The door swung open, on its own. "After you, Madame." Carolyn eyed him nervously and chewed on her lower lip. Was he kidding? No woman in her stories actually walked to their own seduction. She skittishly entered the room. A fire burned brightly in the hearth. Roses were strewn loosely across the bed, and a brandy sifter breathed delicately on the nightstand. Candles glowed on her desk. She wiped the tears from her eyes and tried to recover some of her earlier defiance.
"I suppose this is how you intended to tell me some day that you are semi-solid when the mood strikes and, after you've conspired with my own children to make a laughingstock out of me?" Feigned anger once again prominently on display, she seated herself in front of her typewriter and fooled officiously with the carriage return, as if she were preparing to rewrite the last six months of her spectral cohabitation. "Six months, Captain! Six months. And don't tell me you did it because you thought I'd flee Gull Cottage rather than live with an amorous ghost. Of course I would have!" And there she stopped herself, realizing that once again, her mouth was writing checks her emotions couldn't cash. No wonder the children and Martha looked so concerned.
Patience, thought the Captain. Not that Carolyn was anything like his previous conquests, but he felt he had some authority in such matters. "I mean," she lowered her eyes. "Blast it, I hate you! Do you know how many nights I've lain over there, fantasizing about how it would feel if I awakened to your kiss, to the warmth of your hand as it pushed my nightgown high over my breasts?" With a very intense smile, the Captain gallantly waved his hand toward the bed. "My dear, I hope you make love as elegantly as you emote. I would be happy to follow this plot line to its er, logical conclusion. After I move the roses, of course."
No, Carolyn thought. If she was going to succumb to her intense desire to plaster herself shamelessly against him, it wouldn't be until he'd earned that surrender, until his mind was as befuddled as hers, until she had the power back and he fully realized the magnitude of his big mistake. Move the roses indeed. He'd made her wait six long months, during which they'd shared roughly 180 intimate walks on the beach, countless hours bickering over trivial incidents that masked deeper feelings, plenty of verbal foreplay and hundreds of intimate looks. And even this list did not include the lonely night watches when she'd debated whether she could actually survive another 50 or so years without physical love.
When she looked up, her Daniel was standing in front of the fireplace, stoking the fire with a poker. He wasn't wearing a shirt. Carolyn's breath grew ragged. "That's not fair," she whispered, realizing for the first time in forever she was completely wet and the Captain was staring at her mouth. He turned, she saw that he, too, was fully aroused. Without thinking, she began unbuttoning her silk blouse.
Here, he hesitated. Daniel Gregg had slept with plenty of women who wanted to love him, but never with one he loved. Tenuously, he walked toward her and stooped downward, kissing her as she sat in the chair, his hands working the remaining buttons and his tongue her mouth. Carolyn wound her hands again around his neck, kissing him even harder on the mouth, and he lifted her again and laid her lovingly atop the down comforter. She sat up, unhooking her bra but letting him pull it gently away and down her arms. Then she looked deeply into his eyes and ran her hands lightly over the bulge in his pants before loosening his belt and unbuttoning his 19th-century trousers. The Captain groaned unabashedly as she pressed her face into the fullness of his erection, aroused by his muskiness, unbothered by her own forwardness.
"Later, me dear," and he eased her back into the pillows and found her neck with his mouth, hands first at her breasts then urgently pushing her skirt upwards and her damp undergarments down onto the floor. With his knee, he pried her legs apart and entered her needily, and she gasped at his size then in amazement as she came almost instantly with an intensity that overrode any folly on his part. The Captain, who'd never made love to a mortal, followed soon behind and as he did, Carolyn wondered at the sense of oneness and completeness that overwhelmed her again, only this time even she did not recognize the sounds coming out of her mouth. She clung to the Captain, running her hands over the smooth of his sweaty, heaving back as he tried to recover from his own revelation.
When they finally separated, an hour or so later, she sat up, trying to recover her breath. She reached for the brandy, pouring them each a generous glass of amber. It wasn't until she replaced the sifter on the nightstand that she noticed an elegantly folded piece of heavy bond paper, officially sealed shut with the waxen initials "DG." "Captain, what's this?" Flustered, she blew a wisp of stubborn hair out of her eyes as she took a big gulp of brandy. "Madame, there's no need to brace yourself. That was merely my plan B, in case we ran aground this evening and I was forced to retire to the Wheelhouse, alone for all eternity. Open it." With hands still trembling from their recent exertion, Carolyn opened the note and read:
If you want what visible reality can give, you're an employee. If you want the unseen world, you're not living your truth. Both wishes are foolish, but you'll be forgiven for forgetting that what you really want is love's confusing joy.
-- Rumi