No one went to Romanino’s for high-end cuisine or a cultured ambience but that didn’t keep Shane from dressing to the teeth, trimmed and shaven, the walking embodiment of everything desirable in the modern male. He walked with attitude, frowned with magnificent sulkiness when the hostess, Maia, apologetically took his overcoat at the door; he parted the tight crowd with the defiant loping stride of a man who felt betrayed, knowing his demeanor was as tense as the muscles in his back. The eclectic patrons, a mix of up and coming celebrities from the theater and locals who had eaten at the narrow hole-in-the-wall for years, were visually arresting. Old men with pony-tails and tattoos of koi snaking along their forearms, multi-racial teens with more body piercings than a block of Swiss cheese had holes, dark-eyed bulimic actresses stroking the neck of their girlfriends, grandmothers from the Old Country worried that your fourth helping wasn’t enough.

He saw the group long before they noticed him, Pete had wisely put them in the back, where the senator and his entourage could enjoy themselves without undue interference from the other guests. It looked as though they had already finished off a case of red wine, and that was before the main course. There was the usual security team, hovering nearby, looking edgy and thinking they blended in perfectly, the only pressed suits in the place. Shane didn’t wave back when Tara finally noticed him as he approached. He made immediate eye contact with her companion, the petite blonde with the mess of shaggy bangs. Alicia, appearing demure and apparently quite sober.

Her casted leg was decently covered in a long dark green velvet skirt, her breasts modestly sheathed in white silk; she looked the picture of conformity. Unaccountably his anger blew itself out like the flame of a candle snuffed by a giant’s mauling fingers. He was given a chair, after someone introduced him to one and all, most of the name becoming a blur. He stared at Alicia, who had the palest of expressions; her once black eye having been covered in makeup; it gave her a slightly deathly pallor all the same. He noticed Tara was holding the girl’s hand, as if they were best friends on their way back from a Brownie meeting.

Pete, rotund and ecstatic to have so many notables in his modest excuse for a restaurant, hugged him until his shoulders ached. He was brought a glass of wine, they all toasted something, in a cacophony of languages, and the senator stood up, countering with his own toast. He looked nothing like his daughter, he blustered with expansive gestures, racy jokes, private asides that his guests all roared in laughter over, while his daughter sat mute and quite disassociated. Tara pressed Alicia’s hand hard, to her breast, then bit her lower lip, still giggling over something.

Shane felt as though he were seeing her for the first time; or rather, the way she was the first night he had met her at the tavern for divers on Saba. You couldn’t help meeting someone on Saba, all five miles of it, jutting out of the sea a mere couple dozen miles from St.Maarten. She had been working for the hotel, which wasn’t much more than a little suite of rooms clinging to a hillside, sometimes handling the front desk duties, sometimes in the kitchen, more often escorting the visitors on snorkling tours of the undersea coral reefs, filled with rays, turtles and groupers. She claimed to be eighteen, at the time, but he had his doubts. She didn’t seem to belong to anyone, or anywhere, sleeping on the beach or the hotel lobby sofa’s, a kind of unclaimed wild child from a more innocent time. The divers were all protective, much like older brothers; he was viewed with both distrust and alarm from the first night onward.

Pete refilled his glass but Shane couldn’t remember drinking the one he had had. He loosened the buttons at his neck, letting the hemp shirt fall open, exposing his throat. It felt quite warm in the restaurant. He hadn’t stopped staring at Alicia, still filled with questions, if not anger. It was certainly the same woman, or girl, but in this setting, with her blowhard Daddy nearby, surrounded by noise and smoke from cigars, she had a pathetic look of a trapped animal awaiting the sacrifice. Try as he might he couldn’t get her to return his look, even when she looked in his direction it had the stifled preoccupation of someone on death row. Was she on something, or coming down from something?

Tara left the table, brushing by his chair and kissing him fondly on the top of his head. She playfully tugged on his earlobe, and when he glanced up at her she seemed overly bright, but not wired as she had the night before. He knew the gesture.

He gave it another couple of minutes, long enough for Pete to finish his story about the difference between squid the way the Italians make it and the what Americans do to butcher this delicacy. He excused himself and made the effort to get to the bathrooms next to the kitchen. He expected to see Tara at the curtain that partitioned the bathroom and kitchen doors off from the eating guests at their tables. He felt something tug at his sleeve; he looked down and saw Tara motioning him to follow him into the women’s room. Oh why not?

The small lobby, with mismatching couches, lined two of the walls and he found her pacing back and forth, hands clutching and unclutching; another thing he remembered from that first night on Saba. While her diver friends had gotten more mellow by the bottle the pain in her ankle only worsened; she drank to obliterate it. he noticed how often she clenched her hands together and was close to going over to the table to see if he could do anything; like take her to the ER, if there was one on Saba. He really didn’t know; he had on arrived that day by boat from St.Maarten.

"Thank God!" she exclaimed, taking his hands in hers. "You’ve got to get us out of here, honey. I mean seriously. She’ll go crazy if we have to stay here all night. It wasn’t supposed to be this icky, I swear it; who knew Daddy was going to do this?"

Shane held his breath, unable to follow Tara’s conversation. He still didn’t know how or when his Tara had become such a close friend of someone she had never seen before that night on the rooftop. "Can we start at the beginning, I mean seriously, at the real beginning?" he implored, mimicking her manner of speech.

Tara flushed and titled her head, child-like, because she thought he was making fun of her. He took her face in his hands and kissed her, his thumbs slowly caressing her cheeks, persuading her mouth to soften as he made it a longer and deeper kiss. She settled down, responding to him; he walked backward, until he had the door behind him, they were safe now.

"Let’s try it, okay? A simple explanation Saba, pretend I don’t know what’s going one, which oddly enough, I don’t."

She giggled, wagging her finger at him. "That’s not what I heard!"

Oh fine. "Then don’t tell me."

He didn’t mean to snap but he knew Tara. She had something she wasn’t telling him and he wasn’t going to get it out of her in this bathroom or this restaurant. He took her by the hand back to the table and explained he was escorting her home due to illness. There was enough commotion, between grandma was retelling the story of the war and American GI’s and something about Sophia Loren and the senator’s friends arguing heatedly over what to do with the erosion problems they had at their summer beach houses. He left Tara for a moment as he worked his way around the table and plucked Alicia from the group, adding that he would see her home as well. He made all the right excuses, complimenting Maia and the wine and grandma’s squid and Pete’s marvelous hospitality while edging the girl further and further along, almost pushing her past her father who was filibustering about off-shore drilling and his summer beach house. Tara took her arm as he guided Alicia on her crutches out the door and into the brisk night air. Rain was on the way, he had the throbbing head to prove it.

They hailed a taxi and didn’t realize that they had gotten away, after all, until they had traveled some four or five blocks. A rainy sleet had started by then, it pelted the cab, making the roads look like a thousand diamonds had been cast down by the gods.

"It’s so beautiful, oh look Lissie," Tara said from her window as they stopped at the light. The sheets of hail stones bounced from the asphalt, some it caught in the neon lights of the shops along the street.

"Lissie," sitting between Tara and Shane, hadn’t said a word through out the entire get-away; now, with her pixie-bangs hanging in her eyes, she peered out of the cab window, her arm linking through Tara’s.

Tara, looking over her shoulder, smiled sweetly and put her arm around Alicia, protectively, then returned her gaze to the street, pointing out the rattle of hail as if Alicia couldn’t see anything for herself.

Shane spent the rest of the ride watching them, slowly realizing what should have been so obvious moments after he had arrived at the restaurant. Oh, I definitely lost this bet, he told himself, without the rancor of the night before; but, it didn’t seem all that bad, in fact, he was looking forward hearing all the details. Maybe he’d take both of them to Rio.

He settled back in the cab, looking at Tara’s profile against the wet windows, streaked with blurry colors from the street lights, and recalled the last time he had seen her like this, as excited as a child. She hadn’t given him the slightest notice the night he had seen her with her bandaged ankle, he was just another foreigner, a tourist type. If she had thought about the way he stared at her that night it didn’t register, at least, not until the next day when she found him at the bar discussing the coral reefs with Lonnie, a lifelong resident of the island.

She had hobbled in, her hair unbrushed, clothes in disarray from sleeping in them, complaining about the cumbersome cast on her lower leg. She was complaining to anyone who would listen that she was fine, she didn’t want to do the Desk, she could still run the snorkle tours. Lonnie shushed her, pinching her cheek as he enveloped her in a massive hug. She didn’t stop her whining, which had a kind of adorable absurdity to it, until she saw the stranger staring at her. She bit her lip and stared back from the protective arms of Lonnie, a towering six foot six man of mixed island stock. He had a gaping space between his front teeth and smiled constantly. It had been "oh baby this and oh baby that" in answer to her endless complaints.

With her sudden silence Lonnie looked down and saw she was staring at the stranger. He chuckled deep in his chest, "aw baby, you gotta meet Mr. Orsine here, he from the mainland baby, up in the States."

Shane extended his hand, "It’s Orsini, nice to meet you… uh, I missed your name miss."

When she didn’t answer him Lonnie slapped her on the butt, laughing, "he talking to you girl, what you want him to do? Gape like a grouper all day waiting for you? Go on, talk to the man, everybody know you can talk till all them fish go deaf baby…"

But Shane didn’t feel like pressing her; he stepped back, offering his chair while he went back to the bar for his drink. Lonnie was called to the kitchen and she tried to follow him. He shook her off none too gently, telling her to go mind the Desk, like she was supposed to do.

To avoid him Tara did as she was told and shuffled past Shane without a word. He had no idea why he so spooked her. He gazed out the doorway, toward the brightness of the curving surf, the mountains glinting like sculpted emeralds behind. It was a beautiful island; he had heard that the landing on the airstrip was enough to cause cardiac arrest but he had taken the boat over. He drifted back into the bar and went looking for her, not sure she was even in the hotel at this point. He lounged against the doorway, hung with a curiously out-of-fashion curtain of multi-colored beads, and saw her behind the desk, gesturing that her ankle was fine, trying one more time to convince someone that she could still dive. The main cleaning lady, Carmelline, shook her head with annoyance and told her to stay put, "jes’ answer them phones."

He smiled into his drink, enjoying the way she fretted even when no one was around to hear her. She threw paper airplanes about the little area behind the desk as she muttered about the injustice of it all, dragging her casted foot behind her, unable to put even the weight it was designed to handle. At that very moment Shane would have pursued her if she had been older; but, cast or no cast, she appeared to be about fourteen. She had that untidyness of a young teenager, the look of still developing breasts and even her butt was boyish. When she turned around, looking for her errant paper airplane, she saw him staring at her again and froze. It was something innocent, but not innocent, that crossed her face; it set her eyes alight, it made her feel an odd shiver down to her gut. It made her straighten up and regret wearing an old t-shirt of Lonnie’s, still covered in paint from last months’ renovation of the dive gear housing. He made her think of herself as a woman, and the thought thrilled her beyond anything she had ever felt before.

They exited the cab in haste, getting drenched all the same. Shane was concerned about Alicia’s cast, no one had an umbrella with them and there was no handy canopy over the sidewalk from the curb to the front lobby like the hotel Alicia had been staying at. There was no doorman either. Shane paid the driver and ran to the door, then got the elevator while Tara helped Alicia with her slow clump-clump-clump to where he waited.

Once inside his apartment, which Tara described room by room for Alicia, he made a call to Pete, letting him know that the senator’s daughter had arrived safely. He wasn’t quite sure how they had gotten past the Large Men, except to think that they were the senator’s posse, they weren’t hired to babysit his daughter, precious or otherwise. He went into the kitchen to make coffee. He didn’t hear their voices after awhile and went looking for the two women. Tara had her own personal office, attached to the bedroom; originally it was an additional walk-in closet or exercise room, Tara got rid of his boxes and made it her own special room. It had a tiny if sumptuous bed, all decked out in silken quilts, piles of fussy overly feminine embroidered pillows, a headboard that rose almost to the ceiling, painted with dangling ribbons and floral wreathes. The whole room smelled like the perfume counter in department stores and Shane spent as little time as possible in it. When he wasn’t in the city she closed the door, preferring to sleep in his bed, among his things, to keep him with her during the absences.

He found them in this other room, "Saba’s room," as he called it. They were busy drying their hair, chattering about the appalling people Alicia’s father had with him. "They’re all like that," Alicia remarked dully. She stood up with some difficulty, unaware, as was Tara, that he was in the doorway, and pulled her silk blouse over her head, it fell to the floor, wafting down. She stood bare-chested in front of Tara for a long moment before fondling her own breasts. Tara turned pink and leaned forward, her mouth traveling from the girl’s navel to the shadow under the breast and then to the little nipple, pinched high and firm. He saw the way Alicia wiggled as Tara tongued the nipple, biting it so gently, so unlike a man. Then, she undid the zipper on Alicia’s skirt, pulling the green velvet down over the cast and ran her hands over Alicia’s surprisingly full bottom; her clothes hid it well.

Shane smelled the coffee and stepped away from the door. He had definitely lost the bet. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was excluded or just forgotten about; he poured three cups, leaving them black because he couldn’t think about the niceties Tara would have remembered, and brought the tray into Saba’s Room. Alicia was sitting on the end of the bed, wearing one of Tara’s many clingy nylon slips, she had Tara sitting in front of her and brushed her hair now that it was dry. It seemed the picture of innocence.

They thanked him for the coffee, as if they had known he was there all along. He sat near the bed, unsure what was happening. The long casted leg was between him and Alicia.

"You need to change," Tara told him, nodding at his damp clothes. He didn’t move fast enough to suit her so Tara sighed and moved out from under the brush, she took the edges of his hemp shirt and helped him get it over his head.

"Now I’m freezing," he complained. He felt peculiar, exposed to Alicia in this way.

Tara marched off to the bedroom, muttering about the helplessness of men, to find another shirt for him. Shane felt himself under scrutiny and returned the open look Alicia gave him.

"You could have told me, you know," he said in a voice steadier than he felt inside.

She shrugged, a little embarrassed; "actually, I’m ashamed to say I was pretty bombed. Being around my father and his goons does it to me. And, I’ve been self-medicating with Percoset, because of the leg. Among other things…"

He regarded her leg, "among other things? care to elaborate?" He looked at her sharply.

Tara returned to the room with a white cotton tank top for him. She kneeled in front and tried to dress him; he rebuffed the attentions, which confused her. He knew he had hurt her feelings but sometimes she overdid it. "Something with sleeves would have been better," he suggested, without intending it to be a slight.

"Well," Alicia said brightly, "argue about it all you two want but if you don’t mind I’d like to go to bed now."

This wasn’t what Tara expected but she left with Shane, they returned to the kitchen with the coffee mugs.

"She can be a little moody," Tara explained in a hushed voice.

He looked at her as he unplugged the coffee maker, dumping the rest of the coffee into the sink. "Don’t whisper, this is our place you know. And she’s not moody, she’s spoiled."

Tara appeared hurt by this and left for the bedroom, closing the door behind her. Shane followed, more tired than angry. She hadn’t locked the door and she wasn’t crying when he climbed into bed next to her. Without a word she slid into his arms and squeezed him. "You don’t know her whole story; you’d change your opinion if you knew."

He stretched his legs and back till it hurt, suddenly feeling dead tired. She clung to him, which didn’t bother him for once. "Obviously," he began, "you do; or at least the story she wants you to know."

Tara let that pass, resting her chin on his breast she looked at him in the soft lighting, she had insisted on all recessed lights, it gave a luminous glow to the room. She couldn’t resist playing with the dark hairs around his nipple, teasing it till it got hard. "Why don’t you like her? Just because she wouldn’t sleep with you? Because you lost the bet?"

He bristled at that and tried to shove her away from him but Tara clung all the more; she had anticipated this reaction. "Look, it was bad to let you think, you know, that she was straight, I agree, but it wasn’t really her fault sweetie. Just don’t be mad anymore. It’s over now and if you don’t want to take me to Rio I understand. I was too smart for my own good this time."

He started to say something then held back, something in her voice gave it away. "Saba," he said suspiciously, "what did you do?" She laid against him, unwilling to answer. She listened to his breathing, which mounted along with his blood pressure. She wondered if she should offer a massage.

Without warning he rolled her onto her back and pressed her down into the bed, his face just above hers, kissing her hard. When he finished the kiss he nuzzled her along the neck, tonguing her in the ear till she moaned and writhed under him. He felt her legs go around his waist, tight, wanting penetration. But he held off, though he rocked his hips against hers, pressing down, letting her feel his penis lodged hard against her inner thigh. He lifted his head and kissed her on the nose, smiling, "you set me up, didn’t you? You knew who she was all along, you set me up in the one bet you knew I would lose. Didn’t you?"

Tara stopped moving, stopped breathing. His weight suddenly felt crushing, her lungs squeezed of air. She didn’t dare look at him. Her wrists hurt, where he held them over her head, his breathing seemed ominous, she could feel each beat pulsing deep inside of her.

"Well?"

She gasped when he bit her on the shoulder, moving lower, rubbing his beard over her nipple, being even rougher with the pierced nipple; it was exciting her beyond all reason; she ached for him to go inside, to fill her up, overwhelm her, obliterate everything. She wanted to answer, she wanted to sound like it had been something she did because she loved him, wanted to be with him, but she wasn’t exactly sure Alicia had done what they are agreed upon. "It was a good idea, at the time."

"Was it?" he asked, still caressing her breasts with his lips, sucking on the nipple idly, as if he had all night. The breast jiggled under his tongue, it was wrecking her, as he knew it would. About now her whole insides were screaming for him, he intended to let her wait.

"I thought it would be the only way you would take me with you."

"Why does it mean so much to you? For God’s sake Saba, I live with you."

He heard her breathing go very shallow, she was about to cry and he relented. In the morning he would find out why Alicia agreed to the fraud. For now, he let go of her wrists and kissed her belly, his long fingers massaging the lips of her pussy; they were soaking; he slipped a finger into and moved it around slowly, making her shudder. He buried his face over her mound and savored the intense smell of her skin, of her body. It made him weak with desire; carefully he entered her, not at all roughly as he planned, but with the same gentleness he had had to use the first time he had made love to her. He slid in and out with subtlety, dragging his penis out so slowly she would come. Then, with her pussy tightening with orgasm, he pushed back into her, harder, making the sides of her pussy cling to his dick. His head drooped, lost in the pleasure of her warmth and in the ease with which he could open her up, her hips flattening under his weight, his imagination filling until all he was was the surging throb of his penis. She began moaning that she loved him, something he rarely, if ever, told her. Not because he didn’t feel it, but because it scared him to say it. To even feel it.

He hitched up her body, till he was face to face with her again, and re-entered, this time for good. He rode her deeply, making her come again, and this time coming with her. He couldn’t stop coming, he just rode and rode and rode her, as if he could last forever. In Rio, he would tell her. In Rio. With utter relief he came, bursting into a shattering orgasm that nearly knocked him unconscious.