SONS OF THE FATHERS

Chapter 8: On the Beach

He raised his eyes to hers in wonder.  "Dess?"  She smiled, nodding, leaning close to him, resting her forehead against his.  "Dess," she said.  
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Ando lifted her head.  "It can't be!" she exclaimed.  Turning to look at Sue, she added, "REAL music?"  

 

"Yeah, she must be slipping," Sue laughed, following Cort out onto the floor for a nice slow dance.  She leaned her cheek against the shoulder of his new jacket, unused to its lack of dust and little tears and nicks.

He smiled down at her, taking off his collar and putting in his pocket. "Better?"

 

"Much," she murmured.

"Now," Ute said, slipping behind the tent curtain out into the night air.

 

Jeffrey laughed softly as he took her hand, walking beside her toward the house.  "You managed to keep the dress on longer than I'd expected."  

 

"Well," she shrugged, "jeans and the polonaise just don't go well together, do they?"  

 

"They seem to have changed the music now," he commented.  

 

"I'm pretty much receptioned-out," she sighed, turning to look back at the tent, glowing in the darkness.  

 

"Me, too," he said, adding, "You have something...else...in mind?"  

 

"Me?" she chortled lightly, still holding his hand as she backed up the steps toward the door.  

Steve had danced Laura out the other side of the tent, down the sidewalk a bit, the music still flowing around them like little audible ripples.  Nearing a bench, he curved them toward it and as the last note of the song sounded, guided her to a seated position upon it.  He wanted just her, just her alone with him in the moonlight.  Her hands lay in her lap and he picked one of them up, using his forefinger to trace around each of her long, slender fingers.  When he finished, he cradled her hand loosely atop his palm.  

 

"Ah, that I were a glove upon that hand that I might touch that cheek," he quoted.  

 

Sliding her hand around so that it was beneath his, she lifted it, pressing it gently to her cheek.  "You have no need of gloves," she whispered, "and there are no balconies for you to climb."  

 

He moved his hand so that his fingertips could explore the contours of her lips.  She saw by the line of his brows that he was suddenly serious.  

 

"I have," he said, not stopping his explorations, "for some time been climbing toward your balcony.  Month after month I was struggling, caught in the sharp thorns of some great vine, not knowing where to turn, how to find my way free.  Then you were there," he turned, looking briefly toward the house, "in your pink suit and for the first time I found my foot upon a sturdy trellis."

 

She smiled at the picture he was creating and his fingertips followed the upward curve of her lips.  She knew he had been greatly moved by the wedding, by the words of the vows, as he did not usually speak in the terms he was using now.  Parting her lips slightly, she kissed his fingers and he closed his eyes, tipping his chin, the moonlight resting on his features.  

 

The artist in her soul traced the lines and curves of his face as though she held a pencil in her gaze.  Sometimes the truest works of art never find their way to papered page but linger only in the heart.  

 

He licked his lower lip slowly, opening his eyes as he turned his head toward her. "I am falling in love with you," he said.  

 

"I know," she smiled.  She reached up, softly moving his hand away from her lips so that she could lean toward him.  Just before her lips touched his, she murmured, "And I am...glad."

"You have not drunk a thing tonight, Lachlan, not even the wedding toast," Wanda commented as the Aussie led her back to their table after the dance.  

 

"I'm flying," he said.  

 

"Flying? Tonight?"  

 

"Yes."  

 

She scanned the tent with a critical eye.  "I  don't see a single bridge, or even a fort."  

 

He laughed.  "Queensland," he chuckled. "I'm flying to Queensland.  You want to come along?"  

 

She pursed her lips, thinking about this.  "You are in a non-acrobatic mood?" she queried.  

 

"Completely," he chuckled.  "Himself has given strict instructions on the matter."  

 

"Why Queensland?"

"You remember 'The Thornbirds'?" he asked.  She not only remembered the Thornbirds, but she even more clearly recalled the ThornTOADS, so she nodded.  

 

"The island where Meggie went by herself and then Father Ralph joined her and they had their one completely appy time together?" Again she nodded.  "I'm flying to the airport nearest there.  That's where Maximus and Joimus are going for their honeymoon."  

 

"Ah," she said, "perfect.  Especially since Maximus WAS Father Ralph not all that long ago.” (That would be in “A More General Storyline” if one has been so hugely deprived as not to have read it.)

"It's time," Himself said, coming up beside Lachlan's chair.  Lachlan stood quickly, almost saluting, so hard do well-ingrained habits die.  “Are you going along?” Himself asked the red-headed Mississippian, who really should have been from Kansas as “Kansan” is EVER so much easier to type!!!  Lachlan looked at her, the same question in his eyes.

The non-Kansan shrugged.  "I might as well."  

 

Lachlan winked at her.  "You only live once!"  

 

She sighed, "Hopefully once will prove to be long enough."  

 

"He'll be good," Himself said.  "He's flying Joimus, who's a full six months pregnant now that the reception is over."  

 

"Funny how that works," Wanda added wryly.  

 

"It DID seem like a, um, long reception," Lachlan said.  

 

"That's because you weren't drinking,"she chortled.  Then she turned to locate Ando for whom the reception was obviously just whizzing by.

A couple of hours later, though still remaining six months pregnant, Joimus stretched out on the couch in Himself's jet, resting her head on Maximus' lap.  They had been in the air about 50 minutes and it was quite late in the night.  Settling herself on her right side, she slid her left hand under his thigh, and closed her eyes.  

 

He smiled down at her, carefully brushing stray strands of hair back from her face, then cupped his left palm around her torso, waiting for Dess' little kicks he figured would be coming now that she was resting. He didn't have long to wait.  The feel of them was much stronger now and he leaned his head back against the cabin wall, closing his eyes,concentrating his whole being on this contact with his son.  He was aware of nearly tangible bands of his own substance reaching out from deep within his being, wrapping around the little being in his dark, oval chamber.  

 

"My son," he said silently, "who is six months along." Interrupting, came the words, "My son is also nearly eight."  His throat tightened at the memory of his speaking of them. His hand curved a bit more firmly.  It was...unavoidable.  He squeezed his eyes tightly shut.  No.  He would NOT let his thoughts go to the other oval chamber, the...other... son...growing in the darkness.   Not this day.  

The first early streaks of dawn lay low and lazy in the warmer air of Queensland as they crossed the tarmac toward the waiting car. Maximus' arm circled Joimus' shoulders protectively as she walked beside him, still almost asleep.  They had barely gotten settled in the back seat of the car when he could tell from her breathing as her head
leaned against his shoulder that she was sleeping again.  Despite the roughness of the little road, she didn't awake until they reached the shore where a small boat waited to take them to the island.  Arriving there, standing on the wooden dock with their suitcases behind them, they watched the boat heading away, the sound of its small outboard motor growing fainter as it went.  Then, together, they turned, their eyes taking in the curve of white sand beach, the house set high and back just a bit, completely surrounded by trees, its long balcony looking out to the sea.  

 

"No need for armor here," he said, kissing the top of her head.  

 

She looked up at him, then letting her eyes drop slowly the full length of his body, added, "No need for much clothing at...all."  They were, indeed, completely, utterly...alone.  

 

He glanced at the suitcases.  "I'll come back for these...later," and scooping her up in his arms, walked across the beach, his boots sinking into the soft white sands.  She looked back at his tracks, her heart lifted by the fact that together they made only one set of footprints.  

 

Then, in the immortal words from 'Gladiator', she said, "Maximus...stop."  And he did.  

"Here?" he said, grinning.

"Here," she nodded.  Her thoughts raced.  Epis were always and ever PG-rated; usually they didn't even have the "P".  What would the stwange woman at the keyboard DO? Would it make a difference that this was their honeymoon...that they were married?? Would there be...could there be..."P" on the beach? Could they lose the "G" altogether? Perhaps if one were to close one eye as one continued reading and slightly squint the other?
 

He knelt, laying her gently in the sand where it was, um, still hard and wet from the, um, recent flow of the, um, tides.  The woman at the keyboard felt herself rapidly becoming ever more of a latitudinarian by the second.  Thank goodness, for it was at that very moment that the uppermost reaches of a small wave washed past Joimus' feet, carrying with it the skirt of her gossamer gown, depositing it above her knees.  

 

Maximus watched it. "My work is being done for me," he laughed.  

 

"Work?" she queried.  

 

Without replying, he stood, unbuckling his wide leather belt and letting it and his rust-colored tunic drop into the sand.  She looked up at him, his form framed entirely by blues...that of the sky merging almost without horizon into the sea.  

 

"Now," he said, taking a step toward her, "about all this yellow gossamer...."

Later, he lay on his side, his head propped on his left hand, as he watched the incoming tide swirl about her tummy.  She had her head and shoulders slightly on his chest, and as the waves came ever further in, her stomach looked quite like a little island.  Her belly button contained a small pool of water and he arranged a couple of tiny shells artfully beside it then trickled a handful of sand here and there nearby.  

 

 

"Do you intend to colonize my island?" she asked

"I believe I have already done so," he smiled.  

 

She grinned.  "And most effectively," she added as Dess kicked.  

 

A larger wave washed over it, taking the shells and sand in its flow. He moved to protect her face from it with his body, sliding his arms around her back, lifting her shoulders above the water.  She kissed down the length of his collar bone.  

 

"If you do that we shall never make it to the house," he groaned.  

 

"House? Is there a house?" she chortled.  

 

A still larger wave crashed against his back, sending high jets of spray over his shoulders.  "Is there time?" she asked.  

 

"There is always time," he said, brushing long wet tendrils of her hair back from her face.  As the wave receded, it pulled sections of the sand  from under her body with it, leaving the surface upon which she lay lumpy and uncomfortable. She felt a sudden chill in the ocean breeze and shivered.  

 

"Time," she said, the word moving through her mouth, rolling over her tongue like the chime of some great, remorseless clock.

"What is it?" he asked, seeing an inner cloud pass through her eyes.

 

"I'm not sure," she said.  "I had this odd feeling, Maximus, that 'time' was....,"  She looked into his eyes.  "That it was...I don't know... dangerous."  

 

He got on his knees, pulling her to his chest, kneeling there as wave after wave crashed into his back.  Tangling his fingers through her hair, he held onto her, her bare belly pressed into his, Dess nestled between his parents as the tide rose around them.