Lord and Master (20 page)

‘You wouldn't believe it if you hadn't seen it, would you?' Luna marvelled, recounting the story of Gerda and the witch in the rose garden, and how she'd left Miami because she was in fear of losing her mental faculties. To which he laughed, then sobered, burying his hands in her hair and kissing her.

They stopped one more time, near Key Largo, where the ocean stretched out to their left and the Gulf of Mexico to their right. Sitting on a patch of sandy grass overlooking a stand of mangrove trees, Luna pointed out their tangled, overlapping roots, sunk into the swampy water below. Then she lifted her t-shirt over her head, revealing her polka-dot bikini top, and lay back on the grass. And Stefan lay down too, pressing his leg against hers.

‘Luna,' he said eventually, ‘we do need to talk. There are things I need to explain to you.'

Luna sighed and sat up. ‘Okay.'

‘I didn't go back to Stockholm to play with my friends.'

Luna shifted uneasily on the grass. ‘You don't have to—'

‘Yes I do. Last Friday afternoon I was presented with an opportunity. A business opportunity. I can't give you any details but…it's a big deal, Luna. But if I take this opportunity, it means sacrificing other things, plans I had for my company, things I've dreamt of for a long time. This thing, it came out of the blue and it…blindsided me. I went back to Stockholm because I wanted to talk to my father, to take his advice. But he wasn't available to meet with me till Saturday, and I
am
an investor in my friend's restaurant, so…'

‘I see,' Luna said.

‘I behaved badly towards you, Luna, and I'm sorry. All I can say is that I was distracted, and it didn't seem right to try to explain all this to you on the phone. And I didn't think how it would look to you, my uncommunicativeness. I promise this was nothing to do with you.'

Luna was silent.

‘Believe me, I know now, if I was ever in any doubt, that you are not a woman to be trifled with.' Stefan ran a hand through his hair. ‘And that's another reason why this opportunity is problematic. There are a number of short-term implications for my business if I take it, things I'll have to extricate us from, work that will have to be completed faster than anticipated. It will place a great deal of pressure on my staff, and that's something I'll have to manage.'

‘You'll be busy,' she said.

‘I'll be busy,' he concurred. ‘And I won't be able to give you the attention I'd like to. I thought about asking if we could take a…time out, a break so I could focus on this and get it settled once and for all. But then I thought of what you might say to a request like that.'

‘You thought right,' Luna said, her voice cool.

‘It was a stupid idea anyway,' he said, shaking his head. ‘Like there was any possibility I'd have managed to keep my hands off you.' And he sounded so doleful that Luna sizzled and crackled anew.

‘Right, well, I wouldn't want to hold you back from your business opportunities,' she said, struggling to get to her feet. Only to be abruptly stopped by Stefan, who quickly inserted his fingers into the waistband of her shorts and pulled her back down with a bump.

‘You have an annoying habit of walking away every time I'm trying to talk to you,' he said tetchily. ‘Please just sit still for a moment and listen to me. I don't want to take a time out.
I
don't want to. I want to be with you, and talk to you, and fuck you, and sit in the sun beside you. And I'm sorry I ever gave you cause to think I didn't. How could you have thought I wanted to give you the “it's not you, it's me” speech?'

‘Well,' she said, ‘you said we needed to talk.'

‘Yes, and…?'

‘And, I thought that meant…' She was starting to feel a little foolish now.

‘Ah,' he said, light bulb going on. ‘Talk.'

‘Possibly I jumped to conclusions,' she allowed, twisting her fingers together.

‘Possibly you did,' he said, and began to laugh. She looked at him and frowned, only for him to laugh harder. He reached out and rubbed her arm, then froze dramatically, quoting, ‘If you don't. Take your hand. Off my arm.'

She covered her face with her hands and said, ‘Okay, okay, I overreacted. But in my defence—'

He pulled her into his arms then, and said, ‘Luna please, for a little while, just shut up.' And kissed her there, between the Gulf and the Atlantic.

They arrived in Key West in the mid-afternoon, Luna deciding to go straight to the ‘old town' portion of the island, which was only a mile wide and four miles long. The old town was the prettiest bit, being full of beautiful old Victorian wooden houses, including one where Ernest Hemingway once lived. When they eventually found a parking spot, Luna suggested they split up briefly.

‘I'll sort dinner reservations for tonight and a surprise for tomorrow morning,' she said mysteriously. ‘You see if you can find us somewhere to stay. I'm not fussy, but I would remind you that I've just been at one of the premiere establishments on Miami Beach. So the bar has been set.' With that, Luna sashayed off down Duval Street, grinning a little grin to herself.

She sorted out the surprise first at a little shack near Mallory Square, then booked them in for a late dinner at a very basic outdoor seafood restaurant where she'd eaten several times in the past – little more than a series of fish tanks, an outdoor grill and a dining room comprised of a metal roof with four open sides, two of which looked straight out onto the ocean.

After that she texted him:
I find place for lunch?
Only for him to immediately text back:
Lunch and accommodation arranged.
He also included a street address. Luna looked at her watch: only half an hour since they'd parted, swift work!

And the bed and breakfast she found waiting for her was everything she could have hoped for, with a massive, wraparound porch, wood siding painted a lovely shade of pink, and a peaked metal roof with gingerbread trim. Luna walked up onto the porch and tentatively opened the screen door, to be greeted by a middle-aged, moustachioed man in a fuchsia polo shirt and khaki chinos.

‘You must be Luna.'

Inside, the sitting room was decorated in an attractive mix of antiques and more modern furniture, with some striking artwork, including several photos by Robert Mapplethorpe.

‘Your boyfriend asked me to show you the two rooms we have available so you can take your pick.' Luna followed the owner to the first of the rooms, a ground floor en suite he introduced proudly as ‘our Madonna room', decorated with prints of the singer throughout her career. All very lavishly and expensively decorated, but Luna preferred the upstairs Oscar Wilde suite, with its hardwood floors and sumptuous bedspread.

‘We'll take this one,' she said happily.

‘Ah, a traditionalist,' he said approvingly. ‘Your boyfriend's in the back garden. My partner's just whipping up a little lunch for the two of you.'

Shortly thereafter, Luna stepped out onto the lushly planted, walled patio to find Stefan drinking a lager beside the pool, looking very pleased with himself.

‘Did I pass the test?'

‘You did,' she said, walking over to him, bending down and giving him a slow, appreciative kiss. ‘I picked the Oscar Wilde room, by the way.'

‘I thought you would.'

Luna sat down next to him, removing her sandals and dipping her feet in the pool. She cleared her throat. ‘Um, I'm not sure you've realised, but I think this is actually a
gay
guesthouse.'

‘Really?' Stefan said, looking around him. ‘What makes you say that? Is it the homoerotic art in the living room? Or the signed photograph of Cher on the upstairs landing?'

He said this so guilelessly that Luna looked at him with mild concern. But then he shook his head at her, like
do you think I'm completely thick?
and she began to laugh. ‘And you don't mind? I mean, you're okay with…' she waved her hand towards the house, ‘all this?'

‘What, did you think I'd feel threatened by it?' Stefan took a swig of his beer, adding drily, ‘I'm assuming, of course, that you'll defend my virtue if it comes to it.'

Luna was laughing incredulously now; really, he was astounding her this weekend. ‘I thought these places were very, um, exclusive. How did you convince our host to give us a room?'

‘One, I am very persuasive,' he said, standing and placing his bottle on a wicker table. ‘Two, he's had two cancellations for tonight.' He stripped off his t-shirt and hitched up his rather fetching light blue swimming trunks, gesturing to his perfect abdomen. ‘And three? Need I say more, Luna?' With that he went to the deep end and executed a textbook dive into the pool. Luna watched him sink, then swim the entire length of the bottom before swimming back to her and emerging next to her feet. He gave her his honey on toast smile. ‘The water is very, very nice. Come in.'

They went up to their room after lunch and kissed on the hardwood floor, underneath the spinning ceiling fan. ‘Shower?' Luna asked, undoing her bikini top as she walked into the bathroom.

The shower enclosure was massive, tiled completely with blue mosaic tiles, with a little seating area and about ten different shower heads at various heights. Luna experimentally twisted a handle and yelped as a waist-height spigot spat cold water at her.

‘I don't think I'm sexually experienced enough for this shower,' she said speculatively as Stefan stepped in and immediately figured out how to turn on the overhead rain shower attachment. She raised her eyebrows and he shrugged, ‘I am Swedish, after all.'

Sitting down on the tiled ledge, she rifled through the copious complimentary bath products, crowing like a child at Christmas. ‘Look, two different kinds of shampoo, conditioner, facial scrub, bath oil…' Handing Stefan some shampoo, she crossed one leg over another and leant back against the wall, pointing a tube of scrub at him and saying, ‘Well played, sir. Well played.'

She watched him wash his hair, tried some of the scrub on her elbows, then stood and kissed him on the shoulder. ‘Thank you for this,' she said, leaning her head into his arm, feeling the water streaming through her hair. He washed it for her, applying roughly half the bottle of conditioner, murmuring, ‘So much hair…' After he'd rinsed it, they stood together, kissing under the water.

Then he patted her bum and said, ‘Let's try a little exercise, Luna,' and turned her to face the wall, placing first one, then the other of her palms against the tiles. ‘These need to stay here, yes?' he said, and she nodded. He placed his hand on her stomach, then inserted his knee between hers, nudging them till her feet were about a foot and a half apart. He adjusted the flow on the shower till it was coming down in a fine, hot mist. She felt his hand on her ass, felt something cool and liquid flowing between her cheeks, then, ah…his fingers, caressing her where no fingers had caressed before.

She squirmed and tensed, till he whispered, ‘Relax. This won't go any further than you want it to.' Then his chest rumbled and he added, ‘When in Rome…'

His fingers moved again, lightly stroking her, teasing her. She focused on the feeling of it, the transgressive feeling of it, and found it to her liking. And when he reached his other hand to her vulva, she liked it even more.

‘It's good,' she said, giving him a quick nod. ‘Keep going.'

‘Good girl,' he replied, immediately inserting a fingertip into her anus whilst rubbing a finger up against the side of her clitoris. She jumped slightly, then stilled herself, pressing her cheek against the wall, stretching her fingers along the tiles. His finger circled to the other side of her clitoris, then back again, and his other finger…moved within her.

And so it continued till she made a panting, pained noise, and his fingers paused. ‘Don't stop,' she moaned. His fingers began to move again, and soon she was begging, ‘Please…ah, Stefan, please.' She felt his hard cock against her hip, looked down and saw it, then looked further down to see his finger sliding in and out of her mons. She pictured what she couldn't see, his palm resting on the cleft of her buttocks and his finger…

She came silently, hands crawling the walls, legs shaking uncontrollably. He slid his own leg between hers to keep her from falling as her orgasm stretched all the way up to her eyeballs, rolled back into her head. His fingers didn't stop until she was literally juddering against the wall. And then he reached one arm up across her chest and under her arm, the other circling her hips, lifting her up on her tiptoes till her legs stopped trembling.

‘That was very, very promising, Luna,' he said eventually, and she sagged against him, laughing weakly.

*

That night, after Luna took Stefan to see the nightly sunset celebrations at Mallory Square, they sat at a waterside table in the restaurant watching the very last light fade onto the horizon. Following some deliberation, Luna had donned another legacy from her Miami days, a slightly diaphanous, very girly flowered sundress with multiple layers of ruffles in the skirt. ‘Don't laugh,' she'd said before displaying it for Stefan as he lay on the bed, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.

‘Why would I laugh?' he said quizzically, standing and running his fingers under the spaghetti straps on her shoulder. ‘You look beautiful.'

And she felt beautiful, sitting with him, eating corn on the cob, coleslaw and mahi mahi and drinking beer.

‘This place isn't too casual for you, is it?' she asked, looking around at the locals and young college kids sat around them. ‘There were fancier places we could go.'

‘This is perfect. I'm glad we came to Key West, glad you thought of it.'

‘And I'm glad you flaunted yourself to our host, got us a room for the night,' she quipped. He looked at her for a second, then at his empty plate, arranging his knife and fork neatly in the middle of it.

‘There's something I want to tell you,' he said, looking slightly ill at ease. He drew a breath and met her eyes again. ‘I just thought you should know, my father is gay.'

‘I
knew
it!' Luna exclaimed, then cringed slightly as the three tables around them turned to look at her. ‘I knew it,' she repeated softly. ‘I wanted to ask you, but I thought you'd think I was prying.'

‘How did you…?'

‘No straight man has that kind of good taste,' Luna said, shaking her head. ‘And one time, when he was at Arborage for a board meeting, I took a message for him from a fellow named…Christian, I think?'

‘His partner.'

‘I thought so. He was very nice, and he asked questions, seemed to know things about me. The kind of things a boyfriend might tell him…'

Stefan exhaled, looking relieved. Luna reached for his hand.

‘You didn't think I'd have a problem with this, did you?'

‘No.' He shook his head adamantly. ‘No, I didn't.'

Later they walked along the streets of Key West, avoiding the more crowded tourist areas and sticking to residential streets. Under a streetlamp, they passed an elderly couple who smiled at them, and for a second Luna tried to picture her and Stefan through their eyes, she in her sundress and him with his messy hair. It occurred to her that circumstances had left them both older than their years. Being with Stefan here, away from work commitments and the rarefied surroundings of Arborage, had allowed her to see him in a different, younger light. Maybe she looked different to him too.

Holding his hand, she gently questioned him about his childhood. It seemed to her that he needed to talk and she was glad to listen. His father had married his mother, a socialite and aspiring model, when he was very young – Luna got the impression that she might have been pregnant with Stefan when they wed. And it had been a happy marriage at first, and Stefan a happy, much loved baby.

Inevitably, though, in a marriage with such a large, corrosive secret at its heart, the happiness didn't last.

‘I think my father first tried to tell my mother the truth when I was around ten, but she wouldn't hear it, and they struggled on for a few more years. It was a very unpleasant time for all of us, though I didn't understand what was going on. And then he finally left my mother, and she was very angry. She remains angry to this day. And she told me about my father in the very worst way she could. Ugly words.'

Luna's heart contracted in sympathy, but she said nothing, sensing that he didn't want kind words from her, not yet.

‘Although they had joint custody of me, she made it very, very difficult for him to see me. And I colluded in this. Because I was angry at him too, for not being what I thought he was.'

They had walked all the way to the end of White Street, where a pier stretched out into the ocean. They went and stood against the railing, listening to the water moving below them.

Stefan continued, ‘Eventually I saw that I was being manipulated by my mother, and we began to fight, she and I. But I still couldn't forgive my father…I'll tell you, one thing I took away from this is that no matter what I do, I will not have an only child. I wished I had a brother or sister to talk to, someone to deflect my mother's attention. No,' he shook his head, ‘I will have at least two children.'

‘I completely agree,' Luna found herself saying vehemently before she could stop the words.

‘And they'll never be alone…'

‘Yes—' Luna choked herself off before she could say more, gripping his hand in the darkness.

There was a moment's silence before Stefan continued, ‘I think my mother was pretty desperate, fed up dealing with me, so she tried one last gambit and packed me off to England to go to boarding school. Where I was miserable. About the only good thing to come out of it was spending time at Arborage, and getting to know Augusta. I owe her a very great deal. She was kind to me at a time when she was in pain, when being asked to look after a teenage boy must have seemed like an especially cruel trick.'

Luna was glad it was dark and he couldn't see the remorse that was surely etched across her face at hearing this. She had been right: sixteen-year-old Stefan had deserved her pity, her understanding. And hadn't gotten them.

‘And I might have carried on being miserable and angry,' Stefan said quietly, ‘but one day – I am not making this up, I promise you – one day I heard a voice telling me what I should do.' He paused. ‘And the voice told me I should fuck off back to Sweden.'