Love Is Like An Ocean Current

She had caught her reflection in the mirror, as she passed it, and thought that she had seen a new woman in her navy-blue tunic blouse that hung loosely over matching slacks. On a whim, she had chosen a white bauble necklace as a suitable complement. It had all been a cover for a woman aching to hear from her lover, her range of acting skills too limited to conceal what she felt, from Peggy, for long.

Her laptop was soon booted up and they gasped at what was to be found written about him.

'My God, he is a catch if it goes so far,' Peggy had soon exclaimed and sat close as they read his full bio. 'Not too young for you is he, rich as the man seems to be?'

'Direct, aren't you? And he's made no issue of what money he has. Pat's so modest, you wonder how he got to be where he is now.'

'I'm just thinking of you, given what you've been through.'

'I know, and it's been something that I've wondered about too. It's...it's just that, Pat's not like the men you read about.'

'Let's hope so then, for your sake,' Peggy had been startled by her reaction when her iPhone rang. It had gone five and Tom was heard to be ringing the bell at the security gate. 'I'll deal with it. You take the call.'

A considerate but knowing smile was all that had been seen on her friend's lips.

♥

'Hello! I did begin to wonder...' she began but Pat cut in.

'It's been a manic day and it's been turned over completely. I kept thinking of you and wasn't in the mood to drive further south, to the cliffs I wanted to capture on a large canvas. It remains untouched in the back of the van. Instead, I went to the harbor at Candelaria and I brushed out three pictures of the Guanche Indian statues you see there...'

'I know what you mean!'

'I've given them the Ainsley treatment. So, I could call by and show you, or you could have supper at my place and see how I live out the artist's life. There are very few frills.'

'I don't care about any of that! Just give me your address!'

'It's on the card I gave you, Susan. Be here with me and lay the demons to rest once more.'

'I have them too!'

In the grip of her excitement and expectation, she closed up the apartment and locked her front door; did not bother to check her make-up or brush out her hair. She could do that once she had found somewhere to park near his place. Perhaps his white van would be like a beacon to where her man lived, for she thought of him in those terms now. She would reclaim him.

Peggy wouldn't recognize her friend, but she felt certain that Pat would do so

She slewed to a stop in the space at the end of the parking zone and laughed as she saw a small Union Jack hanging from the railing fixed to the top of the wall that marked the edge of his balcony. Susan saw him wave and she responded, feeling the rush of longing course through her belly at the sight of her lover. His hair was like a sun-bleached crown, and his smile, as she drew near and looked up at him, was impossibly bright against his tanned face.

'The wonders of sat nav!' she called out.

'The wonder of you! What are you waiting for? I've so much to show you?'

'I know you have!'

How he lived and what he had painted during the hours he had been away from her could wait. She was unable to do that and she knew it was so the moment she saw him again.

♥

'Woman...you'll break me...break me you darling!'

'Hold on,..please hold on! I...I want to do that for you...for...'

The words 'for us' remained unspoken. The pleasure Pat brought to her had reached its peak and she shuddered on feeling the brutal strength of his passion crash over her. It wracked her body in shuddering waves as she tumbled into an all-consuming shared climax. She couldn't stifle her groans against his kin and clung to Pat as her pleasure seemed to take over her body until it seemed to swell and then be released in pulsing, quickening snatches. The pleasure was all-consuming; the pulses he aroused having her grip on that length of flesh that had found her so insistently and quickly. She had again shared in the frenzied avowal of what they had known of the night before and that had again to be made real.

'Don't stop! I can take more of you!' she cried out; her efforts to hold onto him lessening. His penis, so hard and ribbed, slid rapidly in and out of her body; bringing her experience of him to a level of unbridled and feral carnality. The artist had become the lover in search of a deepening sense of completion with her.

Her lover was wild, and she knew that he felt that only for her. His words of longing, as they had undressed each other in haste, had confirmed it and they had eased away her doubts.

He claimed her and she yielded to every thrust, embraced him fiercely even as Pat pushed her legs up until she locked them behind his back. It all became too much. The world beyond his bedroom window went unnoticed. She was all to him and what he brought to her was an only too aching reality.

'Susan...Susan...you darling!'

It was upon him now and she knew that he was gone. Pat had become lost in her and she was wracked again by her orgasm as she felt the searing spurts of his release. She stifled his cries with her kisses and wondered how their times together could end; what they would know of after all this had been shared.

She held him to her and basked in the heat from all that had again been discovered. Pat collapsed upon her, utterly spent. Was the pleasure worth the risks they had again taken?

'Tell me about your day,' she asked, her hands stroking his back as he slowly settled in her embrace and lay between her warm thighs as they remained joined. 'I kept wondering where you had traveled to.'

'A place without you.' Pat eased slowly from her and felt Susan shiver at the residual caress his flaccid penis still offered. He saw how Susan touched herself. 'Yes, I've been with you again.'

He leaned over her and offered kisses to her body; gently lifted her breasts and kissed the warm skin beneath them. Susan stilled the progress of his touches.

'Show me what you've done?' she asked on sitting up and bending to clasp her knees. 'I could always go with you and watch you work but be no distraction. I would be the company for you when you needed it.'

He stood in the doorway and looked her way. A passionate soul burned within her, and he continued to be surprised that she should have shared so much, already, with him in the few hours they had known each other. They had shared confidences over dinner the previous evening; had then stumbled into bed. He had left her and sought to paint, but he had realized, as he painted, that someone and something, special had been discovered; more correctly stumbled upon after she had stopped to buy a picture.

There was no one in his life to claim his affection or to share his bed and he sensed, already, that Susan had surrendered to him and his ways; that time could so easily be spent in each other's company when he was not painting. They could enjoy so much more than the island had to offer and they could do that together.

'Do I have to get out of bed and look at the pictures?'

'Now, that's an idea. Yes, do that,' he grinned and beckoned to her.

Susan ran into his arms and met a flurry of his kisses. She pressed against him and felt again the caress of his hands on her naked skin. He was not embarrassed or restrained in her ways with him now.

'Somehow I think I'll be spending the night here,' she ventured.

'Whatever gave you that idea? I'm worn out after what you've just done to me.'

He had eased out of her embrace and stood by three paintings that he had leaned against the wall, the images yet to be seen. Susan caressed his back and hips as he turned them.

'You...you wonder!' she gasped as she joined him in kneeling to look at them. 'They're simply wonderful and a different perspective on those statues.'

'You were in my mind. I could see nothing else but you. So, I wanted to simply paint what I saw and take inspiration from local artists and that man Picasso. You may have heard of him?'

Susan nudged him. 'Less of your sarcasm, mister, or I'll go home...'

'I'll simply follow you there...' he retorted.

'I know you will.' She threaded her arm loosely through his and looked down at the paintings. 'Art is all around us here, even in the painted walls and graffiti to some of them and that a skilled craftsman has put there. To others they're vandals, but not to me..'

'I got the ideas from that. So, the pictures here are like that. One is modernist, the body outlined and filled with squares of color; the next is only too recognizable but in the weathered colors of the metal, the statues were poured in. The third is in cubist style and of four natives, two males, and females; well-endowed men in loin cloths; the women bare-breasted and with flowing skirts...' He stopped. 'I'm talking to someone who knows of these things.'

'But she is with the artist and the man, here and now.' She turned to him and saw Pat's eyes drift over her naked body. She moved her head to meet the slow caress to her neck as Pat drew her into a kiss. 'I...I don't want this to end, not here or when we get back to our other home.'

'Neither do I, you wonder.' Pat felt her nod. He saw the soft, wondering, look in Susan's eyes upon him.

'You know that already?'

'I think it began when you stood on the other side of the road and looked my way.' Pat paused. 'This place has gotten to me and I'll want to keep coming back and I want to do that with you. I want to make love with you and not worry about the consequences. Do you know what I'm saying?'

Susan nodded. She couldn't quell the trembling of her lips.

'I felt that way too and I wondered what you'd think of me, a woman so sure of what she wanted; a man who would make her feel alive again.'

'Love's like an ocean current, unstoppable when it's real.'

Susan stood up and held out her hands. 'Prove it!'

Laughing suggestively, she skipped away from him without a backward glance. She had taken a lover and he had made her hopes fly free. Excuses for her behavior were no longer necessary. The answer rested in his hands, the look of his eyes upon her, and the soft words that Pat spoke out to acknowledge what had befallen them.