Crosley: A Short Story by Engstrom Elizabeth

Author:Engstrom, Elizabeth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, erotic, murder, fantasy, justice, romantic, dark, pacific, sailing
Publisher: Imagination Fully Dilated Publishing

Part Three: Francine

One year later, he returned. Could not stop thinking of me, he said. Could not forget the silken feel of my skin, the amber scent of my hair. Could not escape the way the dimples in the small of my back fill with perspiration when we make love. Lies I lived to hear, lies that rolled off his tongue so smoothly and delicately and sounded so sweet when I listened only to his words and not to his duplicitous soul.

Godfrey failed to wake one morning, so I inherited the bar by default. I cleaned it up and changed the menu, instituted some policies and began making it the social center of our side of the island as it should have been all along, instead of a smelly drunk’s hangout. I had the dance floor fixed, and staged a gigantic grand opening party, including a dance band and a raffle. It was a great party, and it had barely kicked off when Crosley swept me into his arms for a dance.

I had been too busy to notice the arrival of his yacht, and my surprise was authentic and overwhelming.

I’d been expecting him. I’d expected his return since the moment he left me. I’d expected to see his smile at the end of my bar every night for a year, but when I actually saw him, smelled him, felt him, and then tasted him, it was a sight, a smell, a sensation totally beyond that of my meager imagination. He was dark and pungent and his hands strong and familiar and bold. When he tasted me, I felt as though I had never been tasted before. My spirit soared. He could not have chosen a better time than my grand opening ceremony.

I continued acting the hostess for the night, but as the party wound down, I set others to see to the wrapping up, paid the musicians, grabbed the dusty bottle of grappa I had stashed in the back of the cabinet for just exactly this anticipated event, and let myself be led to his boat, to his bed.

Again, I was stunned into silent submission by my own inadequate fantasies of what Crosley had been like. What Crosley had been to me.

After stormy, insistent, almost desperate lovemaking, we lay quietly in his bunk listening to the snapping and popping of little creatures as they fed on the boat’s bottom growth. The anchor rope squeaked as the yacht pulled on it, and somewhere high above, a halyard clanged.

My fingers toyed in the thick curly black hair that grew in a line downward from his navel. The cabin smelled like seafaring, like diesel, like weathered teak, like lovemaking.

“I must leave in five days,” he said softly.

I had expected that, but the sound of it sliced my heart. I took a steeling breath and vowed to make the most of these five days he allowed me.

Early the next morning, I delegated responsibilities around the bar, and told the home team that I was taking a few days off.

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