Canon Ch. 07

She assumed it was to go outside and pee, much as he did at home - but for some reason, she got up a moment later and watched him from the door of the hut.

He did not go toward the trees, as she expected; he went down to the sea, and stood there with the waves lapping at his feet, looking up at the stars.

After a few moments, he knelt - and bowed his head.

Amy watched, her eyes wide, her pupils dilated in the dim starlight. Geoff was praying, and this man - in spite of what he had said about giving thanks - this man, she knew, did not pray. He had told her once that he was too angry at God to pray to him.

She crept from the hut, barefoot in the still-damp sand, and quietly approached him. She knew better than to surprise him, and coughed quietly as she drew near - and saw his slight movement, a signal of his awareness of her presence. The naked girl stroked his bald head affectionately, then knelt beside him. He took her hand in his and kissed her fingers.

They stayed there, kneeling together between land and sea, for some time. She saw his lips moving, but could not make out his words.

She stroked his back and let it go. He was not speaking to her. Now and then, there was a faint rumble of thunder from the now-distant storm, as if in answer.

Geoff finally stood, stretched, took a deep breath, and let it out. She stood beside him, and they looked at each other - then up at the sky, together, at the millions of stars.

In all the world, there was only sea, and sky, and their little island. In all of time, there was only that one moment. There was nothing but just the two of them - innocent, unclothed, beyond concerns of past and future, cleansed of pain and sorrow and worry.

Hand in hand, they walked back to the little hut - where they fell asleep to the sound of the waves and the wind, sheltered in each other's arms.

---

They barely spoke for the next few days. There was nothing to say. A look, a smile, a touch -

"You have set me free."

"You have shown me who I am."

"You are my life, my world. You are my heart."

- said all they needed to say, as clearly as if it were written.

Old man, young girl; and yet, two halves of the same soul, one and seamlessly united.

They made love without games, without words, hearts touching as their bodies touched, souls within and around each other as he was within her, as her body enclosed his. They came, together, sharing those heights as one - or separately, one heightening the other's pleasure and enjoying the task, then giving that joy over to the other.

They were on the island for three more weeks, and each day was eternal - with no yesterday and no tomorrow, every day an island in time as the earth beneath them was an island in the sea.

And finally, they returned the the big old house where they had first known each other, where they had fallen in love, and where they now lived as husband and wife; and they took the peace that they had found on the island there with them.

---

For the next few years, their life together grew into a rhythm, a pulse, moving between the big old house and the island at the end of the world; between time and eternity, between Earth and Eden. When one became routine, they went to the other. Amy began to audit classes, to give them more freedom, and soon she found she had taken them all.

They found much to do other than snuggle and fuck, though those remained the still center around which their lives revolved. They traveled between semesters, visiting Europe, Asia and Australia; they became patrons of the symphony and rarely missed a concert; and they enjoyed going out frequently for gourmet meals and live theater.

They cultivated a select circle of close friends who were welcome in their home. Colonel Johnston and his wife Carolyn, Amy's parents, a few friends of Amy's age from her school, some Marine buddies of Geoff's, a few others. All accepted the strangely mismatched but adoring couple for who they were, and celebrated their union with them.

No marriage is perfect. They didn't like the same music; Geoff was oldies and big-band jazz, and Amy was techno and club dance. But they found common ground in classical - especially their precious Canon.

---

Amy prepared a special treat for Geoff's 75th birthday: a surprise reunion with the men with whom he had shared that hilltop in Vietnam. "Johnsty" helped her set it up, and all four men and their wives were there.

Geoff was moved to tears, of course - and was finally able to accept the gratitude of the men he had saved, and celebrate their lives and those of their families, instead of continuing to mourn for those who were lost. It was a long evening of talk, tears and laughter, and one of the best of his long life.

The next day - a second surprise - their children and grandchildren showed up to thank him as well. The big old house and yard were filled, and the pool too, with squealing kids and laughing adults. It turned into a weekend-long party, with most of the guests in spare bedrooms and the overflow in a nearby hotel. Geoff was at once the host and the guest of honor, and he seemed comfortable in both roles.

On that Saturday evening, as the five survivors sat around the living room again with beer and wine and memories and talked like the old friends and comrades they were - everyone else was on the patio - Johnsty pulled Amy aside and asked:

"Amy, I've been meaning to ask you - what happened? I've noticed it before, but tonight..." He shook his head. "He can talk about it now. He's not - bitter. He's finally let down his guard, lost his anger. What did you do?"

She smiled and shrugged. "He let it out, Johnsty. He finally let go of it." She shrugged again and lifted her hands. "He decided that it was OK that he got to live."

The silver-haired Marine officer - there are no ex-Marines - looked at the pretty young woman with the strange eyes and nodded. "And I bet I know why," he said thoughtfully.

Amy blushed. "I don't know. One night on the island he just held me and started talking. And he's been OK ever since."

She didn't mention her insight, or Geoff's. Those were his to share if he chose. Not hers. "Well, whatever caused it, it's a miracle, Amy. And a long time coming."

They turned and looked at the bald old man in the living room, laughing and gesturing from his favorite chair like a king in his court.

The colonel placed a hand on Amy's back, with affection and respect. "Like I said, Amy. He deserves you. Thank you for what you've done for him." He patted her back and went back to the living room, where the five men greeted their old commander with grins and offered drinks.

---

For more than three years after that, little changed; Geoff seemed not to age, and in fact to grow younger. They loved, and laughed, and taught each other, and were grateful for every day.

Amy lost a bit of her girlish slenderness, and grew a tiny bit heavier, a tiny bit curvier - which Geoff adored.

"Why do you like me this way?" she asked him curiously one day as they sweated in the steam room.

"Amy, you haven't gained THAT much weight," the old man said. "What is it? Ten or fifteen pounds?"

She smiled at him. "I know. But why do you like it?"

He grinned. "You jiggle more when you move. Your bottom and your boobs are bigger and rounder and softer. And you have more to shake and bounce and shimmy when you dance for me." He licked his lips, and Amy noticed his cock shifting on its own.

She shook her breasts a little, looking down at them. "Hmmm," she said. "I guess they DO jiggle a little more...."

Geoff growled and reached for her.

That was when he was 77.

---

Another year passed.

Eight years into their marriage, Geoff was finally beginning to slow down. They cut back on, and eventually stopped, the martial-arts training, through they still went to the gun range. He still did his weight-training three times a week, but with less weight on the bar. They walked more, swam more, and slept later.

Geoff, predictably, did not accept aging with good grace. He was approaching 80, but demanded as much from himself as he did at half that age; and was inevitably disappointed.

They no longer made love every day. He was beginning to find it difficult to achieve and sustain an erection. Viagra helped, but his most important aid was Amy, who would do anything to help him - and enjoyed the challenge.

One afternoon, when Geoff had not been hard for the better part of a week, Amy had him tie her wrists to Honey's saddle and start the engine. She shuddered and shook naked in their back yard for almost an hour - whimpering and cumming and grinding her bald pussy into the leather ridge she sat on - as Geoff watched and played with his cock.

When he was finally hard, she slid around and hung her ass off the side of the bike, her bare feet braced on either side. She came again as he slid his cock into her bare, vibrating pussy. He fucked her squeezing, shaking hole and looked into her slitted eyes, and before long he shivered too as he spurted deep inside her - as she came yet again, as much from the pleasure she had given him as from her own.

She would strip and dance for him, inflaming him with her bare beauty and her snakelike movements, alternating that with sucking and licking him as lewdly as possible; then she'd squat on his dick and bring him off when he was hard - and hold him close, and be held, as he recovered.

When even that could not happen, he would feel her and lick her and bring her to orgasm in whatever way he could - and she adored it. He would apologize at first - but she soon broke him of that. She'd kiss his old cheek and say, "Geoffie, it isn't your dick I'm in love with. It's you."

---

One night, after they had tried but failed, and snuggled naked anyway, he held her and hummed the bass notes of the Canon - but she did not sleep. They clung to each other and thought. They were sad - but they did not weep, either.

She looked up at him in the dim light with her strange eyes, and he looked back with his old ones - and they both knew.

This was the bargain they had made. This was the price they had agreed to pay, for their love, for their oneness and happiness. This was the path they had chosen to walk together, and they both saw its end approaching.

"Not much time left, Punkin," he whispered.

She did not push the thought away, this time.

"I know," she said. "I know, Geoffie."

He smiled. "We'll have ten years, though, Little Heart. I'll make it to eighty if it kills me."

They smiled at that - and then they laughed, though quietly, softly.

He kissed her hair, and she stroked his back. His muscles were growing slack, his skin yet more delicate; but he was still her Geoff, her lover, her hero. She hugged him, knowing she was trying to hold him here - and knowing that in the end, she couldn't.

He felt it too. "I'll never abandon you alone, Amy," he breathed.

She looked up at him; his eyes were as hard and determined as they must have been on that hilltop, long before she was born. "No matter what happens. I'll never leave you alone," he said. His voice was soft, yet hard and clear as diamond. "You know that, don't you?" He pulled her close and held her tightly to him.

He had never spoken of that before, nor even alluded to it. But he felt her nod, then felt her lips move against his chest as she whispered, "Yes. I know."

Then, "I don't understand how that could be, Geoffie. But I know it's true. I can feel it." He felt her nod once more, and he cradled her head in his old hand and kissed her hair again as she clung to him.

She lifted her face to his, and he kissed her. It was as sweet and long and comfortable as their first - and perhaps even sweeter from the knowledge that there would not be that many more.

Geoff started the Canon again, and they hummed to it together.

It calmed them, soothed them, brought them peace; and they slept in each other's arms, content in that moment because it was the only moment that existed.

Tomorrow had still not come, and only today was real; but they both knew that one day, one day, there would come that one day of which they never spoke.

But not yet. Not quite yet.

They smiled as they slept. Their time was not yet gone.

And, they knew, it would be all right. The Canon swirled around them, and everything was all right.

Somehow, they would have their happy ending.