Stripped Down (22 page)

The airport was disorienting and the announcements and signs in Spanish seemed to swallow me. I stood in one place and looked around. Was this a joke? Aixa's revenge for ignoring her for so long? I felt someone touch my shoulder from behind, and I knew it was Aixa. I didn't need to turn around to know it was her, but I did. We stood there, silent, simply looking at each other for the longest time. She was shorter than I imagined, just a few inches shy of my height of five foot ten. I had memorized her face from her
retablos
and her photo, but neither did her justice. Aixa's eyes were almond shaped and green, as she had painted them, with flecks of silver and gold. Her dark hair was between black and brown, with wild waves that framed her face perfectly. Her cheekbones were strong and defined and her lips were the color of coral. Aixa's skin was mocha and gold.

“So, you made it.” Aixa's comment was not a question or a declaration: simply an observation. I could tell she was still guarded toward me, but happy that I was there. Neither of us made any movement toward the other: we did not touch, which seemed so strange after how intimate we had become. Without another word, Aixa picked up the bag from where I had put it down and motioned for me to follow.

When the sliding doors of the airport slid shut behind us, the humidity was suffocating. I had never felt the weight of a place so heavily. Aixa hailed us a cab and we drove in silence.
Finally, she said, “We're going to my home, in case you're wondering…like the dream, but with no
mojito
.”

I was impressed by her grace, her self-possession, and her singular confidence. After twenty minutes, Aixa motioned for the cabbie to stop, thanked him in Spanish, and handed him a few bills. She took my bag and my hand: I felt her touch jolt all the way up my arm. I followed her over a small gravel path: her house was modest, but it suited her.

When we got inside, Aixa put my bag down on the floor. I almost expected us to rip each other's clothes off in shreds right then and there. Aixa looked me in the eyes as if she saw this, gave a half laugh, and walked to the small kitchen, where she set a kettle of water on the stove. We sat at her table and drank coffee when it was ready. She was as brave as I had thought she would be. No matter how conflicted I was and how many people I had hurt—Aixa and Abel both—I was
with
Aixa: the beautiful drowning woman in the
retablo
, the painting that had brought me to her. As we continued to stare at each other in silence and silence only, not with hostility or even apprehension, I realized that if Aixa and I were to be anything to each other again I would have to make the first move. In her country and face-to-face, I didn't feel like I could use any words. I would have to show her.

How do you make love to a lover you've never touched before? I didn't know, and I was beyond the point of being anxious. I stood up, came around the table to where Aixa sat, and kissed her. She did not respond. My hands seemed to have their own memory of her. I kissed her again, looking into her eyes, which were open. I held her head against mine: “Aixa, this is real and I want this and I'm sorry.” Something inside Aixa visibly turned on. She closed her eyes and pulled
me closer to her. Her hair smelled like cinnamon. I was kissing her and my whole body was pressed against hers, the humidity making our clothes cling to our bodies and to each other. As I started to unbutton Aixa's blouse, I realized that this was not the way to make love to her. She was the drowning woman in the painting and so was I: I would make love to her in the water.

I pulled Aixa to the bathroom I had seen through an open door and turned the water on in the bathtub. Aixa stripped her clothes off in front of me—not quickly and not slowly. Her shirt came up over her head, and I could see her tan breasts, her red nipples, and the tautness of her stomach. I stood across from her and took off my own shirt; my chest was heaving and the tub continued to fill up with water. Aixa unzipped her skirt and threw it off: she was naked and the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Without a word, Aixa stepped into the tub and I followed her. Her hair was soaked, and clung in long strands to her chest, neck, and face as I began to kiss her again. How strange it was to touch someone you already knew so intimately and passionately. She was like I had imagined, but being with her in person was almost paralyzing. Her body responded to mine, moved against me when I touched her, kissing her neck, massaging her breasts. In the water, she looked vulnerable and sexual, like she needed to be saved and consumed. I reached into the water and felt the warmth between her legs. She gasped as my fingers entered her, plunging once, twice, and then again and again. We rocked against the rhythm of our bodies in the water: Aixa's body rose against mine, her hips and pelvis arching into my hand as she came. This was not enough. I would not let her stop and I plunged in again,
quicker and faster. Her hands were between my legs: like in her dream, I was clean shaven and the water and the bare skin made me more sensitive than I had ever felt before. I nearly collapsed on top of her, but regained my balance and continued kissing her and thrusting my fingers into her. Aixa turned and switched positions with me, so that she was on top and staring me right in the eyes as we both came.

Unfazed, I stood up and got out of the tub, dripping water on the red tile floor. Aixa followed me to the bed where I began to flick my tongue against her warmth with such passion that she came again immediately. Aixa's sheets clung to our wet bodies and our drenched hair hung around our faces like we were wild women. Aixa reversed her position and then I was tasting her and she was tasting me, the water from the bath and our own wetness making us drown again and again.

 

After evening (
sera
), there is night (
noche
). The evening, then the night crept through Aixa's open windows, lapping at our naked skin as we lay in each other's arms and Aixa's soaked bed. I heard music from another street—something fast, sad, and pounding at the same time.

“Do you know what that is?” Aixa spoke like music, too: her accented English sweet and liquid. “That's flamenco music. It's the music I will thank the Virgin for—when I paint her a
retablo
for sending you to me.”

Aixa rose from the bed and pulled her long hair up in a loose bun. She pulled on an oversized shirt and turned, saying, “I have something to show you.”

I heard Aixa's footsteps leaving the hallway, then a few seconds of silence, and then her coming back. “Look. This is for you.”

Aixa handed me a piece of tin. On it, a
retablo
was half finished: there were two women in bed, with the evening and music coming in the windows. I reached across the bed to kiss Aixa and got up to find my bag. I searched my bag for my plane ticket and handed it to Aixa. “Tear this up or paint it—either way, you're going to have to teach me Spanish.”

Aixa took the ticket from me and looked at me like she still wasn't sure if she wanted to keep me. She held the ticket in her hand uncertainly and the second felt like those weeks of avoiding her. Aixa tore the ticket in two and said, “First lesson:
bésame
. Kiss me.” And I did, ecstatically. Aixa pulled back in mock anger and said sternly, “Second lesson. Civility—you must say, ‘Please,'
por favor!
” I kissed her nicely and I never looked back again.

A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY

Lynne Jamneck

 

 

 

 

It was Jo who suggested we go to the beach. She was quite adamant that it would be a shame to spend the afternoon indoors, especially since it was officially the first day of spring.

We trucked along a heavy picnic basket and, once at the beach, spread our towels down on a secluded spot behind the sloping rocks. Yes, I'll admit—I had underhanded motives. I'd been planning a covert surprise for Jo, and I made sure we were some way from the nearest beachcombers.

I took my shoes off, which is about as far as I'll go where public undressing is concerned. I keep my armor on most of the time, 'cause it's a fucked-up world and you never know when you're going to have to look presentable. Jo teased me for keeping my jeans on, and said the
bulge in my crotch must be starting to ache with constraint.

Clever bitch—she'd known all along. I took two bottles of chilled beer from the picnic basket, gave one to Jo and dug ravenously into the rye bread sandwiches she'd prepared. She'd slathered them with strong mustard—just the way I like it. It made my mouth burn. Jo noticed and laughed. I gulped beer until it ran down my chin.

 

“Chris…shit…hey Chris—check this out!” Mike waved the binoculars at his fratboy-friend who was busy packing fresh ice on the beer in his cooler.

“Looks like some son-of-a-bitch is about to get lucky,” Mike smirked. The girl sure was a hot little number, he thought. Lying there with her tight white bikini, sand sprinkled on her tanned body, only a couple hundred yards away, half hidden by an outcropping of rock…. He sure as shit wished he could be the one giving her some. She licked something from her lip and laughed, looking down at her boyfriend's head. If only the bastard would move out of the way so he could get a good look at her tits.

“Oh, my god…,” he muttered distractedly.

“What?” Chris tried to snag the binoculars from his buddy. “What the fuck's happening? Mike—you bastard, give that here!”

“Ohhh…” was all Mike replied, relinquishing the binoculars to his friend reluctantly. “Take a look—I think she's gonna go down on him.”

 

It was when Jo started to lick that chili-mustard from her own lip that I started getting really fucking horny. Plus, the fact that she was staring at my crotch and saying things like “I
know what Daddy wants” didn't make it any easier. I tried to ignore her and eat my sandwich instead but then she started fiddling with the buttons of my fly.

“Now there's an idea,” I muttered as she drew herself up to my thighs. Small patches of sand clung to her skin, mixing with the coconut-scented oil she'd made me rub all over her body earlier.

Jo didn't waste any time in attending to my needs. We were both infinitely aware that, deserted as our little spot might seem, anyone could come strolling into view at any moment. She said, “Now don't get greedy or I'll stop.” Then she took my seven inches into her gorgeous mouth and slowly, gradually swallowed me whole.

 

“Yeah, baby…,” Chris groaned as he held on to the binoculars with one trembling hand, the other working inside his Rip Curl shorts. He sure wasn't going to pass up the free show.

“What's she doing?” Mike salivated from the side.

Now it was Chris's turn to smirk. “Looks like a good old-fashioned deep throat to me, buddy. Fuck…aw shit—that girl knows how to give head. Wish I could walk over there and tell her to suck my dick….”

“Why don't you? She might like it.”

“You fucking nuts?” Chris muttered without putting the binoculars down. “Her boyfriend would kick the living shit out of me. Jesus, look at the muscles on that guy. No thanks—I'll just stay here and appreciate the view along with some DIY. Sure wish he'd move his back though so I can see better…. Oh yeah, buddy—give it to her…give it to her good….”

Mike opened another ice-cold beer. Chris's grunts were becoming more pronounced by the second.

I'm not sure whether it's because Jo has the aura of a virginal saint, but ever since day one she's had the knack for bringing out the roughneck in me. As she kept blowing me with that teasing, innocent expression in her eyes, tendons in her sleek neck straining, she made me want to push her flat onto her back and fuck the innocence from her.

Instead—for now—I placed one hand firmly at the back of her head and told her to hold still. I started plying the inside of her mouth with long, drawn-out strokes, rapidly moving on to short stabs as the enjoyment on her face urged me on.

“Hold still, baby,” I grunted down above her dirty-blonde head. “Daddy's gonna be real good to you….”

 

Mike exchanged a beer for the binoculars in his friend's sweaty grasp. His dick was hard, and who the fuck could blame him? He wasn't entirely sure whether it was the sight of the girl and her buff boyfriend fucking or that of his mate jacking off next to him that had given him such a raging hard-on.

The entrées seemed to be at an end now. Bikini's boyfriend motioned for her to lie back while he felt his pockets, presumably for a condom. Mike wondered whether they had any idea that they were being watched—wondered whether they would be the type to get off on it if in fact they did. Also, he wondered why it was that the tough-guy bikers got all the hot girls. Was it the tight vests? The close crew cuts? The arms blackened with tattoos?

Then he wasn't wondering anymore, because Bikini Girl's back arched silently in his view, partly blocked by her heaving boyfriend's jean-clad ass as he started screwing her right there. In broad daylight.

Mike's hand moved down of its own free will, past the
elastic border of his colorful Hawaiian swimming trunks. His crotch was tenting at an alarming but satisfactory rate. As he took himself in hand he heard Chris swallow hard and say: “Now all we need is some good old-fashioned Cock Rock to round this picture off.”

 

The thought that someone might be looking at us passed through my mind vaguely as my one hand pinned Jo's hips down, the other got lost somewhere in her tangled hair. To tell the honest-to-god truth, at this point I really didn't care. I was having a marvelous time watching the reaction on Jo's face as I continued to fuck her adorable behind into the hot sand. I bent down and took each of her nipples between my teeth, the taste of coconut on my tongue perversely edging me on. In between the rush of blood and noise in my brain I heard Jo's now not-so-innocent remarks, ranging from the questioning
You like that, don't you?
to the not-so-sublime
Daddy's dyke cock hurts so good….