26
While Teddy went on a hunt for Leo West's son's sweetheart's chum, Ken and Rilla took a walk along another shore. As soon as Ken thought of it, he wished he had thought of it sooner. The sand bar had been the location for their very first unchaperoned stroll all those many moons ago.
Rilla was acting extremely frisky as they walked barefoot on the soft white sand, as if she was remembering too.
It wasn't just the tumble with Teddy that had brought on these fluttery, excitable feelings though he certainly started it. Because Rilla had seen what was missing from all the spooning that she had begun and abandoned with Ken: what her sisters had laughingly called 'the poke.'
It often happened, Di said, when a boy was dancing closely with a girl, or if she was sitting in his lap. He mightn't be able to help it, said Nan, but he could certainly help his reaction. A nice boy found an excuse to bow out, a nasty boy started to rub!
Rilla always thought it would feel like an elbow sticking straight out as though waiting for a bird to perch. When it happened with Teddy, it was more like a bratwurst veering off to his left hip. The clinging wet wool of his bathing costume only made it more obvious. There was no way for him to conceal or excuse it, though she might have helped by not staring like she did.
Rilla never gave Teddy the chance to react one way or the other, she was off as quickly as she could manage. Luckily, Ken was chatting to Una about something. And how Rilla loved him all the more because he had nothing in common with Una, yet he kept trying to be kind to her. Wasn't he the nicest man in the world?
Not too nice though, as he crushed Rilla against the door of a boat shed and kissed her hard on her sunburned lips. Not so innocent either. While one hand was cupping her jaw and the other was snaking up her ribs, his foot kicked the door behind her. He took a quick look to see if anyone was inside. And wouldn't you know, there wasn't.
Ken didn't remember there being a boat shed on the sand bar last time, and then he remembered how hard it was to find somewhere suitable to lay with a girl in such an unsuitable place. It smelled for one thing, fishy, smokey and ropey and once the door was closed it was utterly dark. But Rilla was hot under his hands, like his own little piece of sun.
"Take it off, it's all sandy and scratchy now I've dried," she said.
Rilla was still in her sailor costume, so he peeled off the top and she wriggled out the bottoms. She was naked now, and she had never been naked in front of another person since Susan used to mind her in the bath.
She managed to slip Ken's shirt over his head, after she remembered to remove his suspenders. But he bucked back fast when she went for his trousers. Why was he still trying to be nice, when she was standing there in her altogethers?
"I thought I heard something," Ken said.
"No, you didn't. It's Friday night. All the fishermen will have gone home by now to have their dinner."
"It's this place, it's bloody horrible, Rilla, I can't even see you – and the stink. This was a bad idea. I don't know what got into me, you deserve so much better."
"Does it look as though I care?"
"I can't see a damn thing as I said." He was also finding it increasingly hard to breathe especially when Rilla wrapped her arms around his neck.
In the end Ken bundled her sundress and most of his clothes into the stern of a twenty-foot dory, then he helped her climb inside.
He got in next and curled up very close to her and not long after Rilla Blythe found out what it was that made Ken Ford cry.
No, the third try had not been the charm. The charmed life Ken had lived up until this point looked like it had very definitely run out. Hope and courage bleeding out of him after all that time telling himself that it would all be fixed as soon as he got back to his girl.
He couldn't wait to try the first time he had the chance; he was dreading it on the second because what if he failed again. But now, there was no excuse. There was no hiding it either.
"Stop, please. I can't do it, Rill."
"What is it, darling?"
"I can't love you like you want me to. It's bloody hopeless. Christ, I'm sorry."
...
Next chapter to follow, love k.