The upper bedroom of the town home we’d rented had a beautiful view of the night sea. Sitting there in the wicker love seat, Laura and I weren’t looking at the sea; we were looking at the television. We could hear the sea, though—the crest and crash of moonlit waves. On the television screen two men lay on the broad, off-white rug of this very room. Both of them were young. Both of them were big and blond and naked. One was on his back, and the other was over him, facing the other way, doing push-ups. At the top, his lips would leave the underneath man’s cock, and we could see the pulse of it and the slickness of spittle. And when he lowered himself, he’d engulf the underneath man’s cock, and his own would plunge powerfully into the underneath man’s mouth. I looked over at Laura. She was watching the screen intently. Studying the rhythms through the TV flicker, through the surge and slap of endless surf.

We’d found the video in the bottom drawer of the bureau not long after we’d arrived that morning. Laura had been about to transfer the extra blanket to the closet so she’d have room in that bottom drawer for her jeans and shorts and skirts and sweaters, and there it was, the tape, innocently unlabeled. I suppose we’d thought it was instructions on how to work the microwave.

The blond boy on top was increasing his pace just slightly. Starting to tremble. “Which one do you think will come first?” I asked Laura.

She turned her head to look at me. A sleepy look. She smiled. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. Lazily she reached a hand over and touched my trousers. My cock was big under there. Straining. “I don’t know,” she repeated, her smile changing to a grin, her hand starting to rub. “How about you?”

“Mm,” I said, and I glanced towards the television. Abruptly the scene shifted to a pair of dirty white gulls cruising a flat sky.

For twenty minutes or so Laura and I watched sea birds and sand. Her hand rested at my groin as we waited to see if the push-up boys were going to come back. “Let’s go for a walk,” Laura said finally, and she gave me a little squeeze and stood up. I adjusted myself and followed her down to the moonlit beach. We had it to ourselves—only the moon and stars for company. Laura waded at the edge of the water and I walked along on the sand, holding her hand from time to time, and when we reached the place where Laura decided we should stop, we stopped, and Laura let me kiss her, a long searching kiss, and then another, and then we started back, Laura again in the surf, and me again on the dry sand.

“The salt water is good for you,” Laura said.

“Too many bitey things,” I told her. “Especially at night.”

“Bitey things,” Laura said, and she nipped my lower lip with her next kiss. Then our walk resumed, and soon we were back at the buildings, back in our townhouse kitchen making tea.

Laura made the tea. I inspected the kitchen. This was by far the most well-equipped we’d ever had. Mugs and glassware galore, two dozen matched sets of dishes, truly sharp knives, and a plethora of pots and pans. An orange juice squeezer. Even a vegetable steamer. And an amply-stocked spice rack. We’d have fish and shrimp and maybe a spaghetti feast later in the week.

“Look, two corkscrews,” I told Laura. “One for white and one for red.”

“What kind of mug do you want,” Laura asked. “Butterflies or crabs?”

“But I don’t see a garlic press.”

“Horrors,” Laura said.

“Other than that there’s everything.”

As Laura lifted the hissing kettle and poured boiling tea water into my crab mug, I slid shut the utensil drawer. “Vampires probably own this place,” I said.

“You think so?” Laura held the tea cup in her hands. Steam swirled upwards.

“How come you’re giving me crabs?”

She smiled.

Without taking the cup, I stepped behind her and let my palms land gently on the breasts of her tee shirt. “What if I’d wanted butterflies?” I said. “Butterflies are so much more appropriate for tea.” My hands began slow smoothing circles. Beneath the thin material Laura’s nipples began fattening and firming.

“Be careful, I might spill,” Laura said.

“Go ahead, spill,” I said. And I pinched each nipple playfully.

“Just for that you might not get any,” Laura said with a laugh, and then she took a sip of my tea. “Ooh. Hot.”

I nuzzled closer and reached a hand down the front of her shorts. I kissed the skin of her neck while my fingers brushed through the fluffy delta hair. Her clit was up. Her slit was soppy. “Yes, hot,” I hissed. “Hot and wet.”

She twisted into a full kiss.

“You liked that, didn’t you?” Laura said. “Those guys on the tape. It’s got you all sexed up.”

“You’re the one who’s got me sexed up,” I said. My finger tucked itself deeper into her. It wiggled and wobbled in the sweet wet heat. Firmer and faster I moved, and soon the suction turned to quivers, and the quivers gave way to clenches—Laura’s first southern orgasm of the season. “Oh, honey,” I said. “Sweet, sweet honey.” She sighed and sank.

Somehow we pulled ourselves up to bed. Under a slow ceiling fan, the swell of sea in our ears, we slept. I woke first, patted Laura’s bottom, kissed her hair, and slipped downstairs to make coffee. The kitchen window looked down the little lane. An old man and an old woman were walking this way. They wore wind-ruffled windbreakers, and the old man carried a newspaper under his arm. At the turn, part of the newspaper slipped out, but the old man kept walking. The woman stopped and trapped the paper under her shoe before the wind could blow it away. Then slowly she bent down to pick it up. From my window I noticed the man was watching her. He said something to her and she laughed and pretended to do a little dance. Then she handed the man the newspaper and they resumed their walk. But a few steps down the lane they stopped and kissed each other. It wasn’t a long kiss, but it wasn’t a brief peck either, and while it was going on the man’s hand reached down and squeezed the woman’s trim bottom and she rose up on tiptoes. I rinsed out last night’s crab mug and set it on a piece of paper towel to dry, and then I poured coffee into a fresh mug, one with bright blue and yellow butterflies. I sipped my coffee and I sat on the sofa watching the sea and waiting for Laura to come down.

“Is there any for me?”

Laura was standing at the top of the stairs, naked except for the tee shirt she’d slept in. She’d surprised me. “Sure,” I said. “It’s really breezy out there. The waves are so high.”

“Have you been out?”

“No, I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Well, fix me some coffee while I pee, and then we can have it out on the porch and then we can go for a walk.”

I poured a cup of coffee for Laura and slipped into my shorts. Laura was still in the bathroom. “Are you okay?” I called. I opened the door. Laura was standing in front of the mirror looking at herself. “Is everything okay?” I repeated.

“Do you think I’m still beautiful?” Laura asked.

I stepped behind her. “You are,” I said, wrapping my arms around her. “You are so beautiful.” I hugged her and we swayed together. “So very beautiful.” I pulled her tee shirt up so we could see her breasts in the mirror. The nipples rising even before my fingers got there.

Laura giggled. “One thing for sure,” she said.

“What?”

“This blows your vampire theory.”

It was another hour before we were walking along the beach. Great gray waves roved towards shore, and in the sky there was only a spattering of sunlight between the squally clouds. “Windy,” Laura observed. We walked further and further, daring the rains to begin in earnest. Sand birds skittered. A single jogger and his wet black dog slogged past us. It was too gray to see any of the great boats far out in the gulf. Finally we turned around.

“What should we do about the tape?” Laura asked.

“The tape?”

“Yeah, you know. Those guys. Getting it on.”

“What about it?”

“What should we do with it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Why do we have to do anything with it?”

“You mean you think we should just leave it?”

“Why not?”

“Well,” Laura said. “What if there are kids? It’s probably not something most parents would want their children to see.”

“I don’t know,” I said after a moment. “But kids probably wouldn’t be in the master bedroom.”

“You don’t know that.”

“So what do you want to do with it? Throw it out? Take it with us?”

“I don’t know,” Laura admitted. “Maybe we could drop it off at the rental office with the keys when we leave.”

“Maybe,” I agreed.

In the distance we could barely make out the town houses. So far the hard rain had held off. “Do you think someone taped over it?” Laura asked. “Or do you think they taped over it themselves? And why did they leave it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess we could try and find out who those guys were, and maybe ask them.”

“Yeah, right,” Laura said.

We walked quietly for a time.

“I wish it would rain,” Laura said. “I wish it would rain hard and get it over with.”

Just then the sky opened up. Sheets of rain.

“That was so neat,” Laura said when we got back to the house. We were up in the master bedroom toweling off. “Wasn’t it neat?”

“It was neat,” I said.

She punched my arm.

“It was,” I said. “It was really neat.”

“Some day I want to be in a hurricane,” Laura said. “I want to see the palm trees bending all the way. I want the wind to blow me like a kite. I want to feel ... I don’t know. I just want to feel it.”

“That was close enough to a hurricane for me,” I said. “I guess I’m not much of a sea person. Want some more coffee?”

“No,” Laura said. “I want to go back out there. I want to go back out there naked. I want to go back out there naked with you and make love with you right there in the middle of the storm. Wouldn’t that be great?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess so. But the storm’s pretty much over. See? The sun’s even coming out.”

Laura looked almost glum.

“We should do something,” I suggested.

“Like what?” Laura asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “We could walk up to Cap’n Jack’s. See if there are any papers left.”

“Why would we want a paper?” Laura said.

“I don’t know. For the crossword puzzle?”

“Think of something else.”

“We could watch that tape again. See if there’s anything at the end of it.”

“Maybe,” Laura said.

“Or how about if we rent a video camera—do a little taping over of our own?”

I was surprised that Laura seemed to consider it for a moment.

“We could,” I said.

“Hm,” Laura answered. “I think maybe we should go for a drive.”

“A drive? Where?”

“Anywhere. I just feel like seeing stuff. The back roads. The places no one ever goes. Okay?”

We weren’t on the roads ten minutes before Laura drifted off to sleep. I took us up towards Alabama, and soon the sun was bright and the sky was blue except for a few fluffy white clouds. From time to time I admired Laura’s sleek long legs stretched out as she snoozed. I took random turns as I worked my way north, generally opting for the smaller roads. No evidence of any morning rain here, just miles of bright white fences lining the roadway, trees that looked like they could have come from Africa, and lush green grass covering the gently sloping fields. Sleek horses gathered and grazed, and when one of them began a gallop I slowed to watch it. Such a smooth powerful stride he had. When I stopped the car Laura started.

“Ooh,” she said. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Lost? Are you okay?”

She rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Mm,” she said. “A rabbit nipped me.”

“Just now?”

“In my dream. I was crawling through some thickets and this big bunny bit me on the shoulder.” She rubbed the place.

“Was it the Easter Bunny?” I asked. I moved my hand to her shoulder and started stroking.

“It was big and red,” Laura said. “Not a nice bunny at all.”

“Look at the horses,” I said.

“Yes, they’re beautiful.”

I started up the car, and soon we were streaming along again. The grass got greener and greener. “Maybe we should live here,” I suggested.

“Mm,” Laura said.

Around a curve in the road I came upon a girl astride a ride-on lawnmower. She had dark hair under a floppy straw hat and otherwise she appeared to be completely naked. I’d never seen such creamy skin, such beautiful breasts. She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. The mower was bouncing along and she was smiling. “Don’t look,” Laura said. “Keep your eyes on the mudflaps of that truck.”

But the road ahead of us was empty. “Truck? Mudflaps?”

“It’s a technical term, honey bunny,” Laura said. “Don’t you love it when I know the technical terms?”

“But that girl,” I said, glancing in the rear-view mirror. “She was so pretty. She ... she looked like you. Almost exactly like you.”

“Yes,” Laura said.

Then the road swung the other way and in the yard were more than a half dozen automobile bodies. Some were rusted and some looked to be in pretty good shape. In the shade of a rundown barn a large man with a gruff beard was hammering at something. The metallic sound glinted across the road.

“See?” Laura said.

I drove a while longer and then I looped around and worked my way over to the big highway and headed south. Eventually we came to a town we knew. Lots of crafts and antique stores, a refurbished hotel, and scads of seafood places, some dumpy, some by comparison grand, all of them excellent.

“Do we need anything for the feast?” I asked Laura. The town had a pretty good grocery store.

“I think we got most everything yesterday,” Laura said. “Oh, the garlic press.”

“We can manage without one,” I said. “We can just chop it fine or squoosh it under a drinking glass.”