Later the gang invited
Michelle to lunch at a local taverna just outside of town. They had three
rented scooter bikes, which they used to get around the rather large
island. The two Swedes used one, Elena another, and Sam gracefully
invited Michelle to share his own
.
They had more beer, homemade
wine, Greek salads, tzatziki and lamb chops for lunch then headed back to the
hostel to rest before night activities commenced. As the convoy scooted
down the narrow asphalt road that led back to town, Sam let the two other
scooters continue ahead while he veered off to a dirt road and drove Michelle
to a deserted patch of beach, hidden from view by great boulders that sloped
into the sea. There they sat long after sundown, feet submerged in
the tingling surf of the Aegean Sea. Michelle felt at ease with him and
told him about herself, her two older sisters, her father the engineer, her influence,
and her mother the TV news anchor. She was born in Paris, France, when
her mother was on assignment as a news correspondent to a national TV network,
hence the French flavor of her name. She still lived at home, in
Sunnyvale, and was to begin her sophomore year at Stanford. He told her
about his family, his older brother and younger sister, his father the Circuit
Court judge, and his mother the educator. He grew up in Newport Beach but
was living in the USC dormitories. He had been in Rhodes for nearly a
month, his second tour on the islands, and as she could easily tell, was having
the time of his life
.
Elena was an old acquaintance
from his first trip to Greece. They had met on the island of Kos,
introduced by an Italian friend Sam had then traveled with, and had remained
friends. Actually they had been more than friends but had settled into a
non-committing relationship this time around. She had a Greek boyfriend
in Athens where she lived, but the two had kept an agreement to vacation apart,
he in the Ionian Sea,
she
in the Aegean.
Lota and Nilla, the two
Swedes, shared their room at the hostel, and the four of them pretty much stuck
together since arriving in Rhodes. Sam admitted to Michelle that, like
her, it took him a while to get used to the promiscuous attitude of the place,
but now that he was over it, it seemed perfectly natural. When she asked
what he did with himself when aroused in public, he confided that he simply
turned on his stomach and stuck his pecker in the sand or would run for
water. It made her laugh. Then they discovered that it was not by
total chance they had met in Greece. They both had a fascination with
Greek mythology and both took it with General Ed courses in college
.
They rode the scooter back to
the hostel past midnight and found Sam's room empty with a note directing him
to a certain beach party. Michelle, still tired from jetlag and the long
trip, opted to go to sleep. The gang woke her up at six for a morning
swim. Only when they got to the beach did Michelle realize she was in
panties and t-shirt and too committed to turn back and fetch the bikini.
She hesitated only for a moment before she stripped naked with all of them
watching and sprang for the water
.
The following two weeks were a
blissful blur of gradually falling in love with Sam Baker. She could not
quite point to a certain event or a certain moment in the short time they had
spent together, but when it came time to leave, she knew she would miss him
terribly. She joined their group by swapping beds with a South African
fellow involved with the French girl who shared her room. Into her third
day on the island, she found them entangled on the bed above
hers,
huffing and puffing into a deafening climax, and offered to trade beds.
The two, still catching their breaths, nodded in unison and continued their
conquest of each other. Still astonished by the promiscuous habits of the
place she would later find herself in a similar situation when Elena walked in
on her and Sam’s lovemaking. It would be the very first time they made
love. Sam had suggested they leave the beach earlier than usual and
Michelle was the only one of the group to oblige. She got first dibs on
the use of the lone shower in their room but it wasn't long before Sam poked his
head through the door and asked if she needed her back soaped. She turned
her back to him and handed him the soap. He caressed her body from behind
as they stood in the tub under a trickle of warm water, then made love to her,
wet and hungry. Elena's presence would have gone unnoticed but for
short gasp of surprise that had escaped her throat. It was almost a
carbon copy of the scene Michelle had walked into her first night on the
island, her and Elena in reverse roles. Michelle was not entirely certain
it was a surprised gasp or simply a giggle that had escaped Elena’s lips, but
Elena, who allowed herself to watch for a bit then gracefully retreated, did
not seem at all disturbed when they met afterward. She treated them both
to beer at the beach bar they frequented and went on about daily matters as if
nothing happened. It eluded Michelle how anyone could be so unperturbed
with such matters and she decided Elena was being a hypocrite. She later
confronted her, reasoning that such matters of the heart were not so easily
overlooked by ordinary people, but Elena laughed it off, arguing that she was
not ordinary and that she could not enforce her will on anyone, especially not
on Sam. Michelle had argued that the woman was allowed to feel betrayed and
angry, but Elena had no such qualms. She explained to Michelle that her
relationship with Sam was of the kind that could not embody constraints since
they were not obligated to share their life with one another. She did
love him, she admitted, but they had both realized sharing a life would be
fruitless because of distance and culture differences. She had no desire
to live in the States and he had none to live in Greece. They had
realized that the first time around and decided to make sure they could enjoy
each other's company once in a while without the constricting obligations that
accommodated most relationships
.
Her reasoning sounded to
Michelle like a slogan from the Sixties but it turned out to be entirely
true. She found Elena to be an extraordinary woman,
both
bold
and gentle, playful and passionate. They were the same
age. Both were turning twenty and they loved the same man but Michelle
did not feel she could share him; not with Elena, not with anyone. She inevitably
was falling for him and felt she was ruining the pact that had been created in
the group. The uninhibited behavior on Rhodes, that summer, would not have been
tolerated anywhere else, she thought, not even on Rhodes itself the rest of the
year, but it was happening and it was fun and she hated to ruin a good
party. Whatever it was driving the people to such behavior was certainly
contagious and she had been caught in it too. During the two weeks she
spent with Sam and the girls she soon misplaced her bikini and would never
again use it or any other piece of cloth to cover her body on the beach.
She no longer felt ill-at-ease with her own bare body, which quickly tanned to
a glazing bronze and no longer stood out in its paleness, or with the naked
males running loosely around. She explored the different beaches, drank
beer and ouzo, smoked, danced, and partied to the wee hours of the morning and
even had sex on two different occasions though that all seemed a blur. On
one occasion, it was the South African who, like Sam, had walked into her
shower. She had been drunk and quite horny following a beach party where
she lost Sam and Elena sometime early morning, so she returned to her room and
stumbled into the shower. The South African, also drunk, forgot he had
exchanged rooms with her, and walked into the shower minutes later.
Through a haze she noticed his erect penis, hard and craving, and suddenly felt
a great urge. She took him in her hand and guided him into her, leaning
her back against the shower wall. She climaxed almost as soon as he
entered her then managed to pull him out before he came in spurts all over her
thigh. It felt great at the time but to this day she felt embarrassed
just thinking of it. Her other sexual encounter involved an extremely
gracious and charming Greek man whose name she could never recall, introduced
by Elena. Sam, who still slept with Elena on occasion, seemed quite
nonchalant about Michelle becoming involved throughout their time together on
Rhodes. But he became quite irritated with the man who was threatening to
dethrone his male domination of their little group. Michelle, frustrated
with Sam's indifference, had sex with the man for spite, making sure Sam was
aware of it, and it was then that she decided to end the awkward relationship
and leave Rhodes behind
.
They both cried at the airport
as Michelle was getting ready to leave. Elena and the girls let them alone as
boarding commenced and Sam became quite emotional, stating that he loved her
and that he wanted to see her again. They hugged and kissed and he
promised to call but she remained skeptical. She left for Skiathos, known
as the Green Island, spent a week, then caught the ferry to Volos and from
there a bus to Athens where she spent a few days touring ancient ruins before
boarding a plane back to the States
.
Back home in Sunnyvale, she
felt quite miserable for three weeks as she prepared for the fall semester,
then Sam called from Los Angeles and everything fell into place
.
That all happened nine years
ago, she marveled, thinking of their subsequent marriage and of little Sammy,
knotting them so tightly together. She looked at a framed picture on their
bedroom wall; “Rhodes, Summer of 76” it read, showing herself and Sam with
Elena, Lota and Nilla, semi-nakedly toasting their favorite beach bar, bottles
of beer in everyone’s hands
.
She studied the photo of the
carefree Sam in his early twenties and thought of how little he had changed
since that time. He was not an outstandingly handsome man on first
impression; women were not likely to fall for him on looks alone. But he
was disarming and had a way of charming people causing them to want to be part
of his world, as had happened to her. He was slightly above average
height and not very athletic, his body rather thin, even somewhat frail.
He had long curly brown hair when she first met him, now still curly but
fashionably trimmed. The features that most dominated his slender face
were his high cheekbones and radiating green eyes, which conveyed assurance and
quite self-confidence. He was full of conviction but courteous and
patient with people, making them want to be his friend. She had once
asked him what made him choose her, seeing the way he had with women. At
first he joked and told her that since he could not have Elena, he had been
looking for an American version and she fit the bill. Then he admitted
that when she left Rhodes, she left such a void in the pit of his stomach that
he knew he could not do without her. No other woman had ever left such a
void in him, he had said, and he reasoned that to be love. She often
thought about what resemblance she had to Elena, but could never quite see it
.
She moved to Los Angeles after
the fall semester. Sam moved out of the dorms and together they rented an
apartment in El Segundo where they spent the next four years completing their
degrees at USC. They were married in the spring of 1981, and spend their
honeymoon touring Australia and New Zealand. After those three months
“down under” they went back to Los Angeles to work on their careers
.
They had invited Elena to
their wedding but she cordially declined: “Unable to afford the trip,” she had
reasoned. So they went back to Greece the following summer, spending
their two week vacation with Elena and her husband on the island of Zakynthos
in the Ionian Sea just off the Northern Peloponnese peninsula. Elena had
never said a word so they were quite surprised to find her married and, as they
later learned, two months pregnant. Her husband, Stavros Lyrakis, owned a
dairy farm in Tanagra, a small town an hour’s drive from Athens. He was a
tall, handsome man, who treated Elena with the utmost respect but to Michelle
it seemed that his fussing around her tended only to irritate her. They
stayed at a picturesque little guesthouse overlooking a magnificent secluded
beach with glistening white sand and water in deep shades of green.
But apart from the food, the language, and the beach, the outing resembled
nothing of their time in Rhodes. They frequented the beach, bathed and
snorkeled, dined out and even went to a party or two, but without the spirit
that had swept them in Rhodes. The group profile had changed and they
were all a little older with jobs and responsibilities and could not bring
themselves to be as carefree as they once were. Elena was still beautiful
but the attraction that had once existed between her and Sam was reduced to
cordial gestures of opening the car door or offering a seat at a
restaurant. Even Michelle, who had been a little wary of what would
transpire when the two met, felt greatly disappointed at their restrained
treatment of one another. She, too, had become close with Elena on Rhodes
once over her initial suspicion of her personality, but she no longer felt she
was able to reach her. At the beach they all wore bathing suits and talk
revolved mostly around business and politics with only room for earnest
endeavors.