Chapter 10: A Midnight Swim
Somehow the whale had found him. It had snuck up in the early evening and caught him napping on his deck and swallowed him whole. Though, this time, the whale was more a familiar friend than a terrifying monster. He fought to swim to freedom, fighting with a deck chair as he made his way toward the hollow sound of the ocean outside. He struck his hand against the soft flesh inside its mouth, willing it to open, to release him. A phone, lodged under its tongue, began to ring.
This time it was Lydia. She had crumbled first and called him. Any reward was likely to be brief and unpleasant. Romano untangled himself from the blanket, sat up in his deck chair and answered the phone while scanning the beach in the low moonlight for any signs of a whale.
"You didn't call," was the first thing Lydia said.
"Phones work both ways," answered Romano - a rhetorical victory, but one unlikely to be savored.
"Giaccomo. Can we not, please?" Lydia sounded tired.
"What is it, what's the problem?"
"Don't you ever ask yourself what we're doing?" asked Lydia. "Always back and forth, always waiting till the next time. Half living in between. Maybe it's time to move forward or move on?"
"Lydia," pleaded Romano, "we can't have this conversation over the phone. I'll come. I'll come to Liguria. Can you please wait for me to come to Liguria?"
Lydia sighed. "When Giacco'? You have a case. I know you'll never walk away in the middle of a case."
"I would for you," lied Romano. "But, I'm close," he lied again, "give me three days, four, and I'll be at your door."
"I wish I could believe that was true," said Lydia with a sigh. "I'll be waiting. I'll be hoping. But I won't be expecting..."
After his call with Lydia, his stomach filled with dread, Romano knew he wasn't getting back to sleep. So he stripped off his clothes, left them on his deck, and walked across the sand to the water - silver tipped little waves danced for him. He walked in calf-deep and then dived. Long, sure strokes, bred of a lifetime by the sea, quickly had him out past the breakers. He swam for 30 minutes, always keeping an eye out for the whale.
As he walked, dripping and naked up the beach toward his house, he could just make out the outline of a person sitting on his deck.
Romano was conscious he was naked, but as there was little to do about it, he strode right up to the deck - the salt water continuing to stream off his head and drip down his face.
It was Ingrid. She had a towel. And a wicked smile.
Romano sat on the deck, a towel loosely wrapped around his waist, talking with Ingrid, drinking some of the whiskey she had brought along.
She had eyed him up and down as he approached, holding the towel, but deliberately not offering it. He had started to flush, standing naked in front of a fully dressed, and frankly beautiful, Ingrid. And then he had started to grow hard. A reaction he had difficulty understanding. But Ingrid seemed to get it.
She had beckoned him up on the deck, still sitting elegantly, legs crossed high up on her thigh. She had sat in her deck chair and he had gone to stand in front of her. She had licked her lips. Then licked her own index finger. And with that wet, single finger, she had begun to play with the head of his cock.
His house was a lonely bungalow at the edge of the sea. At day time, he might see fishermen in the far distance, out on the water. But at night there was no one to see. None-the-less, he felt exposed and oddly shy standing in front of a fully clothed Ingrid. In his head, he knew it was private. But his heart had pounded out a primal rhythm, that caused his cock to jump and start as she rubbed at it with her finger.
