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--------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (c) 1992 Spectrum Press This extract from a 
full length novel available by Email from Spectrum 
Press is intended solely for the entertainment of 
adults. 
--------------------------------------------------------

Love and Surrender
by Marlene Darcy (specpress@earthlink.net)

***


 
The concierge at the hotel, the one with the lilting 
Bahamian accent, had warned her about the sun on the 
beach. "Very strong, miss. Very very strong." And 
Madeline had been pleased that he'd called her "miss" 
and not "madam", pleased that he thought she was still 
young enough. (MF, rom)

***

Now as she lay under an umbrella on the beach, she felt 
an annoyance that she'd been pleased. 

Wasn't it silly to be pleased by something like that? 
At what age did a woman come to be called "madam" and 
not "miss" by a hotel concierge? When did the turning 
point occur? She was thirty-two and she supposed that 
if one did not look at her face too carefully she could 
be judged as only twenty-seven or twenty-eight. 

As a girl in college, she'd wanted the years to arrive 
faster; now she wanted the opposite, even if she 
recognized how stupid it was. But certainly it might be 
more stupid for a married woman and not a single woman. 
She was no longer married; she was now unmarried, 
divorced, a woman alone as certain people said, certain 
people she did her best to avoid because she always had 
the feeling they were people who looked at her with 
condescension. 

She did not like to be looked at like that. She did not 
like being alone, but she did not like condescension. 
She would have her chance at happiness again, wouldn't 
she? She wanted to love and be loved, but hopefully 
without compromising her career or diminishing her 
ambition. 

She thought that was ordinary enough these days; it 
wasn't that unusual for a woman to want something more 
than just domesticity. She wanted a family and 
children, but she also wanted something more than that. 
Oh, you're confused, she thought; she told herself her 
need to think about it merely underlined her confusion.

She was on a beach in the Bahamas, on a place called 
Cat Island, a new hotel, a private beach, and a staff 
so numerous and helpful that every moment seemed 
completely effortless. 

Well, that was what she'd wanted, wasn't it? She'd 
wanted an effortless holiday. She lay on a chaise under 
the large striped umbrella and she told herself it was 
worth it, too expensive maybe, the resort hotel really 
more posh than she could afford, but still worth it 
because what she needed after that horrible tiff with 
Martin was to get away for a long weekend and do 
nothing except restore her nerves. 

She told herself the world would be a much better place 
if the law would force a man and woman who were 
divorced never to have any contact with each other. But 
that was silly too, wasn't it? The argument with Martin 
had been predictable and she ought to have known it and 
avoided meeting him at all. Nearly two years after her 
divorce they were still settling things, but now she 
would certainly have the attorneys do all the settling 
and keep herself out of it. No more, she thought; no 
more horrible fights with Martin. No more anything with 
Martin; that was a part of her life now in the past.

She wore a white bikini, the bottom brief enough to 
show nearly all of her hips and the top no more than a 
wide band across her breasts. The sun was indeed hot on 
the beach, even in the shade of the umbrella, hot 
enough so she could feel the perspiration collecting 
between her breasts and dripping down the sides of her 
rib cage. She thought the bikini a bit daring because 
it was so skimpy, but maybe suitable for a beach like 
this one. 

Now, despite the warning of the concierge, she wondered 
if she ought to get some more sun after all. She was a 
brunette and she always tanned easily. But then she 
wasn't certain she wanted to return to New York with a 
suntan at this particular time.

She rather liked herself pale, not too pale, but pale 
enough to be interesting. She thought her pale face 
went well with her slender body. She was long-boned, 
tall enough to be impressive when she wore high heels, 
the only bountiful part of her being her breasts, which 
were extremely lush and long-nippled and apparently 
always sexually provocative to any man who looked at 
them. Oh, stop it, she thought. She hated dwelling on 
her appearance like that. It was true a woman needed a 
certain degree of vanity, but one also had to avoid 
being victimized by it.

Now she turned her head and she saw for the first time 
that someone had settled under the umbrella twenty feet 
to her right. It was a man with a newspaper in his 
hands, his suntanned body extended on the chaise and 
his eyes hidden by opaque sunglasses. Before she had a 
chance to turn her eyes away, he glanced at her, or at 
least he turned his head in her direction, the 
sunglasses making it impossible to know if he was 
actually looking at her or merely looking past her. 

As she looked at the blue sea again, she felt a sudden 
annoyance that he'd settled there, chosen that 
particular chaise when there were a dozen empty chaises 
scattered all over the beach. But he was twenty feet 
away, after all. Many of the chaises on the beach were 
doubled, but the singles were certainly far enough 
apart to be isolated. 

She wondered what it was like in the high season when 
the chaises no doubt crowded each other in a way that 
made it impossible to be alone. This weekend she wanted 
to be alone. That man looked attractive, and maybe if 
she met him at a dinner party in New York he'd prove to 
be also interesting enough to make the meeting 
exciting. Stop it, stop it, she thought; this weekend 
you're alone. And she did want to be alone, didn't she?

Then abruptly she saw someone walking toward the water 
and she realized the man on the chaise had left the 
chaise for the sea.

He was tall and lean, taller than she'd thought, and as 
he walked toward the surf she looked at him without 
reservation because he had no way of knowing he was 
being looked at. She could see nothing but his back, 
the wide shoulders, the narrow waist and hips and the 
strong thighs and legs that suggested a man with an 
interest in athletics of some kind. 

She always enjoyed looking at men like this one, tall 
and dark and lithe and muscular enough to look 
aggressively male. She watched him enter the sea. How 
old was he? Maybe almost forty, certainly not more than 
that from what she'd seen of his face. She watched him 
swimming, watched him until he was only a speck 
breaking the surface of the blue water, and then she 
rose from the chaise and she gathered her things and 
she started the trek across the white sand to the hotel 
looming behind the beach. 

She'd been so long without a man, so long without the 
feel of a man's arms around her, long enough so that 
now as she thought about it she felt a knot of fear in 
her belly. Oh God, she thought; was it finished for her 
at thirty-two? How could it be finished for any woman 
at thirty-two? The idea was ludicrous, wasn't it?

 * * *
 
She had a room facing the sea, and now she lay naked on 
one of the two beds with the French window thrown wide 
open to admit a warm breeze and the sound of the surf. 
What time was it? She thought it had to be past three. 
She'd slept a bit, but not more than half an hour. Her 
body was hot and damp, but she liked it; she felt 
comfortable, relaxed, lazy. 

In New York at this time in the afternoon, the tension 
of her work was always at a maximum. How lovely it was 
to be away from that! She thought this moment would be 
perfect if she had someone with her, not just anyone 
but a true love with whom she could savor the peace, 
the warm breeze, the sound of the sea. Again she 
thought of the man on the beach. She'd thought of him 
before she'd fallen asleep, and now she thought of him 
again. Why him? His body, of course. She'd seen so 
little of him, but what she'd seen had remained with 
her, his long body, the wide shoulders, the muscular 
thighs. 

Martin had been a poor lover and a rotten husband, but 
she'd always found him physically exciting to look at. 
She wondered about the man on the beach, who he was, 
what he did, where he came from. She remembered his 
dark hair and sun-browned body. She wasn't that 
experienced, was she? She had such little experience 
with men, not like some women she knew. She'd had two 
lovers before Martin, one in college and one afterward, 
the lovemaking inexperienced gropings rather than real 
sex, and then she'd married Martin and for five years 
he'd been the only man in her life. 

She was thirty-two and she'd had three men, but she 
could hardly say that any of them had given her what 
she thought a woman should have. The idea that it might 
be her own fault was painful to her. Was it true? She 
ran her hands over her breasts, and then she slid one 
hand down her belly to touch her sex. Was it her? She 
was never certain, had never been certain with any man, 
particularly with Martin. 

With Martin the sex had excited her in the beginning, 
but gradually the excitement had been worn down by his 
prosaic nature, his lack of consideration, his 
unwillingness to be adventurous. She tried to discuss 
it with him, but he never liked talking about sex. 
After three years of marriage, it became more or less 
obvious to them both that no matter how much they might 
try to accomodate each other, their sexual temperaments 
were incompatible. Martin liked the sex act to be quick 
and functional and final, while she, or so she thought, 
was really too sensuous for that sort of lovemaking. 
She liked too many things Martin did not like. 

After they were married three years, she began 
masturbating regularly to appease the hunger she often 
felt, and of course before long she became bitter about 
this dependent need for secret caresses and she blamed 
Martin for it. Inevitably, sex with Martin became less 
and less important until finally it seemed the only way 
out was a complete break.

She wanted a man now, but certainly not Martin; she 
wanted the man on the beach, the tall man unknown to 
her. The fact that she knew nothing about him made it 
easier, almost too easy because she was never truly 
comfortable with giving pleasure to herself. The act 
always made her feel so inadequate, so incomplete. But 
now she thought of the man on the beach. She was sorry 
now she hadn't seen more of him from the front, his 
chest and belly and thighs. 

He'd worn black swimming trunks, and she felt a quiver 
of pleasure as she suddenly imagined him standing 
naked, facing her, the dark hair at his loins drawing 
the eyes to his genitals, to a penis long and thick 
that was now erecting even as she watched it in her 
fantasy. It was always the force of the organ that 
aroused her, the sexual urgency so evident in its 
appearance once it became thick and extended. And this 
man? 

She imagined he was physically perfect, his penis 
deliciously thick, the glans with a perfect shape, 
bloated, dark, the tip showing a glimmer of wetness. 
She imagined him taking his organ in his hand and then 
turning so she could see him in profile. Yes, she 
wanted him that way. 

The full scrotum below his hand would bulge outward. 
She started stroking her sex with her fingers as she 
imagined him squeezing his penis to make his glans more 
swollen. She dipped her fingers into the opening of her 
vagina and she brought some of the fluid out to paint 
her clitoris. Then she started stroking herself, a slow 
rubbing along the shaft of her clitoris, stroking 
herself as she imagined the man on the beach standing 
there at the foot of the bed naked, aroused, stroking 
his organ with the same rhythm as her fingers.

Abruptly, with a soft moan, she changed her fantasy and 
she imagined herself approaching him, his eyes watching 
her as she slid down to the foot of the bed and without 
any modesty took hold of his penis, fondled it, 
stroked, squeezed it with her hand, relishing the feel 
of his hot flesh firm and strong under her fingers, his 
pulsating masculinity. Martin had never seemed to like 
it when she fondled him, although he had a nice one, 
the shaft as smooth as ivory and with a lovely curve to 
it. But he always seemed so uncomfortable when she 
handled it, sometimes making her stop, as if touching 
his penis was unnatural, and she being too ignorant, 
too young to know what to say or do except do what he 
wanted. 

Then she remembered one of the men before Martin, her 
second lover, George Henry Lewis, the blond aristocrat, 
that boy from Harvard who liked it so much. Certainly 
different from Martin, George always pushing her to 
stroke him until he came. All those drenched 
handkerchiefs. The sperm shooting up like a geyser if 
she didn't cover him in time, all over his clothes and 
her hand, thrilling her because it seemed so earthy, 
something she'd never done before, at least so openly. 

It always excited her when she did it to him in 
daylight. Brazen, she thought. Watching him come like 
that, watching his moment of glory, the sperm thick and 
milky white erupting from the tip of his penis. The 
memories of George now made her shudder with delight. 
Scalding memories, weren't they? Her fingers continued 
to vibrate her clitoris now thick and erect and 
demanding that she finish it. No, I won't, she thought. 
But then she told herself she ought to. 

She debated with herself, and then she decided she 
wouldn't. Not now. Maybe later this evening she would 
do it while she had a bath. She pulled her hand away 
and she groaned. It's awful, she thought; it was awful 
to be so vulnerable. She did not want to be so 
vulnerable. No, not like this. But she hungered for the 
pleasure and she touched herself again. She moved her 
legs wide apart and she rubbed her clitoris with her 
fingertips. No, it was no good now. She groaned again, 
this time a groan of annoyance. She turned her head to 
the side and she closed her eyes.

 * * *
 
On the beach the man who had aroused Madeline's 
interest was now wiping his body with a large towel. 
His name was Clay Berrigan and he was a journalist on a 
short vacation after completing an assignment in 
Nassau. He was sorry the woman in the white bikini was 
gone. There were dozens of pretty girls on the beach, 
but they all looked vapid, dull-witted, like inflated 
dolls. 

The woman in the white bikini had been the first really 
interesting woman he'd seen on Cat Island, interesting 
enough to make him uneasy as he'd sat on the beach 
chair too far to speak to her, but yet close enough to 
be constantly aware of her physical presence. She was 
one of those women he always felt immediately drawn to, 
something about their appearance or their demeanor or a 
certain look in the eyes that he could never describe 
accurately. 

This one was attractive, but certainly not beautiful 
enough to be publicly breathtaking. But of course if 
she were publicly breathtaking he would have no 
interest in her, since he'd never been attracted to 
that sort of woman. She was one of those women who was 
not publicly breathtaking, but privately breathtaking, 
at least to himself. He found these ideas confusing 
enough to smirk at his own folly. 

Maybe he ought to know better about himself and about 
women, but he didn't. He'd had a marriage once, a 
marriage that had ended in personal tragedy, and these 
days he'd more or less resigned himself to living under 
the shadow of an old sadness. He glanced at the beach 
chair where the woman in the white bikini had been 
sitting, and again he wondered about her.

 * * *
 
In the early evening, an hour before her dinner 
reservation, Madeline decided to visit the hotel bar. 
She thought a cool drink would help settle her nerves, 
something tropical, maybe a daiquiri. She wasn't that 
fond of alcohol, but it did seem suitable this evening, 
a cool drink on Cat Island in the Bahamas. Yes, why 
not?

The hotel bar was actually an elegant cocktail lounge, 
dimly lit, a dozen stools along the long bar and a 
dozen small tables in the shadows occupied by three or 
four couples. The bartender wore a white coat and he 
smiled at Madeline as she walked in. The bar stools 
were unoccupied except for one man at the far end, and 
she decided to sit at the end of the bar closest to the 
entrance. 

She wore a white chintz dress with a poufed skirt, bare 
shoulders, white high-heeled sandals and beige hose. 
She carried a small white purse, and around her neck 
she wore a necklace of small white pearls. As she sat 
down at the front end of the bar, she glanced at the 
far end and she was now taken aback as she recognized 
the man she'd seen on the beach in the afternoon.

Was it really him? Yes, it was. She quickly pulled her 
eyes away and she busied herself opening her purse.

The bartender approached. "Yes, miss?"

"I'll have a frozen daiquiri, please."

The bartender nodded and left. Madeline avoided looking 
at the man at the far end of the bar. Instead, she 
studied her reflection in the mirror directly opposite 
her. Did she look flustered? She told herself how silly 
it was to be flustered by him when she had no idea who 
he was or what he was.

The bartender approached with her daiquiri. Madeline 
signed the check, and after the bartender left she 
sipped the drink and she found it perfect. She felt 
more relaxed now. The air was pleasantly cool and dry, 
and in a short while she'd go to the hotel dining room 
to have her dinner. She thought of New York and the 
hectic life she had there, and again she was thankful 
she'd had sense enough to get away from it for a few 
days.

Then out of the corner of her eye she saw the man who 
had been on the beach walking toward her. She turned 
her head when he reached her and their eyes met. He had 
a deep suntan, a rugged masculine face, dark cropped 
hair and a strong chin.

His dark eyes locked with hers, he said: "I think I 
have something that belongs to you."

"You do?"

"You were on the beach this afternoon, weren't you?"

"Yes."

He pulled a small wristwatch out of one of his pockets, 
and Madeline stared with surprise as she immediately 
recognized it as her own.

"Is this yours?" he said. "I found it in the sand under 
your umbrella."

"Oh yes, that's mine, all right." She took the watch 
from his hand. "Much thanks, I'm grateful."

"Grateful enough to have dinner with me?"

"Dinner?"

"Well, we're here. We're both guests here. I'm alone 
and it looks like you're alone also. Why not? My name 
is Clay.

"I don't know."

"If you say no, I'll walk away."

"No, it's all right, I guess. Yes, why not?"

He smiled and turned to signal the bartender, and soon 
Clay's drink was carried down the bar as Clay sat on 
the stool beside Madeline.

Clay turned on his stool and his eyes met Madeline's 
again. "New York?"

"Yes."

"Do I get a name?"

"It's Madeline."

"I come down here whenever I can in the off season to 
unwind. No people. The beach empty. Sometimes I hardly 
speak to a soul all weekend and that's perfect.

"Perfect?"

"People have a tendency to make complications. What I 
want down here is a peaceful weekend."

"I see."

"Is this your first time on Cat? I haven't seen you 
before."

"My first time in the Bahamas."

"Do you like it?"

"So far, yes."

"It gets better every year. In the beginning when I 
came down here I did a great deal of fishing. But I 
don't do that anymore, I got bored with it. These days 
I just come down here to get away from people."

With a wry smile, Madeline said: "But now you're 
talking to someone and that's not good."

"I didn't say that."

"You said it's perfect when you hardly talk to anyone 
all weekend."

He smiled, his white teeth contrasting with his tanned 
face. "Sure, but this is the exception that proves the 
rule. I wanted to talk to you on the beach, but you 
looked too composed. Maybe too appealing. So I went 
swimming instead."

Madeline laughed. "Too appealing?"

"Yes, I think so."

She felt herself blushing. "Maybe we shouldn't."

"Maybe we shouldn't what?"

"We're both here to be alone, aren't we? Maybe we 
shouldn't have dinner together after all."

"Do you honestly believe that?"

"People have a tendency to make complications."

"All right, we won't make any. We won't talk about each 
other. No information, no complications. Just two 
strangers having dinner together. How's that?"

"It sounds ridiculous."

 * * *
 
When they walked into the hotel restaurant, there were 
only six couples in the large room. Candles flickered 
on each table and soft music came from somewhere. 
Madeline thought the atmosphere definitely romantic. 
Contrived, maybe, but contrived successfully. How 
strange it was to be here with a man she had just met, 
a man who was a complete mystery to her.

The head waiter approached them and escorted them to a 
table. As Madeline sat down, she wondered if her dress 
was too vivacious. She was never certain about her 
clothes, never certain she was accurately dressed. Was 
it silly to wear high heels at a beach hotel? But 
everyone else in the dining room seemed carefully 
dressed, almost overdressed. 

She'd read the Bahamians liked people to be properly 
dressed in the evening. But then how many of these 
people actually lived here? Then she told herself that 
maybe these thoughts were merely a way to avoid 
thinking about the man across the table, a way to avoid 
thinking about this man with whom she was having 
dinner, this total stranger. She watched him as he read 
the wine list. For the first time she noticed the tiny 
lines around his eyes. Was that a small scar on his 
chin? Oh, don't be a fool, she thought; you don't know 
him at all.

After the wine was served, Clay raised his glass to 
make a toast. "To no information and no complications."

Madeline sipped her wine, gazing at him over the rim of 
her wine glass, wondering about him.

The dinner was excellent, the food carefully prepared. 
Madeline had a delicious marinated tuna steak, 
something she'd never tried before.

"Where have you travelled?" Clay said.

"I thought you said no information."

"That's not information, that's background."

Madeline was amused. She said she hadn't travelled 
much.

 She'd been to Europe a few times. She'd been to 
Mexico.

Clay said: "Yucatan?"

"No, not Yucatan. Acupulco. What about you?"

"I've knocked around. One place or the other. South 
America and South Asia."

Madeline was now intrigued, curious about his work, 
more and more curious about this Clay, wondering what 
he was really like. How could a woman ever know about a 
man merely by talking to him?

She said: "Tell me what it's like in South Asia."

And Clay looked at her, his dark eyes meeting hers. 
"It's exotic."

"Did you like it?"

"Most of the time. The bad part is that too many of the 
people are poor and hungry and dying of disease. You 
can see them dying in the streets outside the rich 
houses. In Calcutta, for example."

"It sounds awful."

"Then let's not talk about it. Let's talk about love 
instead. Have you ever been in love?"

"Yes."

"Did it make you crazy?"

"In the beginning, yes."

"I have a theory about that. I think we want it so 
much, want love so much and all that it means, that 
when it finally happens it turns us into lunatics."

Madeline laughed. "You may be right."

"Anyway, it gets us away from Calcutta, doesn't it?"

Their eyes met and he held her gaze. For a moment she 
saw the deeps in his eyes, a soul baring itself, and 
then the moment passed and it was only the strong face 
that remained, the curtain drawn discreetly across the 
interior.

She felt herself trembling. She knew of no reason why, 
except maybe the realization this man across the table 
might be unlike any man she'd known. Dear girl, be 
reasonable, she thought. But those eyes!

 * * *
 
After dinner he suggested they walk on the beach.

"Oh no," she said.

"Why not?"

"Not the way I'm dressed."

"There's a concrete walk behind the beach. We can use 
that." She resisted the idea at first, but Clay 
convinced her, told her how beautiful the moon was on 
the sea, how lovely the beach looked in the moonlight. 
The beach was indeed lovely, deserted, dark, the sound 
of the surf seeming louder than during the day. The 
umbrellas scattered on the beach were now visible only 
as dark shapes in the moonlight. They walked beside 
each other, Madeline's high heels clicking on the 
concrete walk.

Laughing, Madeline said: "This is silly, you know. 
There isn't a soul anywhere in sight."

"The beach doesn't care one way or the other."

"I never expected to be walking on the beach this 
evening."

"And either did I. I thought after dinner I'd be up in 
my room reading a book."

"What sort of books do you read?"

"History mostly. And you?"

"Lots of things, but mostly escapist stuff. I do a 
great deal of reading of newspapers for my work, which 
I'm not telling you about. No complications, remember?"

"You're not a reporter, by any chance, are you?"

She laughed. "God, no!"

They walked until the lights of the hotel were in the 
distance. Here the beach was empty, no umbrellas, the 
sand completely deserted. Clay stopped and looked at 
the sea, and Madeline stopped beside him.

Clay said: "There's a cruise ship out there."

"Where?"

Leaning toward her, he pointed into the darkness. "A 
row of lights far out. See them?"

"Yes, yes, I see them now. But how do you know it's a 
cruise ship? Maybe it's only a fishing boat."

"All right, it's a fishing boat."

She laughed. "No, I think it's a cruise ship. Don't you 
think that's exasperating?"

Instead of answering, he bent his head and kissed her. 
She was shocked. The kiss was soft, lingering, 
seductive, but finally she broke it off and said: 
"That's not fair."

"Why not?"

"You said no complications."

"Do we have any?"

She had no idea what to say. It was only a kiss, wasn't 
it?

"No, I guess not," she said.

"Then I'll kiss you again."

"No, please..."

But he did. He kissed her again, and this time she 
melted completely...


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It's okay to *READ* stories about unprotected sex with
others outside a monogamous relationship. But it isn't
okay to *HAVE* unprotected sex with people other than
a trusted partner. You only have one body per lifetime,
so take good care of it!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Kristen's collection - Directory 33