Beside the Lagoon

"Yes. You are beautiful Pania."

"Yeah but I talk roughly don't I?"

"Your mother would have cared to have heard some improved."

"Oh boy, you are right about that."

Doug stood in front of the painting and Pania, seeing the tears flow, left him alone.

Immediately he saw it, painted from the photographs she'd taken of him, Doug knew it was Kitty's best work. The detail was exceptional. She must have spent months on it.

Doug found Pania in the bedroom. She saw the hurt on his face and held out her arms and comforted him. She was his height and felt very strong.

"You liked it?"

"Oh yes. And it's her best."

"Yes I thought so too. She was stricken and should have been in a nursing home but she wanted to finish it and finish other paintings. She said the light here is special and so it is. As a photographer you'll know that."

"I do."

"I left university where I'm in my final year in Marine Biology to come home and care for mum. We stuck it out here for the last six weeks and later I bought her home in her final week to die."

"Oh god, you poor thing."

"No is was okay. You know what mum was like. Only she could die so gracefully. She was so pleased to be back home."

"Like Kitty you paint pictures with your words. You have replaced in my mind the manner in which I thought she had died."

"Well yes but that was intentional. God you did love my mother. Why..."

"She insisted I go and continue building my career and that's what I wanted. I thought I could return in five years..." He stopped.

"Or never return."

"Yes, I did think that as an opinion."

"The diary speaks of your honesty."

They drank beer on the deck at sunset, Tania cooking a delicious Chinese meal in a wok on the table on the deck.

"Could I swap the painting of you for the one of me? Mum packed the paintings for you in big cardboard boxes in the final days before she became bed-ridden and I'm sure she unintentionally packed the one of me on my 20th birthday. I haven't been able to find it anywhere and the lawyer said I'd have to ask you to search for it. I was going to write you."

"I'll collect everything from the law office in Helensville tomorrow and unpack everything and you can take what you feel ought to have been left to you."

"No just the straight swap."

"I'll give you the painting of you."

Pania remained firm. "Only if you swap."

"Okay."

She smiled, "May we go to bed early and have sex? I've been stuck out here alone in chosen retreat and will stay here another three months. I'm bursting for it."

"Okay, what will you do in three months' time?"

"I have a summer contract working on a fish farm and then return to university to complete my senior year."

"So you lost a year's study?"

"Yes but my choice was mum."

"God you are so like your mother in attitude."

Pania burst into tears and Doug held and rocked her.

Her bikini had dried on her so she didn't have much to take off in the bedroom.

"I'm rather old for you," he said, undressing.

"No you are not. After dad was kicked out mum always had older men, eight to ten years her senior. The difference between you and me is a tad over ten years. Don't you think that's quite in order... god is that all you?"

Red-faced Doug said, "It seems to be extra long at the thought of young flesh."

"Oh god, let me at it."

Pania only had hair on her head and the dried saltwater on her skin made her lovely to lick.

"Don't only lick me, put it in. I indicated I was near to be desperate."

"You put it in. I haven't worked across these tits properly yet."

Doug forgot about the salty licking when he felt the hot wetness of her vagina close around his dick so snugly.

"Oooh that's good. You have a great pussy."

"Thanks," she said and pulled him down to attack his tongue with hers.

Douglas began thrusting and she pushed right back at him until she said, "That's enough of that. Do me doggy and reach under and squeeze my tits while I'll finger my clit."

She was not softly romantic like her mother had been but Douglas sighed and thought what use were such comparisons? Think only of the daughter now.

They fucked into near exhaustion.

When they were resting against the bed head sipping mineral water Pania said, "I'd like you to stay on."

"Okay."

"I'll remain living here while working at the fish farm."

Douglas said, "Well I'm good on my current visa for three months. We can talk about that later. By then you might be sick of me."

"I doubt it. Want me to see if I can get you a job on the fish farm on maintenance of something like that?"

"Why not. I'm good with my hands."

Pania giggled and said she could confirm that.

Doug called the lawyer Claire Cook next day and she invited him to have lunch before finalizing the handing over of his property.

Back at the lagoon he and Pania unpacked and examined the paintings and she explained some of them, providing details of location and perhaps what her mother's intention had been. Only later did they find a 19-page letter that included full details.

Pania's painting of her walking along the shoreline of the lagoon, wearing only a bikini bottom was meticulous done in oils and she had given Pania a romantic expression.

"I'm too coarse as a person to be romantic."

"We'll be fixing that," Douglas said determinedly.

She laughed.

* * *

Eighteen months after returning home Douglas received a phone call from Pania. Until then they'd communicated only by email.

"What are you doing these days?"

"I'm now really well established in portrait photography."

"Do you have a live-in girlfriend?"

Douglas's heart picked up its pumping rate.

"Rose has just returned to Ireland."

"So you have a spare bed?"

"You'll sleep with me, won't you?"

Pania laughed and said of course.

Douglas said he had some younger couples as friends so everyone around him wouldn't by fuddy-duddy.

"Will you think about marrying me?"

"What?"

"It's a way of getting that painting of me you like so much."

"I like it because it was painted with love. She even made your tits smaller and your thighs slimmer."

"I know. I haven't been able to find a man nicer than you and I want children as well, not one without the other."

"Yes I could easily marry you and I want children. Are you coming here."

"Yes I am coming to Boston to do my PhD on a marine biology research grant."

"God this is miraculous Pania. You are what I need. You know I feel I've only really lived in my time spent with you mother and then you. You'll say that's only attitude and yes, I'd agree. You really have your mother's knack of lighting me up Pania. When can you come?"

"I start in two months."

"Can you come sooner? We'll go on a road trip and I'll show you my America as you showed me your New Zealand marine world of harbors and the perimeters of small islands in Hauraki Gulf.=."

"I'd love that. I could be there in say ten days. I need to rent out the lagoon house."

"Advertise it as being suitable for a painter or writer or a fit, retired couple who'd like to be house minders in paradise and appoint a real estate agent as property manager so you'll have someone responsible for re-letting it.."

"Good thinking. I'll get right on to that. Um, are you still okay for wall-to-wall sex?"

"Oooh Pania."

THE END