The Sun God

There is a place at the remote end of the beach where the tourists don’t venture.  They feel uneasy making the long trek past the censuring eyes of their compatriots and leaving all the creature comforts of their rooms.  There are only a few of us who would make the trek. It is an isolated spot that is suffused in a pale blue haze of the sea and sky.  It has a narrow stretch of sand butting up against the towering face of a tawny cliff. The ridgeline of the cliff bends precipitously down and tapers out into a rocky sickle-shaped jetty that protrudes and disintegrates into the sea.  It is there that the ocean has carved out a deep cavity in its floor, engulfing its tumultuous dark blue water, making the swimming there treacherous.

I go to this remote spot daily in the afternoon when the sun has cleared the cliff and ascended over the blue, aquatic expanse.  This afternoon time slot frees up my morning so I can work in my bungalow. I then have time for a leisurely brunch at the Lanai restaurant where I can ensconce myself behind a table, shrouded in white linen and lavishly laid out, and watch the tourists as they lounge and play about the shore. I have time to browse the newspaper and nibble on the morsels of fruit and pastries that are brought to me and sip chilled tropical juices in a crystal goblet.  After brunch, I have time to return to my bungalow and finish up the loose ends and prepare for the beach.  It is a pleasurable routine that provides an excellent diversion from my otherwise demanding schedule.

I find a perfect spot near the center of the beach and unfurl my towel and lay it out over the sand.  An image of a Aztec sun god dominates the center of my towel, its one triangular eye enshrined in a sunburst of bold orange and yellow rays.  I slip off my swim trunks, lie down on my back, close my eyes and let my body evaporate into the thermal heat of the sun.

Most of my friends are off skiing as they do every year at this time, but I’ve chosen to come here and avoid the exertions of such an outing and the buzz that comes with such gatherings.  I wanted to get away from the crowd and its competitivel bustle and have solitude to enjoy the simple pleasures of life and refresh myself.

I sit up and slide my sunglasses down off my forehead to shield my eyes from the blaring brightness of the day.  There are peering teenage boys hunched on the boulders at the foot of the cliff and a flabby nude man lies prostrated on an air mattress that drifts on the water.  An old woman with sagging breasts, sits in the surge of wavelets running up on the shore.  She gapes out at the sea while her hand repetitively dredges a hole in the sand that the agitated wavelets quickly reclaim.  I remove my glasses, stand and walk out on the rocks of the jetty to the very end of landfall and dive into the choppy, ultramarine surface of the sea.

I swoosh down through a torrential tube of water toward the shadowy ocean floor.  I come to a stop, submerged deep within the enveloping realm of the sea.  I stroke my arms and kick my legs, torpedoing myself through the weighty depth of the waters. I swim beneath the surface until my temples throb and my eyes burns and my lungs ache to burst. I feel revitalized. I give two more powerful thrusts that propels me on and then another bold stroke that arches me up into the atmosphere where I gasp the air that awaits me there.  I float on my back for awhile, the ocean flux gently rolling me about. There is a misty rain falling from a small dark cloud that passes overhead. I feel isolated and liberated in my buoyant repose and could linger here forever. There's a ringing in my ear, like a distant siren, that stirs and beckons me back. I roll over and briskly swim to the beach and walk ashore.

I stroll toward a woman, who gazes out at the sea.  She has a splendid posture with arms dangling at her side and a fine form packed tightly into a creamy coffee-toned skin that is embellished only by her currant-color nipples and the coal black hairs of her pubis.  Her head is crowned with cropped, lustrous black wavy hair and her face is angular, with proud black eyes and her lips and nose hint of royal heritage.  She serenely swirls circles in the surging flow with one foot then with the other, seemingly unaware of her motion.

I walk up and stand in front of her and ask: "Aren't you swimming?”

"Later," she answers somberly as she squints out at the glare of the sea.

"Are you waiting for someone?"

"No."

"The water is wonderful this time of day," I say.

"Sometimes," she says, still looking at the sea., "I come here just to wait for the ocean to swell up in an enormous wave and wash me away with it."  She rubs her hands up and down her folded arms as though a chill has come over her, then she glances over at me and faintly smiles.  "Then again, there are times when I just want to be alone and enjoy the quietude of its immense indifference."  She cast her eyes down and then diverts them back to the sea.

"It's a beautiful place for that," I answer and head back to my towel.

I sit on my towel and examine her womanly form that glistens in the sunlight until a dimming shadow sweeps over her. She is a beauty and reminds me of a girl I knew in college. I will take her when the time is right. I stretch out on my back and close my eyes and fade into a scintillating blackness.  I’m invigorated by my plunge into the sea and by the woman looming so near.  There is a gentle breeze that tickle the hairs of my body and beads of perspiration roll down my side. The baking heat of the sun permeates me and quells my stirring ambition so I can rest. I listen to the incessant, muffled roar of the surf just beyond the reef. It serenades me with its ovation-sounding drone or, perhaps, it is just shushing me to sleep.

I open my eyes to see the woman standing over me like an unabashed colossal goddess.  She is fresh from her swim and is toweling herself off.  Her body is unadorned except for the glossy red nails of her fingers and toes.  The beach is deserted now and, overhead, storm clouds race in from the sea, blanketing the sky.   "It is wonderful!” she tells me in a rich mellifluous voice.

"It is," I answer.

"May I join you?” she asks as she spreads her towel on the sand next to me.  She has a marvelously sinuous body and the contours of her rich, tawny skin stretch out over her womanly form like polished marble.  "I love the ocean," she says, stretched out on her back, facing skyward.  "It has such rejuvenating powers.  It always gives me complete absolution when I come to it - always!”

"I can't see where you need absolution," I tell her.

"I have a notorious reputation and am not received well in proper society," she answers gravely and then rolls on her side and faces me.  "I have a scandalous way about me that doesn’t bode well for some,” she apprises, portentously.  “But that doesn’t bother me,” she concedes, lying back down with her hands beneath her head.  “You see, I am as sinless and shameless as a newborn baby.  I have always been sinless and shameless I suppose – and as indifferent as the sea.  And it’s probably my shameless indifference that frightens people the most.”  She turns on her side again, examining me closely, and then asks: “Does this frighten you?”

“No, I’m intrigued.”

She stretches back out on her towel and her face glows in the sunlight.  “You should be frightened,” she candidly warns with closed eyes.  “I’m a seductress, proud and bold, in search of men who are as proud and bold as me.  It gives me such great pleasure to give them pleasure.  I find them so deserving and worthy and what emboldens them, I’ve learned, in turn, emboldens me.” She glibly tells me all this as though she is talking in her sleep.  “But it will all end soon,” she sullenly sighs.  “The executioner will be coming to drag my pretty ass off to be burned at the stake.  Coitus Interruptus,” she enunciates distinctly.  “I do pity the man that’s in me then; he may be dragged along by mistake and then not be so proud or bold.  But it’s this provocative life I’ve chosen for myself and I’ll gladly pay the price for it on the stake.”   Her lips seem to be amused with her impending demise and she finishes off with a lamenting sigh of resolve, rolls back on her side and looks right into my face.  “What’s your choice of execution, baby?" she asks intently.  “Or are you so unafraid, being so pure of heart?”  She stares into my eyes, a smug smile on her lips.  “For all us proud and bold people are executed in the end.  Will it be a firing squad...hanging?"

I lean my face in close to hers.  There is no startle in her eyes, just a languorous come-on look.  "I'm not going to be taken alive," I boast.  I lie back down on my towel and chuckle.  “This is all quite amusing, my dear - so pure of heart.”  I chuckle again. 

She lies there silently on her back with her eyes closed as drops of rain begin to splatter on us.  She props herself up on her elbows and throws back her head, conceitedly, displaying her voluptuous form for me.  Then she lets her torso go slack.  “It will rain soon,” she coldly states.  “If you have no need of me, I will be on my way.”

"There's no need to go," I tell her as I mount her, bracing my shoulders over her face as her eyes coyly look away. So she wants my boldness and strength, and righly so, for what enboldens her only enboldens me more and her taunts and teases only incite my masterful powers.  I'm your master, baby, and your whole lascivious spirit is mine to do with as I please. Forget your taunts. they will just come back to haunt you, my little tart. That’s right, my dear; there is no executioner to whimper out to, no henchman standing in the wings to drag me away.  Should I keep looking over my shoulder for his arrival?  Is he near?  So where is your executioner now, my sweet nymph?  Is he so intimidated by my successes that he dreads to come near?  Is that it?  Does my prowess frighten him -- my boldness and pride? Does he skulk in the shadows waiting for me to fail? Then there’s no rescue for you now, my dear, for I'm invincible and your executioner will, once again, be left waiting in the wings.

She opens her eyes. They mirror the leaden sky. The rain is pelting down on us.  "It’s raining," she says dispassionately, "I need to head back.”  She reaches her arm over and flips out her thong from her tote bag. She disengages herself from under me, hurriedly slides the thong on, stands and grabs her things and begins jogging down the beach.  I tug on my trunks and follow her.  “The windows are down on my car,” she shouts back at me.  She scurries down the beach and then through the dunes to the asphalt parking lot.  She heads to her black XKE Jag with its lustrous black clothe roof.  We quickly plop ourselves down inside the cat and slam the doors shut and roll the windows up tight.  She starts the motor and cautiously pulls out.  “Let’s go to my bungalow,” I suggest.   She slowly drives along the narrow road that leads back to the village.  She sensually rubs her palm on the shellacked mahogany knob of the gearshift.

"Nice car," I remark.

"It's a trophy from my first marriage."

"I can't imagine you being married," I tell her.

"My ex-husband can,” she jokes and then states: “I take it you never bothered to get married.”

“You’re very clairvoyant for such a lovely creature.”

The car creeps along in no great hurry, as though in a procession, following the headlight beams through the murky deluge.   Its windshield wipers whip back and forth and heavy raindrops thump its the roof.

"I'm down Seadrift here," I direct.

She slowly turns in and drives down the narrow cobblestone lane pass a row of bungalows, that seem sullenly crouched in the low overcast of the storm. She stops her car and turns the engine off. We disembark, dash up to the door, and enter my bungalow.

“Do you need a towel?” I ask.

“No, I’m good.”

“Martini?” I ask as I enter the kitchenette area and switch the light on as she nosily lingers around my drafting table, snooping through my work.

"You’re an architect?" she asks as she folds back some of my drawings.

“Yes, a very prominent one,” I claim as I pour liquor into a shaker and watch her browse through my work.  “I was a partner in a large firm in Manhattan, but am now on my own,” I add.

“Looks like low-income housing,” she says disparagingly.

“Don’t be silly," I reproach.  "It’s a bid I’m working on for a very upscale resort in Bermuda.  The furnishings alone will be worth more then the GDP of some third-world countries.”

“There’s not much money in designing apartments,” she slights.

“I see you know nothing about architecture, my dear,” I retort.

“Is that all you do – design apartments?” she queries, unimpressed.

“I have built skyscrapers, my dear, taller then you can imagine,” I boast as I shake and pour our drinks.  “I am well known for my avant-garde and post-modern style.  But don’t trouble your pretty little head about such things,” I deride as I return to the living room and present a glass to her.  “Here’s to our execution,” I toast, “may it come swiftly and thoroughly.”  We clink glasses and she sips her martini. She stares at me ponderingly, her eyes black as coal with an unnerving glint to them.

I put my glass down on the drafting table and rest my hands on her hips, fingering the straps of her thong.  “Now where were we?”

“You were telling me you used to design skyscrapers,” she aloofly says as she ignores my advances and browses through my drawings again.

I go over and sit on the leather couch and watch her childish curiosity.  I know she’s toying with me, playing some new, perverted game she’s made up to keep me waiting and pique my passion. She should know that I just want to be pleased and the hell with all this other malarkey.  She pauses at my open attaché case on the floor next to the drafting table.  She reaches down and puts her hand inside it.

“What are you doing?” I snap, getting edgy now and annoyed with her behavior.

“I’m fucking you, baby,” she sardonically states without looking at me as she draws a thick folder from my attaché.  She brings the folder over to the couch and flops herself down with her legs tucked underneath her.  “What’s this?” she asks and proceeds to open the file and examine the contents.

I’m flabbergasted by her impudent banter and by her vexing probe into my personal affairs. I wish she would leave things well enough alone. I tell her: “It’s a deposition, a case I’m involved in.  It doesn’t pertain to you.”  I try to snatch the file from her, but she quickly jerks it from my reach.

“A case?” she queries.  “How proud you must be to be involved in a case.  Some stately affair, I imagine - some noble cause to ward off injustice.  Are you the star witness or the expert?  No, no,” she sighs with alarm, “it has your name here as a defendant.  Are you a criminal?”

“No, no, you presumptuous whore!" I angrily rebuke. I slam my glass down on the coffee table so to shock her back to her senses, jolting the drink to splash out on the wood top. "It's a civil case," I surly tell her as I turn and confront her. “Don’t you have any sense of propriety or respect?”

“My, my, baby, we’re not the type to be humble,” she tells me, arrogantly, and then murmurs: “Oh, how the mighty have fallen."

I should have known she was trouble the moment I saw her.  I’m slipping, old man - I should have seen this coming.  I should have never let her get this far. They take such liberties when you deign the smallest favor.  But I’m on to her warped dalliance and two can play her game.  She's no match for me and I will have my way with her and put an end to all this nonsense.

“A mezzanine collapsed in one of the high-rise hotels I designed,” I disclose with an air of impunity, “and we’re just trying to work out all the legal ramifications.”

“Collapsed?”

“Yes, yes, collapsed,” I irritably reiterate.  “The owners wanted something light and airy to give their lobby a lofty and and majestic feel and that’s what I gave them – an exquisite design that only I could create.  But some lousy incompetent contractor didn’t read the specifications properly and the mezzanine collapsed.”

“Was anyone killed?”

What a preposterous questions. Why would she ask such a question at such a time. She’s twisting all this into some deviant ploy, intentionally dampening my spirit.  Why would she do this?  Why be so captious now?  So obstinate? How much longer can I put up with this?

“Six people,” I curtly tell her as I take the file from her drooping hand and put it aside.

“I never killed anyone,” she says, looking at me intently. “How does it feel to kill someone?” she asks with genuine curiosity.

“Don’t be preposterous!” I scold resentfully.  “I’ve never killed anyone and what does it matter to you if I had?”  My annoyance is getting the better of me.  She is trampling on things that best be left alone.  And what torments me the most is her deliberateness and maliciousness in pursuing this sore subject.  I need to get this under control now!  “You throw your body down on a bed,” I chide haughtily, “so men can screw you and now you expect to discuss issues of architecture and law that don’t even pertain to you.”  I stand up and lean in close toward her face and with blustering indignation tell her: “What unmitigated gall!  What blatant hubris!”

"Oh, baby, do sit down,” she tells me, undeterred.  “I’m not done with you yet.”

“Done with me yet?” I scoff.

“Oh, baby,” she purrs consolingly.  “You’re so tense.  I know you weren’t satisfied back there and let me make it up to you.”  She taps the cushion disarmingly with her hand, beckoning me to sit by her.  Her soothing tone is reassuring and I’m certain she’s gotten my message so I relent and recline back by her side.  She massages my shoulders.  “You need to relax, baby, it’s all right.  Here, let me take these tight trunks off so you can relax more.”  She draws my trunks off and tosses them to the floor.  “I know what will satisfy you,” she says salaciously, and leans over and rests her head in my lap and begins to fondle me.  I feel the cropped hairs of her bobbing head stroking my abdomen.  “So the collapse left a lot of widows and orphans?” she morbidly continues her interrogation.  “Love ones snatched away forever? People ripped apart?”

“No, no,” I beseech her, my patience wearing thin.  “Why does it matter to you?  The lawyers will sort it all out.  Everyone will be well compensated for their loss.”  She has me baffled and disoriented.  I should be excited now, but I'm despondent and leery.  I can feel the alarming rough edges of her teeth and her blade-like nails as she touches me.

“Were you satisfied, baby,” she continues her derision, “when they brought the body bags out?  How does it feel to crush people?  Were you proud, then,baby?  Were you pleased?” she grates in her hot breath.

Why is she tormenting me so–conjuring up such ghastly images at a time like this?  Doesn’t she know how treacherous it is - bringing up this whole sordid mess?  I should be enraged, impugning her impious affronts with pontifications about the majesty of my creation.  I should tell her how meticulously I labored on the design to assure its everlasting magnificence.  How it was a marvel of our times.  She needs to understand that.  She needs to understand that it is more my misfortune and tragedy than all the others.  I should confront her on all this, but instead I slump down on her, desperately seeking some relief from the afflictions – to quell her doubting mind and let her know it wasn't intentional, just an unavoidable mistake.

“Oh, baby, baby, relax, let it just flow,” she needles.  “You’re my master, baby," she mimics me.  "My whole lascivious spirit is yours.  My taunts are haunting me, baby, haunting me.”

“Why is she mocking me?  How did she hear these thoughts?  Surely, she’s not a mind reader?  What diabolical trick is she playing on me now?

“Oh, baby, baby, I want your strength and boldness, baby.  I’m just your sweet nymph, baby.”

This loathsome Jezebel!  Can’t she see I how displeased I am?  That I find her clammy touches inhuman and nauseous. I just want her out of here. Why is she doing this to me? Why is she making all this a miserable fiasco?

“The executioner is just outside the door,” she taunts in her raspy voice.  “He's waiting for you.”

“Enough!  You insidious bitch,” I roar as I swoosh her off of me with my leg and thrust her onto the floor, knocking the coffee table and drinks over with her.

“No way, baby!” she decries in defiant outrage.  She straightens herself up and composes herself with that god-awful pride of hers.  “I don’t put up with that crap, baby.  No way.  You’ve got a problem, baby, and it ain’t me.  Just cause you can’t get it up anymore is no cause to get rough. You’ve lost it baby, that’s all.  It's over!”

“Just go,” I tell her.

“You’re not getting anymore of this, baby,” she admonishes as she readies herself by the door, covering her breasts up with her top.  “None of this no more, baby.”

I languidly wave her off and she slips out the door into the tempestuous rains. I'm left alone.

Good riddance!

The room is made ponderously gloomy by the storm.  I listen to the puttering of her car as it fades away.  I get up and in a stupor straighten out the coffee table and bring the two glasses into the kitchenette and begin running the faucet.  Outside the window the rain is relentless and the day is dark and grey.  There’s a cluster of shadowy souls furtively huddled in the driveway with opened black umbrellas above their heads.  I turn the faucet off and then shuffle listlessly to my bed and sprawl out on my back. I stare up at the dark ceiling and listen to the pitter patter of the rain on the roof. The rain turns to a tropical downpour and its dreadful racket seems to be shaking the entire room. A flash of lightning illuminates the walls that seem to be folding in and crumbling down on me. I try to get up, escape, but unable to. My limbs seem tethered down by weights and my body oppressed by the shattering din of the storm.

The downpour subsides and I get up and walk back out to the living room.  The place seems so small now and so inadequate.  My drafting table and couch nearly on top of each other with no sense of separation.  I slouch down on the couch and put my feet up on the coffee table and morosely stare at the door.  A thunder clap rocks the room and startles me into thinking someone is knocking.  It’s crazy, just crazy.  “Go away,” I holler in jest at the ghoul at the door.  “No one lives here anymore.”  There’s no answer, just the furtive wails and moans of a storm and the rattling of window panes in a room that keeps getting smaller. They are all out there - waiting in the wings – the fractured skulls – bloodstained gauzes – the child’s leg half buried in the rubble.

I stand back up and step to the glass patio door.  I peer out at the dim patio where the rain streams off the eaves like bars of water.  Where’s my sun?.  I stare blankly at the dismal day and shudder at the bleakness that the sun may never return.  Remorse is an absurd notion and doesn't suit me well. I'm not a killer. Though that is what the investigation will show. And a sanctimonious jury will find me guilty and seal my fate. They'll clip my wings and make me just another poor soul. I know. It would be a paltry existence.

A flash of lightning reveals my executioner standing there in the patio, naked with garlands of seaweed dangling from his arms.  I pound my fist on the glass door.  “Get out of my yard,” I holler.  “Leave me alone!”  I throw the door open and lunge outside to grapple with the intruder, but he slips over the fence and runs away down the drive.  I swing the gate open and chase after him.  the cobblestones cut and chafe my bare feet as the rain pelts my face.  I reach an intersection and see the executioner scrambling up the path that leads to the cliff.  “Come back here,” I shout, dashing after him, across the dunes where the tall grasses snap and whip at me.  I hurdle over a clump of weeds and tumble to the ground.  I lie there in wait, catching my breath, listening for the sounds of the fleeing executioner.  Overhead, seagulls cry as they wing their way inland under the opalescent sky.  My naked body is soiled and gritty.  My thigh has been scraped and oozes thick, dark moisture that smears on my hand.  There are chanting mummers weaving nearer through the tall grass.  A fleeting shadow darts out up ahead and I go after him.  I reach the trail to the cliff and begin crawling feverishly up its rocks and boulders. The footing is loose and slick and I grab hold of the slimy branches to help pull myself upward as I charge up the steep and narrowing pass.  I feel the thick bracken crawling on my skin and jabbing at me like a mass of mendicant souls, clinging, nipping and tearing at me, preying on me with their petty grievances and pleading arms.  They want my mortification; my repentance. They want me to be another poor soul just like them.  I can see it in their miserable eyes and feel it in their infernal breath.  The executioner is them!  A branch thumps my scrotum and I buckle down to my knees in agony and holler: "I know!" The horde piles on top of me, suffocating and burying me alive. "No!" I wrestle my way up, shoving them off and pushing them aside as I clamber off on my final surge upward.  I see the top of the ridge ahead, arcing away into the sky.  My body is exhausted and aches as I top the imperial cliff that faces the sea. The cliff doesn’t possess contrition or absurd notions, it just simply exists.  I see the starkness of our insufferable plight there in its clearing.  There’s no redemption for fallibility, just punishment and execution – a fatal flaw in design.

I reach the crest of the cliff, groggy, reeling from my climb.  The violet-blue sky is populated by lofty and majstic clouds that rest motionlessly in the air. Sea gulls glide effortlessly below me over the shore. Stretching out to the pumpkin-orange sun is the dazzling glare of the sea. I gaze down and watch as the womanly form enters and wades out in to blazing water.  She seems to be bathing now, cleansing herself and I find it all quite amusing.  On the beach below is my towel that I left behind.  I can see the orange and yellow sunburst of the sun god rising up toward me in its giddy array.  I will go to it.