Tsunami Connection (14 page)

"If you're sure you don't need any help. I'd love a
shower."

"I'll have one after you, when the cooking's done. The
water heater needs about half an hour to be full hot again. Wait. What am I
thinking about? It won't be hot yet. We just got here. I'm so stupid,
sorry."

"We can do it together, after eating,” said Kefira as
she slunk into Michael's eager embrace.

The Irish beauty blushed at the intimacy and then licked the
lingering, salty taste from her lips, her expression softening in
uncharacteristically doe-eyed submission.

"
Let me slice up that
tomato," added Kefira, breaking the brimming emotional quality of the
moment.

They topped off the omelet and tomatoes with fresh papaya.
Kefira moved, pretending tremulousness, into the bedroom and embraced Michael
as they undressed each other. There was little urgency, just soft caresses and
warm nibbles.

Kefira sat on the edge of the bed and pulled Michael toward
her. Michael's head was at the level of Kefira's pubis. She stroked her
Brazilian-styled mound while Kefira pushed Michael's head closer to her.
Michael let her tongue linger. Kefira's hips lunged outward. Kefira was very
flexible. She bent over backwards and opened her legs outwards.

"Don't hurt yourself bending like that."

"You forget I am a professional dancer. I still do my
exercises regularly."

"I've never been with someone as beautiful as you,”
said Michael, inhaling her partner's musky scent.

"I might feel more at ease if we showered first,"
said Kefira.

"Sweet as roses for me, but if you'd feel better,"
said Michael.

"I love that. No. No. Push harder. Yes," blurted
Kefira as she thrust up and down.

"That's it. Push harder. Go with my movements.
Yes," shouted Kefira as she came, her whole body quivering.

Right after her orgasm, she bounced into a standing position
and pushed Michael on to the bed. The urgency that was missing earlier soon had
them rolling onto each other, crying out in unison.

"Keffy, Keffy," said Michael, using a new love
name.

"What?"

"Use your left hand and put your right hand around my
throat. I need you to choke me, unless you can let me take control completely.
I never come without choking or power."

"Choking?"

"You don't mind, do you?"

"I am a bit afraid of hurting you," said Kefira,
feigning concern, but inwardly starting to question her tactics as she was
seriously enjoying herself.

"You are so warm and gentle. You can't imagine what I
have been through, but don't stop now. Just put your hand on my throat. Now
squeeze, now play harder. Squeeze. Slap harder. Harder, please and squeeze.
Yes. Harder! That's it. Yes. Slap my … no harder!"

Kefira watched as Michael squirmed in her arms as she gently
beat her and squeezed her throat. One part of the woman on top was having no
trouble executing the requests. Pictures flashed like a kaleidoscope in her
mind's eye. She saw her parents dying in the flames of the Embassy explosion
and the memory of her team's demise in the Sinai. She slapped Michael one more
time and had to be careful not to choke the woman she was pretending to love. A
gagging ecstasy followed. Tears rolled down Michael's red, blotchy, and pale
cheeks. Kefira leaned over and bit her nipple. Michael barely responded because
she was desperate just to fill her lungs. Her head and shoulders convulsed.
Kefira looked on, but strangely, something about her emotional connection to
this woman was disturbing her resolve.

"Would you do anything for me?" whispered Kefira
into Michael's ear, as she pinched her nipples again, getting a pained rise out
of her.

"Anything, my love," Michael wheezed breathlessly.

Kefira turned Michael over and slapped her buttocks hard,
then turned her back over, knowing she had just discovered MacAuley's weak
link. Today, for the first time, Kefira believed that she was one step ahead of
MacAuley, the elder. The pair lolled in bed for a day and a half before Kefira
judged the time right to start talking.

"The sex is great, my Irish wraith, but where'd you
pick up the need for pain?"

"Where I come from, some say the church has a lot to
answer for, but in my world it was the 'Troubles' and my brother that scarred
me for life."

"You mean your brother drove you from men, by violating
you?" asked Kefira, starting more and more to sympathize with her
adversary.

"You never met Michael. He can be persuasive. Actually,
it started back home. He rescued me from a real sadist in the movement. That
bastard was really hurting me and Michael caught him."

"What did he do about it?"

"Let's say he started by cutting the lad's fingers off,
one by one. He moved on to his nose and ears. Well, I guess you get the idea.
Anyway, he made me watch the whole thing. Then, when he was finished, he told
me he was the only person in the world I should trust."

"That's loyalty taken a bit to the extreme, if you ask
me. I hope you stay away from him now."

"He comes and goes, and I never take the chance of
having a lover because of what Michael might do to him. For some reason, he
isn't threatened by my lesbian lovers. In fact, he likes to watch."

"I don't know. You aren't expecting him, are you? He
gives me the creeps."

"I think he's in Asia now, but you never know with him.
He always appears out of nowhere."

They finished their conversation over the kitchen fold-out
shelf. Michael was all for going back to bed and demonstrated it by running her
coral colored toenails up Kefira's calf and thigh. Kefira affectionately
rebuffed the attempt, and was surprised by the intensity of her feelings for
Michael.

"Let's get some air. I love you to bits,
agapi mou
,"
said Kefira, using a Greek pet name signifying 'my love', feeling inside for
the first time that she might actually have meant it.

"I love it when you say that. Your voice mellows in
Greek. What do you want to do?"

"I want to tango with you, baby," said Kefira.

"I know just the place – Queer Tango, in San Telmo. We
can stop at my place in town to get dressed. Then we can come back here in the
early morning, after dancing."

They left the houseboat, helping each other get the bike
over the folding gangway again. Both were glad of the warm clothes that they
had found in the boat. Kefira was wearing a worn but cozy pea jacket, leather
gloves, and heavy Levi jeans. Nike running shoes covered her feet. Michael wore
a jean jacket and a llama wool sweater from Peru. Something was bothering
Kefira, but she could not put her finger on it until they were well onto the
road into Buenos Aires.

They drove first along an
accesso
, towards Tigre, and
into town on a series of main streets for about 45 minutes. As they crossed
Avenida Corrientes, where she should have gone towards the river on Peña,
Kefira went straight. She then turned away from the river on Avenida de Mayo,
and stopped where she could see the building holding the Israeli Embassy.

 It was too much for her. She did not know why she had
risked so much with her enemy on her Duc, but the draw to the site of her
parents' deaths was stronger than her. She pulled up to the curb in front of a
cafe called
Avenida
Hostel
. The bike came to a halt on the curb
and Kefira held it at a slant for Michael to get off. Michael came around her
and flipped up the visor on Kefira's helmet. Tears were streaming from Kefira's
eyes.

"I had to stop. I couldn't see anything."

"You went the wrong way back there, but I could feel
you sobbing so I didn't say anything. What's wrong, my Keffy,
agape mou
,
my love?"

Searching for a way to recover her composure and give an
explanation to the flood of emotion that was overwhelming her, Kefira said,
"I've never been happier. My whole life I have been alone. As well, you
are the first woman I've ever been with. I just couldn't believe the feelings I
was having and we got here so fast. I usually don't let people in. Just now, I
got confused."

Kefira took off her helmet and she hauled the motor bike
onto the sidewalk. Using their proximity as an excuse, despite their helmets
colliding in their hands, Michael held Kefira close and some passing men
commented, "
Puta merde. Lastima, que lastima
." The women took
no notice, because they were too engrossed in each other. Kefira was playing
with Michael's mahogany locks as they rolled down her lover's back. They hugged
and then walked into the cafe.

"
Dos dobles, por favor
," said Michael,
meaning two double espressos. She also wanted two cognacs, but the barista
behind the coffee bar said he had no liquor.

Childhood visions of her parents flooded Kefira's mind. She
downed the coffee and got up to leave right away. They walked the two long
blocks to Plaza de Mayo, a large green space usually frequented by strolling
families and couples in the early evening, but unseasonably cooler weather was
keeping most people home that evening. They held each other on a park bench,
under the watchful eye of the clock tower and the old colonial buildings around
the square. The sobbing subsided.

"We should get back to the bike. That lock won't keep
the thieves away for long," said Kefira.

"Wait. No one ever loved me before. No one ever said
that to me before, Keffy. Is my luck finally turning? Come to me."

They embraced and Kefira lamented her predicament, but not
enough to stop what she had started, though she was truly unsettled by the
strength of the bond she felt for the MacAuley woman. She feared that it
endangered her duty, as well as defied logic. Confusing matters even more,
Kefira remembered the mother of a prisoner that Kefira had incarcerated
tearfully telling her that terrorists have families, too. They raced each other
back to the Ducati, Kefira less the consummate actor, Michael falling deeper
and deeper into the Mossad agent's incongruously warm trance.

"The bungee cords. That's it," muttered Kefira,
her words mouthing her unsettled sentiments from when she removed the tarp from
the Streetfighter on the houseboat.

Michael grabbed her arm and stopped her. The look in her
eyes was more serious now. She shook Kefira, but Kefira, ever the chameleon,
just laughed aloud to cover her slip.

"The locket. I said the locket."

She reached under her jacket and pulled out a silver locket.
She flipped it open. Her eyes filled with tears again and she cried
uncontrollably. "It's such a relief to cry. I've rarely let myself. You
are one of the first people that I've let in since they died. It's my parents.
It's a picture of them that I always carry."

"Keffy, you are a worse basket case than me. Let's
dance this out of ourselves."

They walked back up Avenida de Mayo and got on the bike
after noticing several fellows hanging around the area with an eye on the
motorcycle. The drive to the apartment picked up Kefira's energy. She knew now
that MacAuley was near. Someone had fiddled with the bungee cords that secured
the motorcycle on the houseboat. She would have to be alert.

They arrived at Michael's apartment and Kefira remained
behind a bit. She unlocked a special compartment under the seat of the Ducati.
It contained several flat blades made from a secret nano-ceramic material. They
were flesh colored and could be looped at one end to adhere to a finger.
Additionally, there was a ring set with a square, flat ruby. Under the faux ruby
was a compartment containing a drug that could be used repeatedly in metered
doses. The wearer of the ring could trigger the device by pressing the back of
the finger band, or the side of the thin compartment. The drug could
incapacitate a 200-pound man for at least an hour, and often for three or four
hours.

The two lovers dressed each other playfully, trying on one
another's suggestions, all the while sipping Remy Martin Cognac. Kefira settled
on a see-through, silver body stocking that meshed exquisitely with her skin.
She wore tight, blood red shorts that rose over her buttocks with every step
and looked like a g-string. Her white chiffon blouse, tied under her breasts,
had no buttons. It was made of a stretchy material, leaving nothing to the
imagination. She topped the outfit with a Marilyn Monroe, platinum blond wig
and glued a birthmark on her cheek while comparing herself to a picture of
Marilyn on the Internet.

"You ask me, you're ten times more beautiful than her.
Your skin outdoes hers by 10 to 1."

"You're too nice," replied Kefira, as she knelt
down in front of Michael.

"Smell this," she added, holding a small glass
bottle containing her musky body oil and perfume.

"It excites me just to have it near me. I can picture
your beauty with my eyes closed when I smell it. It reminds me so much of
you."

"This one is a little different than the one I usually
use, but I think it will suit your skin and temperament because of the
combination of essential oils."

"I love you, my sweet. No one has ever done so many
wonderful things for me. It's like we've been together forever. I can't believe
it's happening so fast," said Michael.

"Let me undo your top and rub this into your back and
chest. Sit here in front of me, on the chair, with the chair back between your
legs. Close your eyes. Inhale the fragrance. It is only for you," said
Kefira.

Kefira rubbed over Michael's neck, using her palm and
fingertips in unison. The light green wrap around her strapless top fell
slowly, letting loose Michael's milk-white breasts, both nipples pierced with
silver and jade studs. Her emerald green eyes closed, showing subtle, pastel
eye makeup. Kefira leaned over Michael to reach under the upper part of her
dress and pressed firmly with both hands right down under the top of her waistband
and onto her abdomen. Michael moaned, but Kefira restrained her and continued
by massaging the oil into her lover's upper body.