The Pisces(49)

“Maybe this is a bad idea,” he said. “Maybe this is a warning.”

My stomach dropped. I wondered if he really felt this scared, or if he was embarrassed from the fall, looking for reassurance to show him how much I wanted him to come home with me. No, he probably really felt that way. And anyway, I wasn’t going to beg.

“Whatever you want,” I said.

Theo closed his eyes. Under the blanket he looked like a child. I stood in the sand, tracing half-moon shapes with my toe. My life now came down to whatever he decided. But I didn’t convey any desperation. Just being with him relaxed me. When he was right near me I could feel strangely casual, as though he could disappear and I would be okay. I could just be there, languidly drawing my little sand prints. It was only when he wasn’t with me, when I was away from the ocean, that I felt like I was disintegrating.

“Come here,” he said. “Come under the blanket with me.”

I got in and pulled up the blanket as though we were going to bed. We hugged for a long time. Then we started kissing and I felt his cock get hard against me.



“I want you so much,” he whispered in my ear. “You are my earth girl.”

“I want you too,” I said.

“We shouldn’t do it here,” he said. “Not on the beach at daylight.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

But he began to finger me, first tickling my clit just a little, then teasing my hole. I was already soaking wet.

“Come on,” I said into his mouth.

“Okay,” he said, fingering me harder.

“You’re finger fucking me on the beach and you’re a very young man. This is your first time fingering a girl. What do you have to say about that?”

Of course it was not his first time. But I wanted it to be.

“I’m finger fucking your beautiful vagina and it’s my first time. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I get to finger you.”

He intuitively knew exactly what to say to have me writhing. Or perhaps I planted the words in him, as so much of what our lovers do and say is imagined. We turn them into who we want them to be. We fill in their bodies and words for them.

He pulled out his finger and sucked it, then put it in my mouth.

“Taste yourself,” he said. “You are delicious.”

“I am?” I asked. I nibbled his finger a little.

“You are,” he said. “But it’s not safe here like this.”

“What should we do? Do you want to go back in the ocean?”

“Not particularly.”

“So then let’s try again.”

I rolled over, out from under the blanket, and stood up. Then I brought the wagon over to him.

“Okay, hold it very still,” he said, and hoisted himself on backward. I covered him up in the blanket. This time he stayed on.



As I pulled him across the beach, there were just a few stray joggers and assorted weirdos nearby. His blanketed tail jutted off the wagon, but it wasn’t the strangest thing to happen in Venice. No one seemed to notice or care. It wasn’t like I was smuggling a dead body.





36.


I wheeled him up to the side gate of Annika’s house.

“Wow,” he said, gaping up at the glass structure. “The other place I was in was just a wooden shack.”

“Yeah,” I said. “My sister’s place is really nice.”

I could hear Dominic barking from inside. I had never heard him sound so loud and unhinged.

“Oh God,” he said. “I forgot you had a dog. I’m very frightened of them.”

“Dominic is really sweet,” I said. “But I can put him in another room if you want.”

“Please,” he said.

I went inside. Dominic was baring his fangs.

“Okay, chill,” I told him. But he growled and showed his gums to me. I also saw that his penis was out, the red lipstick of it extended from its sheath. I knew this happened to dogs when they were angry or excited. Why was he so agitated?

“Come here,” I said, and he began to whimper. “You’re going to go in this room.”

I opened the door to my sister’s pantry and put in his food dish and water. Then I dragged him in there by the collar. He put his head on his paws and his tail between his legs, but when I went back outside he began barking maniacally again. I didn’t know what to do. This was not the glowing bubble I had envisioned.

“How scared are you?” I asked Theo. “Maybe if he just comes out and meets you.”

“The problem is that if he attacks I can’t get away.”



“He won’t attack,” I said. But I had never seen Dominic this irate and I wasn’t sure.

When we imagine a situation—when our hearts decide this must happen—we will go to any lengths to make the fantasy happen. In my fantasy there was no barking. There was only me and Theo on the soft sheets and a universe of silence.

“Wait one second,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

I remembered I had seen some doggy tranquilizers in one of the kitchen cabinets for things like airplane flights. I got two pills and hid them in a treat, then went into the pantry and stuffed it into Dominic’s frothing mouth. Two was double the dose. Was I awful? Would I be punished? Next I turned on some music, something ambient of my sister’s, a soft electronic yoga chant meant to soothe the most stressed-out human or animal.