Patagonia

"This is from the sea," he said. "It's from a whale. Where did you find it?"

"It was in my room. I want to buy it. Do you think Dona Menendez would sell it to me?"

He picked it up and admired it, turning it in his hands. "Sell it? No. But I'm sure she'll give it to you. That's the way things are with us. Take it, Ms. Berger. A souvenir. I'll see to Doña Menendez."

He gently pushed the scrimshaw back to Caroline. It was strange to see his fingers touching it. It gave her a kind of odd thrill. He had beautiful hands.

"We are all friends," Herrera said unexpectedly. "It's good to be with friends. Friends are what matters most. Don Alejandro, you are my friend! But this place makes me sad. It is not a friendly place, Don Alejandro. It is not."

"You're drunk, my friend," Alex answered. "Go to bed."

He signaled for his two companions to help Senor Herrera to his room. They lifted him as if he weighed nothing, and Herrera didn't object.

Alex's eyes met hers as they hauled the lawyer away, met hers and stuck, and she found herself captured by those hypnotic green pools.

She knew then that she'd planned on seducing him all along. It had never quite been a conscious thought, but it had always been there in the back of her mind, back in the part that helped pick out her clothes and do her makeup. Seducing him would be the perfect answer. It would bring him over to her side and seal the deal. It would connect them.

Alex seemed to know as well. A little cloud of lust seemed to gather in the space between them, fueled by the power of their eyes, gather and just hang there. His friends came back and he said a few words to them in Ona and they bowed and quietly left. The girl came into the room to clear away the dishes but then seemed to change her mind and left. They were alone with the fire and the wind that buffeted the door.

Alex stood up and flipped the cigarette into the fire. "If you'd like to see something, come with me outside."

"Outside? I'll get my coat."

"You won't need a coat," he said. "It's just for a moment, and besides, you'll be with me. You won't be cold."

Caroline looked at him to see if he was joking, but it was hard to tell. He was smiling at her confidently. She stood up and followed him as he pulled the carpet aside and leaned against the door to open it, and Caroline stepped out into the darkness and cold and rushing, incessant wind. She had a feeling of the great vastness around her and she instinctively hugged herself. It was like stepping into outer space.

Alex led her away from the house and the darkness enclosed them. Moon and stars appeared only briefly through gaps in the racing clouds, making shadows and patches of dim light that slid along the land and the black sea like demonic searchlights. A shower of sleet came from nowhere and pelted them with freezing rain, then moved quickly on, propelled by the impatient wind. As her eyes adjusted she saw the whole dark world was alive with motion, but what was moving? The short grass, a few dry bushes, the clouds, the heaving sea and waves breaking below in a chaos of white foam. Why did it seem like the very air was filled with blowing forms?

She could hardly get her bearings. She had the terrifying sense that she could be blown off this open cliff and carried into utter darkness. The End of the World. She cursed under her breath for not having brought a coat she could at least wrap around her and cling to.

Alex was watching her. She turned to look at him and saw his face bathed in shadow and then light.

"It's a good night," he said. "The world is filled with spirits. This place sleeps during the day. It only comes alive like this at night."

"Alex! What did you bring me to see? It's freezing out here. I'm not dressed for it!"

"Are you cold?" He had to shout to be heard.

"Yes!"

"Really?" he asked. "Are you really?"

Caroline had to check herself, and realized she actually didn't feel cold at all. The wind was cold, and she could feel the cold on her skin and on her hair, wet from that brief squall. She could feel the wind as it blew her jacket around and entered her blouse and gusted up under her skirt. But inside she didn't feel chilled at all. She could feel the cold but wasn't cold herself. It was a strange and unnatural feeling, and at the same time exhilarating .

Alex took her hand and led her carefully over the rocky ground, knowing how disoriented she must be. The white breakers of the Atlantic were visible below to their right, glowing with an unearthly phosphorescence. They seemed to be walking up the hill just south of Doña Menendez's house. Caroline bent her head and concentrated on her steps, watching where she put her feet, afraid she might stumble in her sensible heels. The tough, brown grass that grew out here crinkled beneath her shoes.

She'd never been outside here at night. She'd hardly been outside in the day. She'd had no idea of the vastness, the emptiness and boundless space that was nonetheless filled with motion and swirling darkness and light. It took her breath away. It was frightening and exhilarating in a way she'd never experienced before, as if the whole world were some giant roller coaster and she might fly off the face of the earth at any second. She pressed herself closer to Alex.

He pointed up to the top of the hill. "Up there," he said. "Can you see where I'm pointing? There's a fire. You can see the sparks."

"Yes. Yes, I see it. There's two rocks— Oh wait! Are those people? Are those people up there?"

He nodded.

She shielded her eyes from the wind and looked again. Yes. Silhouetted by the glow of a hidden fire were two figures, women. One was sitting with her back to the sea, the other was tending the fire. Sparks flew on the wind. Then the fire-tender squatted down a few meters from the first woman and facing into the same direction, into the wind. The women became motionless, only their hair, let down and undone, and their big skirts moved, whipping like flags in the wind.

The sight filled Caroline with unease, as if she were violating their privacy.

"Who are they?" she shouted to Alex. "Why are they out here? What are they doing?"

Alex leaned close, and Caroline could feel rather than see his smile as he said. "They're letting the wind impregnate them. They're letting the wind give them children."

She was about to ask him if he was serious but she stopped. She knew it was true. She felt it.

The darkness and confusion of shadows, the air filled with spirits, and the two women sitting on top of the hill with their legs open to the wind... Her mind reeled.

"Is this what you brought me out to see?" She was indignant.

"No. I didn't know they'd be here. But it's wonderful, isn't it? Magical."

"Then what did you want to show me?"

"This, Caroline! All this! And not to be seen with your eyes, but to be felt and taken inside. The sea and the clouds and the wind and the dark. Those are what this place is about. It's about what you feel inside. The people who come to see your whales. They'll look with their eyes. They'll see only the plainness and desolation. They'll miss all of this! All of it."

"This is what I was trying to tell you," he shouted over the wind. "You don't have to understand how this works. You just have to feel. Truth is a feeling. Everything is a feeling."

She turned away. She had no time for this new age shamanism crap. The wind was buffeting her, pushing and tugging like a hundred hands, and now she was starting to feel chilled in a peculiar way, the fine hairs on the back of her neck standing up. Those things he called spirits seemed to be wisps and patches of fog, shredded by the wind into gossamer veils that tore and disappeared even as you looked at them. They were eerie.

And suddenly she knew what he was talking about. Suddenly she felt the truth of this place, the emptiness and forlornness during the day, this dark windy chaos and violence at night. It came to her without words, without reason, without conscious thought. It came as a feeling without description or explanation.

And the truth was: this was it. This was all there was. This was her inside. The dismal emptiness of her days; the confused anguish of her nights.

The end of the world. Yes. It's where she lived.

Now she was cold, and cold from the inside. She hugged herself. She couldn't stop the cold.

Alex reached up and untied his hair and set it free so the wind could take it. He shook his head as if bathing in the wind, taking it on his face so that it streamed behind him. Instantly he was an Ona warrior, a master of this land, a child of this wind.

He found the pins in Caroline's hair and pulled them out. He tossed her hair till it was streaming too. Her beautiful auburn hair. She just stood there feeling the wind, the cold, the darkness, the freedom.

"Do you feel them now? The spirits? You can feel them in your hair."

She felt something, she couldn't say what and she didn't even want to think about it. She just wanted to let it wash over her and lose herself in it. She wanted to be a piece of it, free, dark, and windblown. She closed her eyes and just let herself feel.

"Caroline! Look! There!"

Alex grabbed her and turned her to face the sea. At first she saw nothing, just the dark sea and a ghostly iceberg hidden in mist. Then the clouds parted and the moon briefly illuminated the surface of the ocean, and just as the moon was swallowed up again, she saw it: something huge and black and powerful emerging from the water. Something big; big and smooth and blacker than the water, clacker than the night, gleaming.

And then another shape, and another, and two more...

"Ottewo!" he shouted. "Ottewo Kio! Whales, Caroline! Humpbacks!"

She watched those black forms lifting and heaving in the darkness, transfixed. It was dark again but she could feel the whales, she could feel those powerful bodies moving through the ocean with a clarity her eyes could never give her.

Alex stood behind her and gripped her arms, keeping her pointed in the right direction, but she didn't need his help.

"Don't just look, Caroline. Feel them. What a fantastic gift they've given you! Just for you!"

She looked. She felt. There was something familiar about those mountains of darkness emerging and sinking back into the sea. Something she couldn't quite place but something she knew, some forgotten dream or a buried memory, or dark, long-repressed urge...

And then a smaller whale, a youngster, suddenly breached, leaping half-way out of the water and crashing back in a spray of dark silver that was quickly shredded by the wind. She gasped and fell back against Alex who instantly tightened his grip on her arms and held her up. She thought she might faint and felt herself tremble.

"Caroline!"

"What is this?" She fought to remain conscious. "What is all this? What's happening to me?"

He turned her around so he could look at her and steadied her on her feet.

"They're humpbacks, Caroline. They breach like that because they want to be seen. They bring us messages."

Messages, yes. She felt the message. Felt it inside. It was a feeling, just as he'd said.

Alex pulled her close so she was against the warmth of his body. And then he was bending his head to her, and Caroline was raising her face, desperate for the kiss she knew was coming, desperate for the feel of his embrace.

He didn't disappoint. He kissed her, then stopped and gently combed her windblown hair from her face and kissed her again, wrapping his arms around her and turning her to shield her from the wind as his mouth sought hers again. His lips were warm; his kiss was tender and tentative but Caroline wanted it. Her lips went slack and she opened her mouth to him and pressed herself against his body, strong and solid, the one solid object in a world of wind and blowing water and racing clouds. She was no longer thinking and she didn't want to think. Don't try to understand, just feel.

His hands were inside her jacket and at her blouse, unbuttoning it and opening it up, pulling it out of her skirt and letting the wind take it. She only kissed him harder, wrapping her arms around his neck, letting him do as he wanted. She was no longer cold. She felt no cold at all, just a rising warmth inside her, spreading to her face and arms and chest. She could still feel the whales down below, swimming through the dark ocean. She felt as though she was swimming with them, heavy yet weightless in a sea of water.

His hands were on her body, on her sides and then on her breasts, caressing her back, all over her. She felt his desire and it made her weak. He reached down and began to raise her skirt.

She moaned into his mouth and sucked his tongue, moving her hips to help him get the skirt up and expose her. Yes! Touch me! Touch me! She needed to be laid bare and exposed to this place and this incessant wind, and to the warmth of his hands and his body against her.

She felt the air on the hot little bulge of her labia through her panties. Yes, the wind was a male, there was no doubt. It touched her and enveloped her. It worked its way into her bra and her panties and touched and licked her, teasing her and making her want. When she felt Alex's fingers against her pussy, she grabbed his hand and pressed it against her.

They stood in the dark and the wind and the patchy moonlight that swept over them. His finger slipped inside her and Caroline moaned into his mouth. Her belly clenched as she felt herself trying to draw him in. His tongue was already fucking her mouth and she let him do what he wanted. She needed this man. If he'd laid her down right there on the scratchy grass and the cold rocks, she would have taken him gladly without a second thought.

Another squall of rain caught them and the water ran down her face, her breasts. She didn't care. But Alex pulled away.

"Come. Back to the house. Come with me." He took her wrist and led her stumbling back to the dim glow of the house, away from the wind and the darkness and the women sitting on the hill, away from the whales and the ocean. She felt them all tugging at her, but now what she needed was Alex. She kicked off her shoes and followed him, carrying her shoes in her hand.

Inside, the dining room was deserted. The fire still burned but the lanterns were out and the electric lights were off. There was no one to see her half-naked and barefoot and her hair an wet and tangled mop.

He started to lead her up the stairs but Caroline couldn't wait and pulled him to her to taste his mouth again. He pressed her against the wall and kissed her, ravishing her body with his hands—her breasts, her ass, her pussy—wrapping her hair in his hand and pulling her head back so he could kiss and suck her exposed throat. Again she felt she might faint and she clung to him for dear life. When his hand slipped inside her panties and touched her naked sex, her hips bucked in raw animal reflex.

The corridor was black but he found his way. He pushed open the door to her room and pulled her inside, then leaned against it again and locked it. The room was dark. The curtains looked like ghosts. Alex lit the lantern as Caroline leaned weakly against the wall. She had no strength apart from him. Without his touch she was helpless.

He pulled her onto the bed and the mattress sagged beneath their weight. His hands worked at her clothes and she worked at his and then somehow they were naked and she was lying with her knees up and open and he was positioning himself above her on his strong arms and strong shoulders. Caroline stared up into that dark face that looked so different now, so intense and focused, so very Indian, and then her eyes rolled up and her body arched as she felt him start to enter.

He was hard and huge and it had been so long for her! She cried out and then caught herself and pressed her lips together. Herrera's room was just down the hall, and Doña Menendez's daughters. She gripped the covers and squeezed and her knees clamped instinctively against his sides to trap him and make him go slow. She felt her pussy quivering as she was stretched, but now that he was in her and on top of her, he was in no hurry. He stopped just part way inside her, and held himself up on knees and elbows, looming over her like a massive wave.

He caressed her face. "Relax. Relax Caroline."

And now for the first time her mind spoke up: You're cheating! You're betraying Jack! You're a whore and a slut, and what will he say when he finds out? And he will find out. What then?

She shut it out, just shut it out, and her trembling legs opened a bit. She was not going to stop. Jack was not in this. Jack has nothing to do with this. This wasn't even sex in the sense that she knew it with Jack. This was something raw and elemental and necessary. This was more than just making love.

Alex pushed in more. More. More. Slowly, so she felt every bit of his entrance he pushed into her. She opened wider. She reached for his hair and pulled him down for her kiss and Alex laid his weight on her, driving her body into the bed as he pushed his whole length into her and speared her deep.

Caroline gasped. Delicious pain. So fucking good! She sobbed and locked her legs around him, panting and holding him till the pain eased. She could feel him throbbing inside her, hard, hot, pulsing with life. The pain soon ebbed and she sighed and relaxed. She opened her legs and Alex began to move.

Slowly, slowly at first. He was big, thick, his cock proportional to his height. He filled her completely, stuffing her full as her pussy frantically bathed him with her own lubrication and stretched to accommodate him. She felt every vein, every bump and irregularity as he slid in, touching her everywhere, and she twitched with little spasms as she strained to take him.

He raised himself to look at her. "In my language, a man's cock is his ottewo; his whale."

Caroline tried to smile, but she was breathless, dying for him. "Please Alex. Please. I need this so much!"

He understood. With his arms planted on either side of her like pillars, he began to fuck her, slowly at first, then picking up speed as he felt her relax and open, slinging his hips with long, sure strokes that made her gasp and sucked the strength from her body.

"Yes, yes! Harder! Harder, Alex. Fuck me!"

Alex grunted and started to pick up speed, beating into her. No more gentleness, no more consideration. He made a sound in his throat of pure carnal pleasure, half grunt, half growl, and he plunged it into her using the strength of his legs and ass, his big thick cock drilling her, reaming her out.

Caroline clung to him weakly, overcome by the sheer pleasure of being fucked. Lights went off behind her eyelids and the dark room blurred and dissolved. She had a vision of whales, rising and heaving and sinking back into the sea. She was riding one and had her legs around it, and she was shocked by her own ecstasy and the wildness of her desire. She held him tighter as if afraid she might fall off and sink out of reach. He was the dark, he was the wind, he was the desolation of this place, and he fucked her as if her warmth was the only thing that could save him. He was a force of nature. A shaman between her legs, sunk inside her. A whale in her pussy, plunging into her with pelagic male power and need, and she was beside herself

"Oh yes! God, yes! Harder! Harder!"

Her juices were seeping out of her stuffed cunt and running down the crack of her ass. He took her buttocks in his big hands and lifted her up against his loins so he could get even deeper, grinding into her, crushing her labia and grinding against her clit. Her legs lost their strength and fell helplessly open. She writhed beneath his big body, struggling for breath.