The Second Coming

All that remained for Gabrielle Rousseau to remove were her undergarments and her shoes. She stood with her back to the young man, resplendent in bustier, garter belt, panties, stockings, and shoes.

With studied indifference Gabrielle Rousseau shifted her hips and slipped the panties down her legs. She stepped out of them as they crumpled to the floor, and let out a barely perceptible sigh. Gabrielle Rousseau turned to face the young man, and took a step toward him.

In the blinding moment of this truth, the young man in an instant focused on the semi-erect cock that hung between Gabrielle Rousseau's legs, and in a furious instant was across the room. With violent momentum, his arms went for Gabrielle's armpits; he grasped loose flesh and lifted her from the ground and continued driving forward toward the bedroom wall. Gabrielle did not resist, she only looked deeply into Henry Naismith's burning eyes.

He slammed Gabriel Rousseau's limp body into the wall with surprising force, then drove a fist into the woman's soft stomach. Gabriel Rousseau exhaled sharply, but remained otherwise passive. Henry Naismith opened his hand and with all the force he could muster slapped Gabrielle Rousseau hard across the face. The half-naked woman slid to the floor, gasping for air, tears blending with eye-makeup now running freely down her stinging face.

The young man dressed hurriedly and returned to the slouched form. He balled his fist and raised it to strike, but a shattered impulse tore at his humanity, and he looked down on the fragile form beneath him. He lowered his face to hers and with tortured contempt stared at the vast ruin before him.

"How could you do this? Why?" he spoke with nauseous contempt. The woman simply raised her hand to the man's face and gently stroked it.

He could not look her in the eyes as he stood to leave.

The young man walked to the door, and with pleading guilt in his voice screamed one last time at the woman.

"Just what the fuck are you?" His voice tore through the vacant silence of the suite.

He opened the door, and stepping into the corridor which had so recently seemed eternally full of promise, closed the door gently and walked away.

In an empty voice full of hope the young woman said simply, "I am what I am."

She looked at the empty form of the door, and wept uncontrollably as she doubled over in brutal pain.

*

Part II

In the anguished days that followed, Henry Naismith quietly went with his parents to the Arizona Memorial and to pick pineapples. He stood in roiling water and took surfing lessons with his father, and he sat talking with his mother about her garden as she had her hair done . He played gin rummy in the hotel's cardroom with the geriatric set, and thought seriously about taking up shuffleboard.. He took his meals at his parents table, something that he had not done in years and something that, quite frankly, shocked all in equal measure.

In Henry Naismith's quietude there dwelt an ancient loneliness which he was loath to confront. He looked upon his mother's beauty now as something suspect, and saw in his father's unrepentant competitiveness a core of devastating isolation. Bereft of his comfortable outlook, he failed to look at the women in the hotel, his drive to conquest crushed under the withering crush of his internal doubts. The beach, where mile after mile of certain stimulation called out in primal rhythms, was now silent - dead. He felt a void, an emptiness born of failed expectation, he felt abandoned within the certain realization that he had met a vital life-test, and his humanity had been found grievously wanting.

It was in Henry Naismith's quiet search for some resolution to the dilemma of Gabrielle Rousseau that he came to understand something totally unexpected about life. In their headlong rush to embrace love, men and women cannot come to terms with love until they recognize and confront their acceptance of hate. In that simple way, he reasoned, love and hate are bound together in a continuous process of becoming and being, and in that deadly matrix fear, ignorance, and self-righteousness flourish when one's acceptance of pure love is rejected. Lost within his geriatric shuffle, Henry Naismith walked within the quicksand of his total realization that he had been, and was, a complete ass.

With but two days left in his holiday, Henry Naismith decided to rejoin the human race, guided perhaps by his newfound understanding that he had to confront this failing of his humanity. He had the time to himself as his father had political commitments, and ever the politician's wife, his mother left as well to go on various fence-mending tours with the congressman. The beach beckoned, but in a different voice. No siren's song called through swirling mists.

Coming in from a long walk on the beach in the middle of the afternoon he passed the lounge - that lounge - in which he had met Gabrielle. He walked in, took a quick look around and, on seeing no one, chuckled to himself and walked off to the elevator. He had no idea if Gabrielle was still in the hotel, or for that matter, still alive. He felt a bitter lack of resolution when he thought of her, however, and knew that if he got the chance he would try to explain himself, his recent journey. An apology, he felt, would be an empty gesture.

He came down to the lobby again on his way to dinner, and chanced to drop into the lounge once again. In the off chance, he reasoned, that she might return to the scene of the crime. And she had.

Henry Naismith first noticed the strawberry blond hair. Not at the bar, but in a booth at the far end of the lounge. Facing the beach, her back to the comings and goings in the lounge, she sat alone with a small salad and an iced tea perched precariously on a pile of spreadsheets and file folders. He felt unsure of himself for a moment, unsure of her motives should he appear before her.

He went to the bar and picked up a Mai Tai. As if the simple cliche of a drink could restore some sense of propriety, he looked at the drink with frank contempt. He walked to her booth and without stopping sat across from her on the far side of the booth. He winced as he made out the fading remains of the welt he had planted on the side of her down-turned face. She made no move to recognize his presence, rather she seemed genuinely absorbed with the facts and figures arrayed before her. He sat for a moment, and decided to speak up when she dropped her pencil and abruptly closed her eyes. She rubbed her temples, her jaw; it was obvious she was still feeling his "emotional outburst" in a brutally direct way. Her eyes were still closed as she rolled her head to the right and left, extended her neck back as far as she could, and hunched her shoulders. She rubbed her closed eyes; they watered as she rubbed them.

"My God in Heaven," Henry Naismith quietly cried. "What have I done to you."

With that, Gabrielle's head seemed to sway, then she brought her eyes down until she looked squarely into Henry Naismith's grimacing face. A faint smile crossed her face, she nodded her head faintly. "Ah. So here is my dear friend Henry," she spoke slowly, quietly. "Perhaps now he has had time to think and now wishes to kill me, no?"

"No."'How can I meet her gaze?'

"You wish then to ridicule me, humiliate me. Perhaps just to scream at me?"

"No."'If I deny her eyes I deny my humanity.'

"So, what is it my dear friend Henry has to say to the poor wounded Gabriel, or should I say Gabrielle? I was named for an angel, you know; a fallen angel perhaps, but an angel nonetheless." Her ironic countenance eased, replaced by the gentle smile and kind eyes Henry Naismith had been first mesmerized by. "What, Henry? What?"

And for Henry Naismith the effect was again instantaneous. His chest constricted, his breathing became difficult. Time seemed to evaporate into meaninglessness. He started to speak, then stopped, conflicting emotions visibly dancing across his face. He remained completely captivated by the total femininity of her being, the oceanic compassion that swept across her face. He began to talk to her, talk of his empty meanderings through the shallow, almost empty corridors of his soul. He explained his almost total sense of betrayal on feeling her secret need. He cautiously crept through the shoals and reefs of his violence, feeling in himself an almost total cowardice. He approached his thoughts on the dualities of love and hate with real fear. Fear of knowing where this course could take him.

'So,' he thought to himself, 'we cannot come to terms with love until we recognize and confront our acceptance of hate. If I have found love, and cannot accept that love because of the hate that lingers within my mind, can I ever truly love? Will my life, like my father's and my mother's, stand as a vainglorious monument to the desolation of the spirit that grows in the fertile soil of hate's garden?'Henry Naismith fought the growing conflict; he began to openly weep.

"I was going to tell you that I love you," he said.

"Oh, when was that? Before you saw... me?"

"Yes," he said. "Before. It was the simple realization... I am so ashamed of myself."

"Oh? Ashamed? Of what? Of accepting the appearance of reality. Am I not a man twice your age? Did I not - rather successfully, I would say - try to seduce a much younger man? Take advantage of a young man's innocence? Did I not enjoy myself? Are you such a fool as to believe in love?"

Gabriel's words stung Henry's soul to the core. He wept openly now. "How do you go through life? Do you, ah, are you a man, or a woman?" "Yes, I am."

"Yes, you are...what?"

"I am, dear Henry, what I am? I am what you see, not what you feel or believe. I am either that which you love, or that which you hate."

"So. You enjoyed yourself? What did you enjoy? The success of your deception?"

"No, dear friend, never a deception. What did I enjoy? The look in your eyes as you looked into mine. Mine...my eyes. Not a man's eyes or a woman's eyes. I enjoyed the possibility of love, when I know that for me love can never exist. And I very much enjoyed the way you responded...to me...physically. I have not dared to harbor the illusion that I will have a constant companion, a love that will last forever. But the thought of you, oh well, I can not dwell on the impossible."

"Oh," Henry said. "Why not? Is it so hard to love?"

"For you, dear Henry, perhaps love will be possible. In time. For me, I have walked upon love's precipice before, but I am not sure that I could relate to you the complexity of my feelings. With me, dear Henry, love is no simple thing."

"Do you think that this was a simple thing? Are you blind?" he blurted.

"So it is through your feelings for me," she continued through his interruption, "that you have come to feel the weight of the complexities that attend me. I have tried to love before, dear friend, and love has always failed me." She hesitated, gathered her strength. "I could once again believe in the power of prayer if I felt for just one moment in time that you could truly love me."

Henry Naismith's lack of conviction fell like shattered rock on the scarred remnants of her being as he rocked within the flow of her words, bathed in the hidden warmth of her offer. "What I have done to you," he hesitated on the precipice, felt the swooning power of his vertigo building, "Could you ever love me?"

She looked at the young man across from her, the vapid beauty of his youth transforming before her eyes with the strength of eternal resolve. She shrugged her shoulders, which caused her to wince from barely concealed pain. "Perhaps, sweet Henry. I can not believe that it is beyond even God's power to grant me the power to love. Free will? Can I choose to love you, Henry? I could try, I suspect. But I am so tired of pain."

Henry Naismith looked at the assorted piles of paper on the tabletop. "So what it all this?" he asked.

"I have been having problems with suppliers. I own a company that makes soap; many of the materials we use come from Polynesia. I must resolve a dispute, preserve the honor of my friends, create a compromise where all parties can walk away happily." "Oh, is that all," Henry said with mock sarcasm. "I thought surely you were off to save the world."

"I would be content, dear Henry, to save your world."

He felt the assault of her words throughout his being, he shivered in the enormity of her challenge. Gales of conflict seemed to gather around the crystal shards of his doubt, tear at the embers of his hatred. With no simple measure of resolve, Henry Naismith reached across the table and took Gabrielle Rousseau's hand in his. He looked deeply into her eyes for a fleeting moment, then stood up from the table. He started to walk away, but stopped, returned to her table. He saw the tears building in her eyes, the trembling of her lower lip.

"Will you be in your room tonight?" he asked.

"Yes, dear Henry. I must gather my belongings."

"Are you leaving soon?"

"Yes. Tomorrow."

"I see," he said. And he did see, could now for the first time in his life see the utter truth of love ripping across Gabrielle Rousseau's wounded face. He bent to lightly kiss this woman on her forehead, then turned and walked out of the lounge.

*

Part III

Henry Naismith sat on a chaise lounge just off the beach, a glass of mineral water balanced on his knee. He watched the sun set through vast towering clouds pregnant with rain; listened to children play in the nearby lagoon-shaped pool. The intent rustle of the sensuous tradewind blew through the palm trees high overhead, the subtle warmth of the breeze lifting his hair in errant flows. Henry Naismith felt alive, totally alive. It was with heightened senses that he listened to the sunlight, watched the currents of wind as they pushed their way into the vast machinery of life.

He looked down at his watch, noted the hour, felt the butterflies of his doubt banging away in his gut. 'There is no more room for doubt in my life," he thought. He balanced the hopes and dreams of his parent's aspirations for his life against the dreadful consequences the choice to make Gabrielle a part of his life would have for his family. It was an overwhelming choice. And despite his intense attraction to Gabrielle, he could with complete certainty say that he was not attracted to men. Women fascinated him, every little nuance, the emotional vagaries a puzzle to be worked out. Watching a man walk along the beach filled him with nothing; watching a beautiful woman walk by was cause for celebration.

And then he would think again of Gabrielle and this peculiar nether world she inhabited.

But whatever world Gabrielle had staked out for herself, it remained a mystery; did he want to join this woman in her journey? As he thought and rethought these complex issues, a simple realization would hit him squarely in the pit of his stomach. Like an echo, the force of Gabrielle's being would penetrate all his doubt, render it meaningless in its breathless rush to completion. In such a state, Henry Naismith rose and walked back into the hotel.

He stood before her door, listened intently but heard nothing. He tapped lightly on the door. Nothing. Several moments passed. He thought he heard a motion inside the door, and jumped a bit when he heard the chain coming off the door. The door opened enough to admit Henry Naismith, total darkness beckoned. Without hesitation he walked into the room. He could see a candle on the bedside table in the other room, but little else. A hand, Gabrielle's hand, took his in turn and led him to the balcony. Two chairs faced each other, waiting. Henry helped Gabrielle into a chair; she seemed unsteady, and she wrapped herself tightly in a blanket. She shivered slightly. Henry took off his jacket and draped it over Gabrielle's thighs. He sat down across from her, leaning ever so slightly forward. So far not a word had passed between them.

She took his hand again and held it to her chest. After a moment she raised his hand to her mouth and kissed it, forgiving his hand its role in her pain. She took his index finger into her mouth and gently sucked on it, playfully nibbled on his fingernail. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he watched her mouth at play, felt a stirring in his loins. She lightly clamped her teeth on the proffered finger, and with tongue swirling to keep it wet, raked her teeth up and down the finger. In the distance Henry could make out a symphony of ragged lightning bolts in the vast thunderclouds. Were they an echo of the lightning that danced inside his head?

Again, she took her foot - this time bare - and placed it on his lap. Her foot slid forward this time, however, and the sole of her foot came to rest squarely on his cock. She leaned back, removing his finger from her mouth, and began to slowly massage the growing cock through Henry's clothing with her foot. Henry too leaned back, released his inhibitions, felt the contradictions within his arousal, and gave in to the warmth that spread from his groin like a wildfire.

Gabrielle lifted her other foot, and placed it directly in front of Henry's face. He again supported her foot with his hands, and gently took one of her smaller toes into his mouth. He swirled his tongue around each toe, and he marveled in their cool, clean smoothness. He leaned forward a bit and ran his tongue slowly up the bottom of her foot, tracing little swirls and eddies across the smooth contours of her delicate arch. He heard her hands grasp the slight arms of the patio chairs, heard her mutter "merde" under her breath. He laughed gently, and took in the soft sweet scent of her foot. When he was certain he could stand no more, he removed Gabrielle's foot from his lap, and carefully lowered her other leg to the patio floor. He stood and held out his hands.

Clutching the blanket tightly around her, Gabrielle slipped Henry's hands in hers and let him lead her to the bedroom. Holding her gently, he lowered her blanket-bound form onto the bed. He removed his shoes and his necktie, and lay beside her. He slipped an arm under her neck and rolled over to face her.

There in the candlelight was her face, awash in the amber glow of some ancient past. He bathed in the light of distant rhythms, soaked in the radiance of her eyes, felt his soul cry for release from the opium of custom and tradition. Her eyes, her face, were the essence of the feminine. The beauty of her face, her form, held all other thought in abeyance. The contradictions welled up from deep within, however, colliding with the reality of her beauty, the ledges of his uncertainty, the unexpected horror of his assault, and of her pain.

With a cathartic shudder he burst into tears and buried his face in her soft hair. He was racked with deep sobbing, his body shook in uncontrolled release. As he fought for control he breathed into her ear, barely getting out his pleas for her forgiveness, his sorrow for her wounds, for causing her such pain. She pulled his head from her neck, and holding his head in two hands, slowly began to kiss and lick the tears from his face. This only produced more pronounced sobbing, and she held his head more tightly in her hands, kissed his face with ever more tenderness.

Gabrielle's mouth penetrated the young man's grief, and awoke in him a ravenous passion. Not wanting to hurt her further, he gently responded to her mouth with his. Their lips lightly sought out each others, contact was brief. She opened her mouth slightly on one kiss, let her tongue slip forward to the edges of her teeth, ready to let Henry in. His lips found her open mouth, and he slightly parted his, letting the tip of his tongue find it's way to hers. As their mouths opened, each bathed in the warm breath of the other, hand moved gently into hand, soul danced with soul.