossed it around her neck. Monks realized that it was not a tube top. It was a black scarf.
Except for that, she was all flesh, shining ivory in the moonlight like a pagan goddess. Her splendor filled him with worshipful awe.
She walked to him boldly, high full breasts shimmying with her steps, nipples taut in the crisp air. She was shaved bare as marble. He stared, entranced by the miracle of skin, its color that no image could ever quite capture, its smooth sheen so warm to the touch.
"How old am I?" she demanded.
Monks was confused. How could she not know?
"Thirty… nine?" he hazarded.
"No! I'm eighteen. And very naughty." Her hand moved to the back of his neck and urged him toward her. "Taste me."
Monks parted the delicate slick flesh with his tongue, finding the tiny bud within. Jewel in the lotus, he thought. Man in the boat. He felt her shiver, her fingers tightening in his hair. She shivered again, and again, and then tensed, thrusting hard against him.
Far away above him, he heard three soft cries, oh, oh, oh.
For half a minute longer, they stayed still, with his cheek pressed against her warm belly while her fingers stroked his hair. Then she sank to her knees.
"Now you," she said. Together, they tugged off his clothes. She pushed him back down onto the rock and fastened her mouth on him, liquid fire, quickly sucking him rigid. Then she slipped her arms around his neck and straddled his thighs. Monks slid slowly into delicious softness that went on and on, and oh, man, holy angels, this was it, this was what being born was all about-
"Can you feel my womb?" she whispered.
Whoa, she was at it again, picking his brain, but could he ever feel it, a sweet soft rub right where it counted, rubadubdub-
"It can feel you"
Well, that was just wonderful, that was how it was supposed to be, yep, the way it was all engineered, he understood that now like he never had. He was leaning back on his hands, sharp bits of gravel biting into his palms and buttocks like the teeth of unseen watchers, goading him on, gleefully whispering unintelligible words. She settled into a slow swaying of her hips, coaxing pleasure from him until there was no longer a point where he stopped and she started, with those wonderful breasts bouncing against his chest, oh my god I am heartily sorry for anything bad I ever said about silicone. The black scarf was looped around her throat, tumbling down her back, and abruptly, a razor-edged vision flashed into his mind of the night he had almost strangled Alison Chapley with a black scarf just like it. And he remembered that Gwen had picked that out of his head.
"The scarf," he said thickly.
"Yes?" she panted.
"It's – how could you know-?"
"That it's special to you?"
"Not special," he managed. "Scary."
She quickened her movements, fingernails digging into his back. Her eyes were aglow, her mouth open, laughing, joining her voice to the invisible chortling chorus-
"Come in me!" she cried, and he did, in shuddering waves, roaring with the unendurable raw sensation.
Monks fell back onto the rock, pulse hammering, arms sprawled at his sides. He was drained, his soul as empty as his loins, nothing left of him but a sensory apparatus. She rose and stood over him, majestic, imperious, the insides of her thighs glistening with her conquest.
"Now I can heal you," she said. "What you're afraid of – I'll make it go away."
He wanted to point out that he did not really mind being afraid, that in some ways he much preferred it to being brave. But before he could find the words, she loosened the scarf from her neck and dangled it over him, as if teasing a cat.
"Take hold," she said.
He reached up and gripped it. It was silk, sending little electric shocks through his fingertips. She tugged, stepping backward, urging him upright, then to his feet. When she got to the pool, she stepped in, disappearing with barely a splash. She was still holding her end of the scarf, and its tension jerked him to the pool's edge. A few seconds later, the white column of her body appeared again, her head breaking the surface. The scarf was stretched taut between them.
She tugged. Monks resisted, listening to the voices in the night's gentle wind. They seemed to be promising that this was what every instant of his life had been leading to.
She pulled again, harder. Whether she forced him or he yielded, he was not sure. The water was cool, a harsh shock to his skin, and it was deep. His feet did not touch bottom, and his motions to swim were awkward, his body not reacting with its usual coordination. It was alarming, a sudden forceful reminder of how out of control he was. He let the scarf go, struggled to the pool's rocky edge, and clung there. He spent a few seconds catching his breath, then started hauling his torso onto dry land.
Gwen breaststroked easily over to him. Her movements were graceful, and she shimmered with strength, her body all lissome toned muscle.
"Not yet," she said. "You haven't given it a chance." She gripped his ankle and tugged playfully, pulling him back in. He was not prepared for it, and he sank below the surface again, thrashing, gulping water. He came up hacking, groping for the rim.
"I can't" – he coughed – "do this."
"Oh, yes. It's what you've always wanted."
She disappeared in a smooth swift surface dive. He felt her hands at his right ankle again. This time, when she came back up, something was looped around it.
The something tugged, pulling him toward the pool's center.
She moved backward, treading water, holding the scarf's other end, towing him. She was smiling.
"Give in to the embryonic fluid that surrounds you," she whispered. "You're being reborn."
"I'm drowning," Monks gasped.
He tried to eggbeater kick, but the scarf held his right leg useless, and the left just flailed. He paddled furiously with his arms, but they barely kept him afloat, and were tiring fast. The voices cawed in triumph now, like ravenous prisoners finally about to tear into a meal.
He understood, with terrible clarity, that the scarf linking him to Alison Chapley had returned now like a vengeful snake to strike back at him.
He thrashed toward Gwen, but she eluded him easily. She dove again, becoming a silvery shape flitting in the water's blackness. The scarf yanked at his ankle, hard this time, pulling him under. Monks fought his way back up, sucking air in shrieking gulps – understanding that this was the last time.
"Now ask yourself, was Eden really worth it?" he heard her say behind him.
Monks inhaled one more lungful of air, then plunged his face down into the water, doubling over to grip his ankle. The scarf was wet, tightened into a knot his fingers could not undo.
She yanked again, pulling his ankle from his hands. He found it once more, hooked his thumbs inside the loop, and pushed down with everything he had. The loop caught for a second on his heel, but then slipped free.