Extremes Read online

  Just as I was about to retire to my cabin and vent some of the steamy heat bursting from my body, my lover returned, the same luxurious smile on his lips as when he left. He quietly bade me turn on my side, which I did, and I felt the rose slip out, a thorn prick my thigh. A tiny gasp of horror escaped my lips.

  “It’s all right, dear one,” he assured me. He sat again beside me, and in another furtive move, his hand was up under my dress, taking the rose and caressing my behind with the soft petals. When he traced the cleft between my cheeks, running the rose from the top, down to where my thighs part, I found myself rubbing my legs against each other, the clitoris at my center the benefactor of the stimulation. “Open, darling,” he purred to me softly. A slight move of my legs once again and the petals of the rose, like tiny fingers, grazed the place where all the sensation gathered. I jolted suddenly. Wanting desperately to buck hard against this soft intrusion, my rules of good decorum prevented it. My lover, with a tender smile, understood my agony, but that seemed only to please him more.

  “You are wondrous when you pretend to deny your pleasure. It reaches out and grabs me.” I saw darkness in his eyes. I knew that I’d stirred something in him, but he wouldn’t tell me more. And before I could make a date for another meeting, he was drawing away from me to return to work. He left me with my soggy, drooping rose caressing my nostrils. I’m sure that I wanted to cum right then, but I let the flood that tore through my limbs subside. He would be with me again, and I would wait for that.

  ***

  I watched that evening as my traveling companions danced with the polite gentlemen on board ship. I accepted several invitations myself from handsome and attentive men, who I suspect might have wooed me had I given them any encouragement. But I’m afraid my eyes were constantly riveted, not on these companions, but on the doors of the dining room where I hoped to catch a glimpse of the man who’d stolen my life these last several days. As long as the evening was—long past twelve before the music stopped and reveling travelers made their way to their cabins—my evening only began when the grand party ended. As I was finding my way back to my cabin, slightly drunk on wine, I stumbled into my sailor and his saucy smile. Reluctant to be found out of bed by one of my friends looking for company in the middle of the night, I insisted that he come with me into my cabin. Small and cramped as it was, it would be all the space we’d need to indulge our passion. He was agreeable to my request, but only after he’d first taken me to an anteroom by the kitchen, where he bent me over a serving cart and entered me from behind. This determined and deliberate assault suggested a pattern to me, one where I could expect his tenderness and the impromptu sexual gestures, as well as his driving need to abduct me for his own lewd purposes whenever it suited his fancy. After the crude copulation that night, he did join me in my bed, and it was heaven six times, if I’m remembering correctly. And I didn’t even think it a remarkable feat. I was just being natural when my mind and body were in his grasp.

  It was a long venture into the south seas, and one day seemed to run on into the next. It was an eternity and yet only a matter of days. I’m afraid I lost track of time. It had no meaning for me anymore. After having been thoroughly seduced by this phantom sailor, my sleep was topsy turvy, staying awake until four in the morning, as that suited my lover one night when he drug me from bed at midnight to be with him. I slept until noon the next day, only to follow that night with another long one when we were up until daybreak. When I finally went to sleep I slumbered until three in the afternoon, until Gwen’s Aunt Dixie woke me wondering “in heaven’s name what’s the matter that you waste all your time in bed?” I hardly considered my time in bed with my lover wasted, though I didn’t expect the old matron to understand. I didn’t even try to correct the situation. Whatever my friends and Aunt Dixie must have thought of my curious habits, it didn’t matter to me. There was nothing in my life but the sailor and me.

  When thinking in terms of true relationships, ours was just a short one, one I might easily discount for its brevity and the unlikely possibility that it would never continue once the trip was over. We were sailing south from port to port, harbor to harbor, a vacation that was designed to take six weeks. It was a good length for a passionate love affair so my friends suggested to me when they’d found their own part time lovers. I, on the other hand, couldn’t even think of this affair ending, though I was mindful that my sailor might not be thinking the same things. Perhaps I was nothing more to him than a six week excursion into the life of a innocent American girl. If that were true, my heart would break. But even if that were true, my heart needed the exercise in breaking and it would be with my consent.

  ***

  We were reaching tropical shores, an island in the midst of the nowhere, where our vessel would be anchored for several days as the weary travelers ventured into the quaint foreign port. It was a place to sleep on solid ground, on granite, on something more than the foundation of water that was so quixotic and unpredictable. I wasn’t happy with the circumstances since I learned from my lover that the crew could not accompany the travelers on shore. I suggested, because I thought it might please him for its naughty connotations, that I stay with him as a stowaway on board. He chuckled at the idea, but told me I’d have to move along with the others. He promised to see me. And, with the most bizarre darkness in his eyes, he promised that this stopover would be more than I’d ever imagined. I couldn’t imagine what he had in mind, but I knew that he would never disappoint me.

  The first night in port, we were plagued with a tempest. The storm raged about the island so fiercely that I thought trees were blowing down, and that the hut where I slept with Aunt Dixie and my friends would - like Dorothy’s house in the tornado be blown to another land. I knew those fears were irrational and I could dispense with them when my reason caught up with me. Yet there was one fear I could not shake. I was sure that in the morning, I’d find the glorious sailing vessel that had brought us here would be wrecked in the harbor, my lover lost to the seas. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait out the nerve-wracking night wondering about the fate of my sailor. When I heard rapping at my bedroom door some time about three in morning, I recognized the sound as more than a limb scratching against the glass. Grabbing my robe and wrapping it around me as if that would protect me from the elements, I clutched it tightly as I found my lover’s arms just beyond the door.

  “You can’t be here,” I let him know, looking towards the friend that slept with me in my room.

  He nodded in agreement; but that would not thwart his plans. He proceeded to lead me out into the stormy night, where he found an old boat house and a place where we could be together in private. Inside we were dripping wet to our skin from the torrent of rain, looking like bedraggled children with no sense to come in from the storm.

  “You are possessed,” I told him, quite sure of myself.

  He agreed, then pushed my mouth to his groin where I was expected to satisfy his throbbing organ with my lips. I took him wholly into me, knowing that we were more than just illfated lovers, struck by the stars and the adventure of this wild journey. There couldn’t be an end to this, I was sure. He satisfied my fearfulness that very night before he led me back to my bed beside my friend. With declarations of love, he assured me that we held eternity in our grasp. And as if that was not enough, he presented me with a chain of tiny ivory rings to go about my waist. There was a loop on one end that could either dangle down or be attached back to the chain. He suggested that I let it dangle between my legs when I sleep, that I let it catch in my hair and remind me that he was never far away. “Wear it always, my love, as though you are chained to me—my slave of love.”

  I already knew that I was, that I didn’t need this chain to feel his presence abiding in me. And yet, as I felt it about me, the thought of him was even more powerful in my mind. Yes, I was a slave to the very thought of him. As I would sleep I knew that he would be in at the center of my dreams, dancing in the midst of my imagination
and running wild in my nightmares.

  I remember his parting comment when he left me at the door of my hut that morning; I could hardly hear him above the raging storm. He told me this gift, the ivory chain, was only a temporary gesture, that soon there would be a more permanent one.

  After just a day on the island, it was clear that something was changing in me. For one thing, I was no longer bashful about presenting my changes to the world around me. I began to dress with an abandon that I would never have dared weeks before. Rather than wearing my Bermuda shorts and simple T-shirts, I was wearing silk all the time. Sarongs of thin material and wild colors that were almost transparent. Bikini tops with skirts that barely covered my bottom. Most people would have assumed that the bikini bottoms were underneath those skirts, but I assure you there was nothing. And just as my sailor demanded, the ivory chain never left my waist, even when I bathed. And because it aroused me, I let the end of the chain dangle to my pubis where it occasionally grazed against my clitoris. To complete my transformation, I refused to tie back my long dark tresses as I’d been accustomed to knowing how my sailor loved my hair liberated from any attempt to tame it.

  More bold still, my love affair was finally discovered, as well it should have been by then. I know my traveling companions suspected something was surely at the root of my surprising changes, even though I’d said nothing of a love affair. Their suspicions were confirmed however, when we were caught making love at a beach cove by Aunt Dixie and the least sexual of my friends on the trip. To see us shocked them both. Aunt Dixie has turned a blind eye to the sexual affairs of the other girls. But she was quite embarrassed to see the naked body of the sailor purposefully pounding my naked one with his erection, as his hand was vigorously slapping my posterior and I was crying out in exaltation. Aunt Dixie, a lady of manners, contained her shock however and left us to our sexual interlude with nothing more than a startled gasp.

  Later, she did counsel me to protect myself from a rascal’s inclinations—I had the distinct impression that she knew of rascals from personal experience—but she also knew that I wouldn’t listen to a word she said. She offered no other advice and left me to my love affair. I found it quite amusing that my friend accompanying her could not look me in the eye after that day without blushing. The blush I was feeling on my cheek was not embarrassment but complete elation.

  My lover gave me flowers as often as he could find blooms that inspired some way of using them on my body to arouse me. The tropical varieties were particularly pleasing to him, even those that left their colored pigments on my skin. The stains on my thighs and labia were like sexual badges of honor. He loved decorating my hair both above and below with petals and leaves. And one day, while he was trimming me like a Christmas tree, he inserted a vine inside my vagina and pressed it deep. The vine hung out between my legs, and he told me to wear it that way. All day the ticklish foliage would fondle my private places not unlike the way the ivory chain continued to work its magic on my sexual arousal.

  My lover was quite right about this body accessory. The dangling vine kept me stimulated. That afternoon and through the evening, I had the distinct impression that his fingers were there fondling even when my reason knew otherwise. At the end of the day, he withdrew the vine and sucked me there as though in addition to my normal brew of tastes, there was something else, something quite delicious that had not been there before. He told me as we fell asleep in each other’s arms that there would soon be something more permanent to tickle my clitoris. I didn’t question him, even though this was the second time that he’d made that prediction; and I had no idea what he meant.

  After a week in our south seas port, my sailor moved us into a hut together by ourselves. I noted that his captain and Aunt Dixie, who’d been civil about our affair up to that point, were quite distressed about the matter. Neither of us cared however, we were becoming adept at taking each day as its own and letting inconsequential things not matter to us. He still had his contract with the ship that could not be voided, and he served his days well. He was a skilled and experienced man of the sea, and I believe as an asset to the ship. The captain would not discharge him even on the grounds that he’d taken off with the morals of a young American woman. I was beyond the age of consent and a willing participant. Who was there that could argue with reality?

  After a dozen days of perfection on the island however, it was time to leave our love nest and sail again. I was reluctant to return to the ship, being afraid to move on to another port since it brought us closer to the end of the trip. I was also afraid that on board the vessel we would be closely observed. My sailor could not move without watchful eyes inspecting his work and attempting to see some way he was faltering in his duties. Strangely, he didn’t share my fears of his superiors, or my vigilant companions. He seemed to be even more bold and eager to meet me for sex. We made love in the laundry room on top of the clean sheets, in several bathrooms, as close and cramped as they were. We made love in both my bed and his berth in the shipmate’s quarters, even when there were other sailors there. We were foolish perhaps, and not discreet. And still, in our cockiness we knew love would prevail, everything else that came after would simply have to adjust. And so it did.

  Despite my sailor’s declarations of love, made daily in my ears and confirmed in my loins with his erection effectively speaking when he did not, I was nervous to know that my weeks with him were nearly at an end. We were as far from the origin of our travels as we could go on the face of the earth, in lands with strange smells and odd names. I think I was as unsettled by the places, as I was by the fact that my lover and I might part and go our separate ways. Each of us refused to speak of the ending. We only talked about going on forever.

  One day when he came to me with a small package, I was gleeful, thinking the traditional things that women think when small packages come to them from their lovers. Rings, what else could possibly be contained in such small spaces? This box had no bow, no flowered paper or fancy wrapping. However, the box itself was beautiful, deep blue silk with gold threads and a Chinese imprint on the bottom. Opening it, I was stunned. For there was not one ring, but three inside, three rings not made for fingers but for piercing me.

  “I have been to lands where women display their bodies with ornamentation to entice their lovers and to make statements of fidelity to them,” he explained. “Rings and trinkets gleam on their body parts, showing off the places where they’re most aroused. I want you to wear these for me. There are two for your nipples,” he said, pointing to the matching gold rings with an onyx bead on each. “And one for your ….”

  I didn’t let him get the last words out. “The hood of my sex,” I said for him. The third ring was larger than the other two, its diameter almost looking wicked, even though my sailor assured me that it would not be painful to have it implanted in my body, permanently taking up residence as a part of my sexual nether charms. Already he’d purchased the small chains that would dangle from the loop to tease my bud below. They lay daintily below the rings waiting to be affixed once this ring was run through my flesh.

  “This way you won’t forget me,” he said.

  “Why would I forget you?” I was anxious.

  “When we part,” he said.

  “We’re going to part?” I could already feel my heart breaking, the devastation in my soul crying out.

  “Surely, you’ll be going back to the States where you’ll take up your normal life,” he said. “I’m a sailor, I belong at sea.”

  I was angry. “Then why would I wear these rings, if you’re going to leave me?” I was about to throw them at him I was so enraged.

  “I’m not leaving you forever, my love,” he said, trying to calm me. “But I will always be compelled to return to my sailing. And while I’m away, these will serve us both. You’ll always be bound to me. And I’ll think of you wearing them and let the thought keep me bound to you.”

  I looked at the open box that was almost falling from my ha
nd. “I should wear these always in case we happen to collide again?” My comment was sarcastic.

  “You’re fearing too much,” he admonished me. “I was afraid you wouldn’t trust me. But don’t turn my sincere words against me, or I’ll correct your attitude with the palm of my hand on your behind.” I could tell he was quite serious, and even a little hurt that I reacted so angrily. “You’ll wear these for me, my darling, but mostly, you’ll wear them for the love of yourself, and the liberty you feel becoming the sexual creature you are.” When he spoke there was a dark aspect in his eyes than I’d seen only on rare occasions. That he was completely serious about this made me hesitant to protest further, even though my heart beat anxiously at the thought of adorning myself this way.

  And yet truly, I must confess that beyond my fears, my body ached to see these rings become part of me. I wondered of women who would wear such devices in private places. I wondered that there were women as wanton as I, that willingly submitted to these sexual marks. Curious pictures of jungle rituals and tribal rites appeared in my head. Was it possible that with these rings I was truly defining myself as a creature of such blatant appetites? Was it possible that there were no limits to the lust that burned in me, and the wicked ways in which it would display itself? These were horrifying thoughts, and ones that kept my mind captive all our last days together while the box of rings sat on my bureau inside my cabin.

  At our last port, we had three days together. On the first, he took me to a squalid section of the port town, to a tiny shop in the center of a row of shops. This one was distinctive because of the brick architecture that clashed with the weathered buildings around it. Inside, it was immaculately clean. An antique store, I surmised, considering the beautiful china and carved ebony and ivory that were displayed in cases on velvet and silk. The wood surfaces of the walls gleamed and the dangling turn of the century lights glowed softly, illuminating everything around the curious shop.