The Lost Hearts (20 page)

Alexis slumped in his arms, overcome with the exhaustion of an exorcism, too tired to fight herself any longer.  Once again she felt the lava-hot bud between her legs mushroom until it radiated to every limb, coursing over the surface of her skin.  Her body seized in unworldly hunger when she felt his hands cup her warmth, his fingers pressing hard against her.  Her mouth parted and she let out a low, throaty moan.  He watched her lips open around the sound and her eyes roll back beneath her lids.  Instantly he grew hard, and the air caught in his throat. 

He lowered her to the ground, and she felt the large flat of his palms grope the firmness of her thigh
s as he pulled her legs apart.  The air was cool against her as he tore at the cotton skirt, hiking it high along her hipbone. 

He paused above her a moment, watching the torturous, feminine curves of her body undulate as she ached for him.  He was panting now.  He tore savagely at the collar of her dress and the flimsy material gave easily, revealing the exquisite lines of her breasts.  A moan, born from the depths of his body, peeled low into the night.  Trevor let his hands graze softly along the porcelain skin of her stomach, and he kneaded the flesh, his hands rising to meet the roundness of her breasts.  His fingers pressed deep into their fullness.  Alexis squirmed, whimpering, gulping for air to steady the seizures of her body. 

He sank against her, his mouth open on her neck as he memorized her every contour with his tongue.  When their mouths met, she felt his hand shoot to his waistline, his body trembling with urgency as he unfastened his pants.

Her back arched instinctively, knowing what she wanted was pressed firmly against her now, and the center of her being searched feverishly for his naked hardness.  “Trevor,” she begged.  He opened his mouth, bit her chin, his eyes clampe
d on hers.  He buried himself between her thighs, their bodies fused, and his eyes lit as he pushed himself into her.  They let out a shared cry of delirium.  It was the sound of a flawless confession. 

Alexis sucked at the air, pulled at the shock of hair gathered in her fist, dug her nails into the supple flesh of his back as he filled her, grinding her against the earth.  His breath tore in his throat, and they locked each other in a searing gaze.  Her vision flashed explosive blasts of white as her body climbed into staggering ecstasy, his thrusts becoming quicker, deeper.  She squeezed the thickness of his body in her legs, coiling them tightly over the muscled roundness of his bottom.  At that moment, she felt the sinewy curves of his back arch, his eyes flash darkly, a
nd they screamed into the wild.

Alexis awoke the next morning, the sky suspended in gray as it waited for the sun to climb sleepily above the horizon.  She felt a steady gush of breath on her neck, and she turned to see that Trevor’s face was buried in the velvet of her fallen hair.  They both lay exposed above the bedroll, their naked skin dewy from the forest’s gentle mist, and she burrowed deeply into the warmth of his body behind her.  She had never so totally reveled in the heavy solidness of a man’s thigh wedged behind the curve of her bottom, the coarse hair against her silken skin.  His arm wrung tightly over her ribs, his hand curled at the slender line of her stomach.  She felt the hypnotic undulation of his breathing, the comforting thud of his heart against her back.

She began to laugh, the air catching in her lungs as all the details flooded her mind.  The warmth began to spread inside her when she remembered the weight of his body crushing her into the earth.  She bit her lip, the grin spreading wildly across her face as she thought of the truth that they both had declared with their bodies.  She moaned inwardly, her mind swirling in happiness.

When Trevor stirred, she felt his arms tighten around her and his warm breath caress her neck as his lips met the lobe of her ear.  “Good morning,” his voice scratched in her ear.  Alexis giggled, turned to him and his hand trailed along the hourglass slope of her waist and hips.  “Do you know how beautiful you are, Red?” he asked her, his black eyes serious.

Alexis gulped, cleared her throat.  She pulled from him, an embarrassed smile pulling into her cheeks.  She stood nervously, covering her breasts and the nakedness between her legs.  “I should put some clothes on,” she said, and scurried to the small pile of her discarded clothing. 

Trevor did not let his eyes fall from her, and he memorized the exact shade of her skin, the mole at her hipbone, the golden hair at the dimpled small of her back.  He thought how he had admired many female forms in his life, the sexual thrill.  But when he saw her, he found that a lump rose in his throat, as though her beauty transcended the erotic.  She was sublime, and he struggled to breathe as he understood what she had come to mean to him.

That morning, Trevor behaved like a schoolboy, his eyes shy,
his tone submissive.  Rather than fight the frightening urges of his heart, he seized every chance to touch her, pull her against him, hear the soft hum of her voice in his ear.  He said the things he’d wanted to say before, all the times he’d let his ego speak the ripping words of self-defense.

“Alexis,” he started timidly, reaching to stroke the curls cascading around her face.  “I,” he swallowed.  “I wanted to talk about the things I said last night.”

“Oh.”  Alexis chewed her lip and watched her hands suddenly fidgeting.  She wanted desperately to bury those words.  He had, after all, said so much more in other ways.  “Trevor, don’t worry.  I know you didn’t mean it.”

Trevor felt his throat
close.  Of all the people he’d ever hurt, he had never regretted inflicting pain so much as he did the evening before.  “No, please.”  Trevor was totally unaccustomed to laying himself out so plainly, and he struggled with the newness of this exposure.  “It’s not even that I didn’t mean it.”  He took her hand.  “It was a complete lie.  I’m so sorry, Alexis.  I struck you down in order to save myself.”

Alexis found herself smiling involuntarily.  “I need you to know,” he continued.  “I need you to know that I think you’re truly the most amazing woman I’ve ever
known.  I’m honored to know you,” he said, his voice hard.  “It’s so easy to be what others want or expect.  It must have been a nightmare to be strong, to sacrifice all that you did in order to become the woman you are.”

He lifted his eyes to her.  Her bottom lip was curling in a tremble.  He raised the pad of his thumb to stroke it.  “I’m so grateful that you were strong, and that you got on that boat, and that you found me.”

In an instant they were sealed in a breathless embrace.  He buried his face in her neck.  He was lost, tethered to earth only by this tiny woman, and his spirit spiraled madly from the terror and ecstasy of it.  

They had dressed and eaten, and the wind had begun to settle.  Both agreed with transparent reluctance that they should go before the air stilled and warmed.  Alexis had strewn a rocky tablet with her briefcase’s files, her notepad open as she remembered last-minute details of her research questions.  “I’m just about finished.  Nature calls,” she smiled at him.  As she passed him to find the small stream tucked behind the forest trees, he reached out his hands, grabbed her by the waist and pulled her onto his lap.  She parted her mouth, panting suddenly as she felt his tongue trace the fullness of her lower lip.

“Don’t get lost,” he joked, and returned her to her feet.

              Trevor slumped forward, his elbows propped against his knees as he stared wistfully at the grass.  He saw the long, wispy blades sigh in the whisper of wind which now passed low along the forest’s floor.  Alexis’ stationary folder snapped open and a loose leaf of paper caught like a sail, coasting on the current until it settled at the toe of his weathered boot.  He clutched the thin, flapping sheet in his fingers and moved to shut the folder when his eyes caught on the addressee of the letter. 
Dearest Philip
, it read.

Trevor averted his eyes.  It wasn’t his business to read her letter, he told himself despite the mounting curiosity.  He placed it at the top of her stationary, his fingers pushing the folder closed when his gaze swept innocently over her slanted, cursive script. 
I can’t begin to describe the ape that is my guide.  Had I let myself calm from the unnerving departure of my colleague, Henry Patterson, I might have seen what a mistake it was to hire him.  He’s the most loathsome human being I’ve ever met, and I’m counting the days when I will be free of this wholly uneducated heathen of a man.

He noticed that he had stopped breathing, his heart beating flashes of white into his eyes.  He shook his head, his face sinking int
o a foul frown.  His jaw flexed and his fingers curled violently around the paper’s edges.  He read further.

I cling to the memory of the night before I left for this place.  How nothing made more sense than to feel your arms around me, and to pledge our lives together.  Now I am living out the experience I’d dreamt of with the allure of ignorant fantasy, and I know all the more what I left behind me.  I am ever yours, and I hope that when I return, I will still hold a place in your heart.
  Trevor gagged, his eyes bleeding angry wetness.  The letter crackled loudly as he balled it into his fist and buried it in the pocket of his trousers.  His heart, which had just moments before sung with an unknown bliss, locked shut, entombed by raging darkness.

When Alexis returned to the camp, she gathered the contents of her briefcase, humming cheerfully as she fastened it to her bundle on the horse’s side.  She did not notice that Trevor did not look at her, or that he barely said a word as they mounted the horses and disappeared once more into the verdant weft of the forest
.

Chapter
Seventeen

The path under the horses’ hooves began to stitch deep along the creek, a distinct route carved by knife and wandering feet.  Ahead, Alexis could see a huddle of small mountaintops rise over the emerald veil of the forest.  The trees seemed to welcome them, parting at a fork in the path.  All at once she saw the breathtaking cluster of circular, thatch-roofed huts tucked in the long ribbons of grass along the valley’s floor.  The sun was vertical in the sky, and the shade from the soaring palms with their flamboyant fronds did little to spare the villagers from the sweltering beams of light.  Snaking behind the village’s perimeter, a long, winding creek pooled, flooding the lush, chaliced earth.

Her heart thumped as she imagined the inhabitants of the village and what they would think of these two alien creatures wandering into their lives.  She felt a sudden rush of shame sweep over her, as though she were intruding on the quiet of their lives.  In all the time Alexis had rubbed her eyes wearily poring over anthropological publications, she had never once considered the impact that her research might have on this community.  She swallowed hard, fighting to bury this disturbing idea. 
I’m just here to ask questions,
she assured herself.

“Here we are,” Trevor informed her tersely.  The horses gathered shoulder to shoulder and they peered down the slope where no more than two hundred people rested patiently through the blistering midsection of the day.  Alexis was too nervous now to notice Trevor’s coldness, and she easily missed the shortness of his tone. 

Alexis nodded her head, her heart blasting.  Trevor clucked his tongue, softly pressed the heels of his boots into Binda’s flanks, and he led them to the mouth of the village.  Alexis saw a woman streak from sight, her naked body disappearing into the gaping doorway of a large, intricately woven hut.  Seconds later, a man appeared, his face pulled back in alarm. 

“We should get off the horses,” Trevor said c
almly.  He slid from the saddle. Alexis followed suit, and they stood cautiously a few feet from the horses.  A woman shrieked, the rapid succession of foreign sounds chipping at Alexis’ composure.  She watched Trevor’s face, relying on his eyes and movements to decide on her own reaction.  Her eyes popped open wide when she saw his jaw flex.

“What is it?  What do we do?”

“Just stay put.  They don’t know who the hell we are, so it’s best we wait for them to approach us.”  He said this while keeping his eye on the group of women and men now filing out into the village center.  Some held spears, the hammered stone arrows painted with colorful specks, while others gesticulated wildly as they spoke.  Two slender men and a stocky woman broke from the group, their faces leaden, eyes locked dead on Alexis and Trevor.  “It’s alright,” he said, his voice steady.  “I’ve been in this situation before.”

Alexis, on the other hand, had not, and she struggled to stifle the overwhelming impulse to flee.  She winced as she saw the trio approach them, their pace just shy of a charge.  The woman threw up her hands, let out a cry, and shook a thick staff in the air.  She wore only a grass skirt and a long beaded necklace of bones which swung heavily over her shapely breasts.  Her hair was braided tightly
against her scalp.  The lobes of her ears were stretched like gum and filled with large clay rings, and above her bare feet, an ankle was adorned with a woven band of sun-bleached straw.  The skin around her large almond eyes was coarse and weathered by the sun, but Alexis could see that she had been beautiful. 

One of the men stopped just ten feet from them, his eyes unblinking.  He stood as tall as Trevor, his body poised, ready.  He was the color of caramel, and his enormous black eyes were wide, as though he could see everything at once.  His hair was long and thick, his septum pierced with a thin, carved bone.  His nose sloped gracefully over his full
lips, which shadowed the smallness of his chin.   He began to rattle off in a language Alexis could never have imagined in her most vivid dreams.  It was a multi-tonal sound that dipped and pitched. 

She shook her head, bewildered, and her eyes searched Trevor’s face for a comforting signal of recognition.  He scowled, looked sideways, and then he held out his palms to them.  From his mouth he issued a seamless melody, distinct from that which she’d heard come from the man with long, knotted hair.  He blinked his eyes when Trevor spoke,
and looked at his comrades.  The other man came forward, his toffee-colored eyes flashing.  He looked neither incensed nor welcoming, and he spoke to Trevor, the sounds stunting in his mouth, and it seemed to Alexis that he did not speak his native tongue.

The minutes were a grueling eternity, and Alexis could feel her body swim in the moistness of her clothes, now sodden with sweat.  Her eyes stung with the salty perspiration that had collected at her brow.  Trevor turned to her, saw the pinkness in her cheeks, the worry burning deep in those indigo eyes.  “What’s going on, Trevor?” she asked in a whisper.

“I dunno,” he said, shrugging his shoulders with genuine uncertainty.  “I don’t speak their language, so I tried the one most common in Moresby.  Seems like this guy understands a bit of it.” 

“What are they doing now?” she squeaked, watching the intimidating trio
turn their backs and retreat to the group.  After moments of waiting dumbly by the horses, Alexis glimpsed the stocky woman with the staff barreling toward them.  She looked at Alexis, her dark eyes measuring her from head to toe.  She nodded at them, her mouth relaxed in an inscrutable line.  Trevor glanced sideways as the woman motioned, her voice uttering an order.  “She’s asking us to come with her,” Trevor said.  “I think.”

Cautiously they followed her, and the group which had been only twenty swarmed with what seemed to be the entire village.  Children peered curiously from the doorways of the huts, their fingers fidgeting nervously at their gaping mouths.  Alexis croaked with fear.  She had remembered discussing stories of initial contact between tribes and foreigners with her father.  She’d memorized the seemingly universal protocol for such occasions, but nothing seemed to resonate as she followed blindly, her vision blotted with black spots of mounting panic.

When Trevor reached the mass still huddled protectively together, he rose his palms once more in submission, repeating like a mantra something that managed even to soothe Alexis in her distress.  An old stooped man shuffled through the tall members of his community, his hand also clutching a knotted staff.  Alexis guessed it was more for exercise than its menacing stature otherwise implied.  A single streak of ebony seemed to bolt upward from his scalp to the flurried ends of his white puffy hair.

He flapped his gnarled hand, as though to shush the chorus of murmurs which swelled through the group.  His lips pulled into a toothless smile, his voice was placid.  His eyes locked on Alexis, and he
addressed her when he spoke.  Alexis gulped dryly as she listened, unsure of whether to keep his gaze, or look away.  She knew that with the sheer number of tribes in New Guinea that the rules of etiquette could swing either way.  She wanted to show deference to this elder, but she realized she no longer had the footing she needed to be sure. 

Her eyes darted sideways, and it wasn’t until the man stopped speaking that she turned to Trevor.  Before she could ask
him what the man had said, Trevor had already begun to reply in the pretty hum of words.  The old man nodded, running his hand along the smoothed surface of the staff.  When he turned, Trevor took Alexis by the hand and they entered the parting crowd which faced them, hundreds of eyes latched on with intense curiosity.

They reached a large hut and the man called out into the doorway.  Two bare-bodied adolescents dressed plainly in loincloths appeared, their faces splitting wide into grins, wild with excitement.  Alexis returned their contagious smiles, and they gestu
red for the two bizarre visitors to enter the dwelling.  Alexis was surprised at its coolness, the heavy, pleasant aroma of moist earth ballooning in her nose.  An aging woman sat at the back of dome-shaped structure, cross-legged on a straw mat.  She wore only a loincloth, her breasts sagging low over her belly, but her body was draped in bright discs and beads, a single fang strung as the centerpiece.   

She looked at the strangers as though she had long been expecting their visit.  She did not stand to greet them, but waited patiently and silently for the two young siblings to se
at them.  Alexis smiled, bowing her head, her eyes darting.  She hoped the woman’s face might soften, but it seemed permanently fixed in stoicism.  The old man joined her, followed by the young man who had initially spoken with Trevor.  She saw them eye her leather boots, shedding crusty bits of dried mud over the clean mats.

“Trevor,” Alexis prodded, anxious for an update
.

“They’ve only invited us here to explain to them what it is we’re looking for,” he said, his voice strained with annoyance.  Alexis managed to swallow the huff of indignation and reminded herself to be patient. 

The group began to speak and Trevor nodded his head in apparent agreement, or gestured calmly with his hands.  Her eyes clung to their every movement, the mouths shaping the sounds which befuddled her ears.  She felt a small hand rest on her shoulder, and she turned to see that a young girl passed her a clay bowl of liquid.  She let its cool heaviness sink into the softness of her palms.  Alexis started when she felt Trevor nudge her. 

“It’s a communal drink.  You start,” he barked hoarsely.

“I know that,” she hissed back, resenting his imperial tone.  She looked at her hosts, raised the bowl in thanks, and sipped at the warm, bitter liquid.  Instinctively, her eyes shot open at the choleric invasion on her taste buds, but she swallowed heartily, stifling the gag in her throat.  “Thank you,” she murmured.  She looked pleadingly at the young girl who’d given her the bowl, her eyes begging for instruction.  Understanding her request, the group sighed with laughter, the first break in their stony expressions.  The old woman raised her arms, motioning animatedly at Trevor.

Finally, the aged couple stood from their places on the matted floor, and Trevor leaned toward her.  “They said we are welcome here.  I don’t think they quite understand what you want from them, but they don’t seem to see us as a threat.”  He pulled back, his eyes searching the muted glow of the hut. 

“Now what?” Alexis asked.

“I don’t know
.  This is your show,” he said flatly.  “But I suggest you get used to not knowing a lot of things for a while.”

***

“She wants to know why you cover your breasts,” Trevor said, motioning to the old woman in the loincloth and colorful beads.  Alexis followed her gaze which was fixed to the slope of her breasts bound snugly beneath a brassiere and a white linen shirt.  Alexis’ cheeks burned pink and she giggled nervously.  She herself had rarely turned these questions on her own behaviors or norms. 

“Well,” Alexis began thoughtfully, realizing she could easily lose herself in a convoluted explanation.  “The short answer i
s that all women from my culture dress themselves this way.”  She raised her eyebrows pensively. “The long answer is that it has to do with many things.  Weather, for one.  Religion is another.  Breasts are sexualized in my society, so it would be considered…I guess you could say, uncouth to display them freely.”

They sat in the large hut again after an afternoon of bathing and napping at the insistence of their hosts.  Alexis had been presented with so many drinks and unidentifiable snacks that she couldn’t imagine the imminent feast underway.  They were seated in a circle on the wide straw mats
among a multiplying huddle of marveling faces.  Trevor translated to the man with toffee-colored eyes, who then leaned to the woman, producing an interpretation that seemed only to perplex his captive audience. 

The woman patted her graying, close-cut scalp, clucking her tongue.  Another series of whispers ensued and Trevor finally said, “She says that breasts are for nursing the young, like hands are for weaving, and eyes for looking.”

Alexis nodded at the woman and murmured her acknowledgement of the point.  “These are the differences I’m hoping to understand,” she said.

By now, with the help of Trevor’s input, she un
derstood that the old couple were important and respected in the community.  Those they spoke with seemed to stoop low in deference as they listened.  Of all the huts in the village, theirs was the largest, though it did not boast material wealth or brandish obvious symbols of status.  The home was devoid of the clutter in her own home in Boston, but she reveled in the beauty of its austerity.  Save for the colored beads and carved bone jewelry, this was not a community preoccupied with conspicuous forms of beauty.

Alexis noticed that a line of tribesmen and women began to file through the door, walking tall, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the newcomers.  They clustered in small circles of six, and before long, the hut was alive with sharp guttural sounds of conversation.  She saw women nursing babies openly, the tiny mouths sucking ferociously at their mothers’ nipples.  She imagined such a sight back home, the careful sequester of women performing the most natural acts with a sense of shame.

Alexis leaned to Trevor who had been ignoring her but for the short inquisitions made by others around their circle.  “This is going to take forever to get information if we don’t have a common language,” she remarked.