Crook & Flail Read online

  “Is it safe to eat the fruit here?”

  “Perfectly,” he assures her, “if it’s washed, which it is. It couldn’t have tasted better in paradise. It’ll also help us digest all that spicy meat.”

  “Poetic and practical all in a single breath. I like that.”

  “Thanks. Give me your hand.”

  Too surprised to protest, she stretches her right arm over the table.

  He grasps her hand gently in one of his and turns it so her palm is facing up as if he is about to read her fortune. But instead he raises it toward his lips so his warm breath caresses her skin as he says quietly, “There’s always tomorrow, Lucia.” He kisses the center of her lifeline. “And the day after that. Someone has to break the seal on your tomb sooner or later, princess.” He lets go of her fingers.

  Suddenly not sure what to do with them, she clenches her hands in her lap, almost as if holding on to the feel of his warm lips on her skin.

  He sits back. “The treasure is still there, intact and waiting,” he drains his glass, “and there are two ways to handle it. I can caress my way to it, gently removing one block after another.” He looks deep into her dark eyes, assessing her reaction to this approach. “Or I can force my way in.”

  This time she doesn’t look away.

  He pushes his chair back abruptly. “Forget the cold fruit.” He stands up and slips a tattered black leather wallet out of a back pocket. “Let’s go,” he says, tossing a handful of large, colorful bills onto the table.

  Willingly allowing herself to be hypnotized by his commanding tone, she gets up and precedes him out of the dining room.

  What looks like an entire nursing home on tour is milling before the elevators out in the lobby, the red lights tracking the slow progress of the cars up and down the shafts appearing to monitor their collective pulse.

  “Let’s take the stairs,” Mark suggests at once.

  “But my room’s on the ninth floor,” she protests.

  “It’ll help us work off dinner.”

  “What floor are you on?”

  “I’m right off the garden, of another hotel.” He opens the door to the stairwell. “After you.”

  Pride forces her to set a good pace up the steps but she has time to think about what is happening now. On the third landing she stops abruptly and turns to face him. “Mark, I don’t think—”

  He grips her arms as his mouth opens slowly over hers.

  His tongue is pleasantly dry and tastes of wine and spices and it is also shamelessly forceful.

  After a moment he pulls back and smoothes the hair away from her face as she catches her breath. “You don’t think what?” he whispers and then smiles triumphantly down at her silence.

  When they reach the ninth floor he opens the heavy door for her and then lets it thunder closed behind them.

  Her fingers feel awkward, like strangers with each other, as she fishes the key out of her purse.

  “I hear all the rooms in the Etap have a Nile view,” he comments while she unlocks the door.

  “Yes…” She steps into the lamplit space and quickly navigates through the maze of suitcases.

  This time he closes the door quietly behind them.

  “It’s stuffy in here,” she says and parts the curtains just far enough to slide open one of the glass doors leading out onto the balcony. She gasps at the surprisingly cold breeze that caresses her dress as it enters the room.

  “The temperature drops dramatically at night in Egypt, Lucia.”

  She has no choice now but to turn and face him.

  “Come here, princess.”

  She approaches him slowly.

  Slipping his arms around her waist, he presses her body and her lips firmly against his and his tongue begins leading hers around and around in a passionate dance like a fierce gentleman in a ballroom.

  After a timeless while she turns her face away to catch her breath in disbelief. “Oh God,” she sighs.

  “What’s wrong?” he whispers.

  “Nothing.” That’s precisely what she cannot believe.

  He genuflects before her, slips his hands up into her dress and pulls her black bikini panties all the way down her legs in one swift gesture. He leaves their soft shackle around her ankles as he rises with the hem of her black dress in his hands and lifts it over her head with the same elegantly controlled force. “How long has it been, Lucia?”

  “Too long,” she replies fervently.

  He snaps her black bra open in front and moves back. “Take it off,” he commands, “slowly.”

  She obeys him, unable to look away from his eyes, which shine flat and silver as a cat’s in the dim light.

  He watches her, his stare moving down from her beautiful face to her delicately full, perfectly round breasts as he unbuttons his shirt. “Very nice,” he says, slipping off the white cotton and tossing it behind him. Then he steps right up to her again so her long, firm nipples make electric contact with his bare chest. “Now on your knees, baby.”

  She caresses his hard, smooth body as she obeys him.

  He cradles her face with one hand and slips his other thumb between her lips. “Do you want me, Lucia?”

  Her tongue lets him know without saying a word that she does indeed want him, that the taste of him intoxicates her. It hits her painfully then how much she has missed not just the flavor of a man’s skin but also the mysterious flavor of a man’s will. She hasn’t opened a man’s jeans in a long time either but she makes short work of the buttons over his swollen crotch and quickly pulls the tough denim down around his thighs. Her fingertips are eager for the sensations waiting for them inside—a cool surface radiating warmth that can go from rippled and tender to smooth and firm, the utterly unique tactile experience of a man’s penis.

  Very slowly she peels away the soft cotton of his black underpants, teasing herself with anticipation.

  She had sincerely believed she would never hold a growing erection in her hands again, yet she has not been in Egypt one full day and yet already her sexual desire has resurrected inside her.

  Mark’s skin is not as pale and fine as her husband’s had been and she immediately suffers the impression that it is not as sensitive but his cock is beautiful, thick and long and totally straight, the head merging seamlessly with the shaft almost like an ancient statue’s. Yet she hesitates to put it in her mouth. She isn’t sure she really wants to.

  He literally takes the decision out of her hands. Grasping his impressive erection, he easily slips the head between her full lips and thrusts the fingers of his other hand through her dark hair so she can’t turn her face away. She has no choice but to let him slowly penetrate her mouth, and the fact that he is forcing himself on her makes him taste inexplicably good.

  His voice is hard and as full of satisfaction as her mouth. “That’s it, princess, suck my cock.”

  Chapter Two

  Lying beside her on the coffin’s white satin sheet, he turns toward her.

  She sighs with happiness as he takes her in his arms. “Oh, Richard!”

  “My name is Mark.”

  In the dim sunlight filtering in through the curtains the eyes looking down at her are a shining silver worth more than any dream. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

  He lets go of her and slips out of bed. “I have to leave,” he says. “I have to be in the Valley by eight,” he explains as he plucks his underwear up off the floor. “But I’ll free up some time after today, princess. I promise.”

  Watching him dress, Lucia’s heart is so full she doesn’t know what to say. “Mark…” she begins and then just lets her eyes tell him how she feels.

  He finishes tying the laces on his black sneakers and returns to the bed. “I know,” he whispers, bending over her. “I feel the same. I’ll see you tonight.” He kisses her forehead. “We’ll have dinner with some of my friends.”

  “Friends?” She selfishly resents the idea of sharing him so soon. She has also grown accustomed to being alone
. “Mark, I’m not sure I want—”

  He straightens up. “I said,” he stares down at her sternly, “we’ll have dinner with some of my friends. It wasn’t a question.”

  “What time?” she asks, unable to resist his commanding tone.

  “Sunset,” he answers shortly and leaves.

  Okay, here it comes, she thinks, yet the minutes pass and grief inexplicably refrains from raping her sensual contentment. Instead she realizes that for the first time since Richard’s death her senses are simply looking forward to the day ahead. Naked, Lucia gets out of bed and stands in front of the dresser mirror.

  From now on, she thinks, looking her reflection straight in the eye, I’m going to experience every moment to the fullest without worrying about anything. I’m going to enjoy myself. And with that settled she proceeds to admire the curvaceous firmness of her figure, which she effortlessly maintains with only a moderate amount of exercise. At the same time she ponders the mysterious fact that the mirror’s cool glass was once yielding sand and determines to similarly harden her heart to sorrow. She cannot allow it to keep clouding her vision so that she finds it impossible to see a future for herself. Especially since her body made it perfectly clear last night that she is still very much alive.

  * * * * *

  Dressed in slim-fitting black jeans, comfortably worn black leather shoes and a short-sleeved white cotton shirt, Lucia slips her key in one pocket, a few random credit cards in another and leaves the room, sunglasses in hand.

  Outside on the front steps of the hotel a crowd of native men immediately flocks enthusiastically around her and she inevitably focuses on the most insistent one. “Carriage, madam? Take you wherever you want to go! Aywa? Yes?!”

  “Aywa, shukron,” she replies, savoring her first Arabic words as she follows one of the robed Egyptians down to the sidewalk and lets him help her up into a black carriage drawn by a tired-looking white horse.

  He leaps up into the driver’s seat in front of her and grins back at her over his shoulder. “Ala-tool? Where to?”

  “The Luxor Museum, minfadlak. Please.” She is much too worn out from the long plane flight, not to mention from Mark’s relentless energy, to even think of visiting a temple today. The museum is small and manageable and yet possesses an extensive and varied collection of ancient artifacts.

  A cool November breeze wafts soft as silk over the morning’s gently penetrating warmth. Lucia takes a deep breath, inhaling the sharp scent of the ancient river, discernable even beneath the more obvious smell of horse sweat and the inevitable stink of exhaust from all the little cars weaving impatiently around the tourist carriages. And just beyond her own familiar perfume she catches a whiff of an intangible yet heady excitement as people from all over the world stream down the sidewalks, paradoxically smiling as they make their way to tombs and lifeless temples. On her left the Nile flows right along with her and the beat of the horse’s hooves against the asphalt evokes vivid, split-second flashbacks of the night’s hard rhythm that make her feel deliciously relaxed and weak with anticipation of more to come.

  She is almost sorry when her carriage comes to a stop in front of an attractively modern two-story structure.

  Lucia pays her driver the fare he quotes her without bothering to haggle and slips her sunglasses into her shirt as she walks toward the building, forgetting everything but the beauty of her first morning in Egypt and the intensity of her first night in the land of the pharaohs.

  Inside the museum is atmospherically dark, its treasures intimately displayed in pools of light with detailed notes describing them and, for the moment, she seems to have the place mostly to herself.

  Deciding to work her way down, Lucia follows a dark-gray stone ramp up to the second floor, where a glass case runs along three walls, luminous as a fish tank in the half-light.

  She walks over to one end of the display case and spends a long time admiring a cosmetic spoon once used by a noblewoman to scoop perfumed oils out of alabaster jars. It was carved from a single piece of wood in the shape of a naked girl swimming, her slender body stretched taut as she glided across the water holding the shallow bowl.

  Lucia glances up from the exquisite piece when she suddenly becomes aware of a man standing at the other end of the gallery. His hands are thrust deep into his pockets and his dark clothes merge with the shadows while his profile catches the light rising from the display case.

  She stares at him intently, afraid to let herself blink lest her lashes brush him away…

  He is as tall as Richard was, before they found him curled up in his car like an embryo trapped in a shattered eggshell, and a cruel trick of light is making him look exactly like her dead husband.

  He turns toward her slowly…

  She becomes aware of the fact that she has fallen to her knees when they suddenly make contact with the hard floor and tears of pain force her to blink.

  There is no one there.

  She hears footsteps approaching from behind her but the legs that materialize beside her are disappointingly clad in khaki slacks.

  “Madam, you all right?” a concerned male voice inquires as warm hands grip her arms. “You need doctor?” The security guard helps her back up to her feet.

  “Oh no, thank you…shukron… Excuse me, but did you see…was there a man standing over there just now?”

  “No, madam,” he looks around him, “there is no one.”

  Lucia stares longingly into the shadows where she just clearly saw her dead husband standing.

  “Come,” the guard drapes a possessive arm around her shoulders, “I find you chair to sit down.”

  “No, thank you,” she says quickly, slipping away from him. “I’m fine now.” She hurries over to the ramp and when she is halfway down it nearly collides with a strikingly tall blonde woman on her way up.

  Back out in the sunlight’s bracing warmth, Lucia lingers on the museum steps, staring across the street at the Nile’s god-like vein as she waits for her pulse to slow down. When she can manage to take a deep breath again she slips on her sunglasses and begins walking back toward the hotel, looking around her at a whole new world.

  * * * * *

  She spends the entire afternoon in her room, either lying across the bed succumbing to jetlag or sitting outside on the balcony, watching the life swarming below her with the mindless intensity of a cat.

  She refuses to think about those impossible moments in the museum so, naturally, that is all she can think about.

  Finally she begins trying on dresses for her dinner date with Mark and his friends, desperately trying to focus on her own reflection in order to stop seeing him, but the effort is in vain.

  When the western horizon is a smoldering log and the river reflects the flaming sky in its full-length glass Lucia steps naked in front of the mirror and dares to face what happened.

  Either she imagined him or Richard showed her that he is still essentially himself somewhere.

  Suddenly she feels guilty that she wasted so much time mourning him in New England when she should have realized that Egypt is where she has to be now that he is Osiris and she is Isis, devoted to her husband’s soul and all its mysteriously developing powers.

  Three swift raps on the door make her clutch the dress over her heart, as they seem to punctuate this thought.

  “Open up, baby, police!”

  Her pulse quickens beneath the exciting impression that Mark has been sent by Fate to arrest her desire to break the laws of time and space. “I love you, Richard,” she whispers fervently and runs to open the door.

  * * * * *

  Lucia paints what she feels is a mysterious little Egyptian smile on her face as Mark introduces his friends.

  Seated across the table from her in the Etap dining room is Lori Eastman, an anthropologist who specializes in Native American cultures.

  So what is she doing in Egypt? Lucia wonders.

  On Lori’s left is Luigi Scarlatti, a very tanned and classically handsome
Italian restoration artist working in Nefertari’s tomb. On his left sits his English wife Elizabeth, who has miraculously preserved her peaches-and-cream complexion in sunny Egypt. Her fine features are slightly pinched around the edges and her slenderness borders on the skeletal, making her look older than she probably is. Her best feature is the white-blonde hair that curves around her face like a lily flower. And finally, seated on Mark’s right is his younger brother Nick, his strawberry-blond hair spoiled by the desert sun to a carrot orange that clashes unappetizingly with his lobster-red sunburn. His features are small and unremarkable and his geologically broad shoulders and colossal arms mark him as a dedicated bodybuilder.

  “You spoke the truth, my friend,” Luigi addresses Mark. “She is Nefertari herself. I know because I spend every day with her and I am in love with her smile!”

  His wife’s smile looks as strained as the tea she sips.

  During dinner the conversation leaps from one subject to another like a dolphin staying close to the surface.

  Lori does not say much at all. Her lips are thin and she is a big-boned woman so there is something masculine about her despite her large and oddly vulnerable hazel eyes. Her long brown hair pulled back into a braid and red feather earrings evoke the Native American cultures she specializes in. Lucia learns that Lori is in Egypt visiting her husband Doug Eastman, who, according to Mark, is the most rabid Egyptologist around. He did not join them this evening because he is intent on deciphering a certain fragment of papyrus before it crumbles to dust.

  “He’s totally obsessed,” Lori sums her spouse up placidly.

  “Face it, honey, there’s a scarab beetle where his heart used to be,” Mark elaborates.

  Lori smiles. “His theories are rather a load of crap.” She is referring to the scarab’s practice of rolling its eggs around in its own dung to nourish and protect them. “An archaeologist should be completely objective and Doug definitely isn’t.”

  “I don’t think anyone is,” Lucia feels compelled to defend the man, “especially about things they truly love.”