Skin on Skin (15 page)

“How convenient,” I cooed and ripped the packaging open with my teeth. His brandishing erection was temperamental and, with some difficulty, I sheathed it while keeping my perch on the bookcase. This time, it was Neil who tugged my panties aside, and I barely had a moment to grab onto the ledge before his cock plunged up into me. I felt absolutely cleaved by the thick girth of his member, and the tender walls of my passage burned as he penetrated me. I bit my lip, but a cry whistled through my clenched teeth.

“You can take it, girl. You’ve taken me before.” He thrust back up. This time, I was more malleable, stretched out to encompass his solid rod as it prodded my pleasure center.

“
Más duro
,” I moaned, squeezing my thighs tighter around his waist to draw him further in. Realizing he didn’t speak the language of my passion, I translated, “
Harder
, Neil.”

A fury darkened his face, and he wildly grabbed the hair at the nape of my neck and rammed himself up my cunt. He pounded me hard against the bookcase, and paperbacks cascaded from the shelves. I splayed open my legs so his seismic thrusts could lodge even deeper into my fault line.

“I like that, baby, when you spread your legs like that.” He assisted by pressing on my inner thighs to ease them even farther apart. This time he had the exact leverage to fuck right into my G-spot. He hit it hard.

“Oh, God, Neil. I can’t take it. I really can’t,” I crooned with the lust of a girl who could definitely take it; and Neil continued to give it to me.

“What about if I put a finger in that tight, little asshole of yours. Do you think you could take that?”

I nodded naughtily, eager to be doubly penetrated by this man. He inserted his middle finger in my mouth, and I sucked it as I would his precious manhood. His pumping action between my legs slowed as he slipped the lubricated finger under the ass of my panties, which had somehow managed to stay on me, although askew. Neil’s finger ran up my downy crack until he found the puckered entrance. With the broad tip of his finger, he pressed around the rim of my asshole in a massaging motion that relaxed me. Slowly, he pushed beyond the resistant flesh. Suddenly, I felt so filled up with his thickness, from both in front and behind, that I became light-headed.

“Oh, Neil.” My murmurs were faint but euphoric, and Neil was now invigorated. He began pounding back into me, simultaneously groaning my name and cursing.

“I like how I can feel my cock in you, banging up against my finger in your ass.” I felt that junction too, roiling my insides. My dizziness suddenly gave way to a marked sensation: somewhere between those two points of his flesh burrowed deep in me, an orgasm was squeezing out. Neil recognized the transformation on my face and sped up so he could arrive there with me.

He brought his face to mine. Our teeth gnashed with feral kisses, tearing madly into each other’s lips. Then, from that riotous place between my legs, something shot out of me, wet and shiny like a bullet. It must have pierced him because he immediately collapsed onto me with a mortal moan. Not quite slain, Neil shuddered to life with a final, heroic spasm of his orgasm.

We slid down the bookshelf, sweat clinging to our clothes, our naked parts still joined. Carefully, Neil pulled out of me—the condom wilted as his passion subsided—and lolled back onto the floor. I draped over him listlessly and lay my head onto his heaving chest. With my eyes closed, I listened to his heart and lungs calm.

“Where did you come from?” he whispered into the softly pulsing chamber of his room. His languid fingers absently, but instinctively, combed my tangled hair.

“Funny, I was just wondering the same thing…about you, that is.” Neil curled his biceps around me and gingerly kissed the top of my head. Strange, how after such ferocious sex, Neil held me in the most tranquil, almost chaste, embrace. The boy sure came in like a lion and left like a lamb.

I would have fallen asleep right then and there, lying on top of Neil in my sweaty, waitress uniform, if he hadn’t picked me up and carried me to his bed, only a few feet away. With sensual affection, Neil removed every stitch of my clothing as I lay there, drowsy and limp. His clean, dry sheets wicked the sweat right off my skin as he slid my naked body under the covers. The mattress was so soft that my dreams were already sinking into it. As soon as I felt Neil’s own disrobed body cradling mine, I fell fast asleep.

W
aking up in Neil’s arms, I suddenly panicked: how would I ever be able to leave San Francisco in just two months time when I couldn’t even conceive of leaving my lover’s bed this morning? I studied Neil in his sleep. I would never have thought him to be such a peaceful sleeper. Not one snore had escaped his heady lips all night. The sun, peeping through the broken blinds, stretched across his worn comforter, casting golden rectangles onto it. I ran my hand over the warmed, pilled surface that gently rose and fell over his body. Neil shifted in his sleep and pulled me closer to him underneath the covers. Our naked bodies were cool and smooth like sea glass worn edgeless by the ocean.

Neil’s eyes opened without warning. Immediately, he studied my contemplative face.

“You look so pretty in the morning.” His words were sleepy but earnest. He kissed me in the intimate cloud of morning breath.

“What are you thinking about, Lolita?” Neil could read me like a book.

“Oh, nothing.” I shook my head with a forced smile. I was so happy in his arms, in his bed, in this tiny, messy bedroom of his, that I didn’t want him to think anything was wrong.

“Something’s wrong. What is it?” He was fully awake now. Gentle but alert.

I picked at a dried cum stain on his comforter and tried to choose my words carefully.

“It’s that I’ve, well, just met you—and I
really
like you—but I’m only here a couple more months….” I didn’t know how else to say it without confessing how deep my feelings for him already ran.

“I know, I’ve been thinking about that, too.” Neil rubbed my lower back rhythmically. It made me want to curl up in a chamber of his heart and go back to sleep and never have to think about this feeling ever ending.

“How far away is Tucson?” Neil smoothed the hair away from my forehead.

“Like eight hundred miles.”

He sighed. “I guess I’ll have to never let you leave this room. Hold you captive and bring you food three times a day. You’ll have enough to read.” He rolled on top of me and began kissing my neck emphatically. Being Neil’s love and literary slave definitely held an appeal.

“What about my illustrious teaching career?”

He had moved down to kissing my breasts. My nipples perked like gumdrops between his nimble lips.

“Hmmm, I can be an apt pupil.” I felt his flesh stiffening against my thigh as he sucked my pliable nipples into extended points.

I pulled him back up to me.

“Seriously, Neil.” I loved the innocent look his long, black lashes gave him, even when he had a raging hard-on. “I think I’m falling for you.”

“Ah, Lola,” he sighed happily. “You are the most amazing creature. I don’t ever want to let you go.” His tattooed arms reiterated this by clinching my narrow body. I keenly rubbed his taut, colorful muscles. His plush lips sunk warmly into mine, giving me the courage to continue.

“I think I may be falling in love with you, Neil.”

He looked at me as if I were a complete stranger. The shift in his expression was almost imperceptible and he continued to hold me just as he had before, but I perceived his distance all the same.

“I’m not sure if this is love,” he struggled to pick his words cautiously, “but maybe just the feeling of not being lonely.”

I felt as if I had been slapped in the face, and he immediately saw how his remarks had stung. He hurried to rationalize.

“I mean, sometimes, it’s easy to confuse lust and love.” His body felt heavy to me, and I felt trapped under the weight of his long limbs. To hide my hurt and embarrassment, I turned my face away from his searching eyes.

“Lola,” he plied softly into my ear. He touched my chin and tried to turn my face back to his. A sense of pride deployed to my chin and resisted his advance.

“
Babe
.” His warm breath on my neck threatened to melt my resistance. “I don’t want you to think I don’t feel strongly for you, because I do. And I am so crazy attracted to you.” He squeezed me for emphasis. “But we’ve really just only met, and I don’t want to jump the gun here.”

I contemplated the expression
jump the gun
in the long silence that trailed his words. It did indeed feel like a race to me now; all of a sudden that was clear. I had two month’s time to win this boy’s heart, and I would sprint to the finish.

With this new resolve, I succumbed to Neil’s soothing touch. He was massaging my exposed earlobe between his index finger and thumb in hopes of getting back into my good graces. His lips brushed my turned cheek. I let him try his submissive kisses all over the inert side of my face. Finally, I turned and gave him back my lips in full.

“M
orning,
prima
.”

Verónica pretended not to hear me as she noisily stacked plates into the kitchen cabinet. In an unprecedented crack at housework, Verónica had washed the buildup of dishes in the sink. They sat in dripping but clean piles on the counter. I went over to the fridge and pulled out a block of cheese and a carton of eggs.

“Verónica, have you seen my tortillas?” She had to answer me now. I was a foot away from her.

“Try the drawer,” she suggested coldly. Sure enough, the tortillas were in the vegetable drawer underneath a wilted head of lettuce.

I cooked my breakfast burrito in silence. From time to time, Verónica glanced at me warily from the sink where she was vigorously scouring a pot. We hadn’t seen or spoken to each other since our conversation at the diner on Saturday. Now it was Monday, and I had woken up to Verónica’s clanging in the kitchen. As I groggily pulled myself out of bed, still exhausted from my weekend’s tryst with Neil, I dreaded facing her. I had to remind myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong: Teresa wasn’t my friend, or Neil’s girlfriend for that matter.

It wasn’t until I voraciously tore into my burrito—sex with Neil had created a hunger in me that seemed bottomless—that Verónica broke her silence.

“So how was the rest of your weekend?” Salsa and melted cheese dripped down my fingers, which I greedily sucked clean before answering.

“Good. I hung out with Neil.” I imagined she had that one figured out on her own when I didn’t come home Saturday night.

Verónica had scrubbed everything in sight and begrudgingly joined me at the kitchen table. She stripped off the yellow dishwashing gloves and checked her manicure.

“Look, Verónica, I really like Neil.
Please
be excited for me.” That was all I had to say. Verónica looked up from her nails. Her almond-shaped eyes widened with compassion, although they were rimmed with concern.

“I know, Lola. Neil’s a great guy. I just don’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all. That one can be a real heartbreaker.” She sighed with such emotion that, for a fleeting moment, I wondered if maybe she was speaking from personal experience.

“Don’t worry. I can take care of myself, I promise.” Then, I added gratuitously, “Everything is going so great. We are just so hot for each other. Neil seems really into me.” I wondered if I was saying these things to convince my cousin or myself.

“Oh, that’s wonderful, Lola!” It worked for Verónica. She clapped her hands and, in her excitement, got up from the table to hug me around the neck. “I’m sorry for being such a
puta.
Seriously, I want to hear everything. Don’t you dare leave out a single, juicy detail!”

She pulled up her chair right next to me and began to pick off my plate, gobbling up all I had to say about my romantic, and
caliente
, weekend with Neil.

I told her everything. Everything, except for the part about gushing my true feelings to Neil, only to feel shot down in return. It was just a minor glitch, anyway, I told myself; we had made love just as passionately soon after and spent the rest of the day lounging around his apartment. He had even brought me breakfast in bed, running out to the café down the street to get me an egg sandwich and coffee. Nothing tasted so good as breakfast in a bed still steaming from our lovemaking.

“And he brought you
flowers
?” Verónica acted shocked. I had been, too, when Neil pulled the bouquet out from behind his back after special delivering breakfast. Even though the carnations were dyed blue and the daisies were missing half their petals, I had positively swooned at the gesture.

“So what did he say when he dropped you off?” I had gotten to the end of my fairy tale.

“Um, what do you mean?” We hadn’t prolonged our kiss good-bye. Neil was late for his Sunday afternoon shift at Tito’s.

“I mean, when are you two going to hang out again?”

“Oh, he said he’d call me soon.” Verónica’s eyebrow twitched but resisted raising warily. I ignored it as best I could and relished the last savory bite of my breakfast.

“I better go call my dad back.” According to the post-its scattered around the apartment, my dad had been calling all weekend.

I dumped my plate in the sink, where it rattled around the empty basin, and grabbed the cordless from the counter. Verónica was busy watering the cactus from her drinking glass and didn’t look up as I left the kitchen.

Phone in hand, I shut the door to my bedroom for privacy. I felt as if I were holding a loaded gun; my finger twitched, trigger-happy. Before giving myself time to think it through, I dialed—but not my father’s number, although I really intended to do so. Neil’s machine picked up. His voice sounded even lower on the recording. I tried to sound blasé as I left a message.
Hey, Neil.
It’s Lola. Just calling to say hi. Gimme a call sometime
. I wondered if the tape could pick up the vibrations of an eagerly beating heart. After I hung up, I said a quick prayer that he would call me back soon.

I was back outside Tito’s holding a staring contest with the bar’s heavy door. The wooden number 9 still hadn’t been fixed and continued to moonlight as a 6. It was a gloomy Sunday, and I cursed the seasonless summer of San Francisco. My knees were bare, remote from the hem of my short skirt, and knocked together like ice cubes in a highball glass.

Do I knock on the door?
I shook my head at myself.
This isn’t his apartment. It’s a bar
. Yet, I felt like an unexpected visitor. If he wanted to see me, he would have called me back, right? That was Verónica’s opinion on the matter. A week had gone by without a word from Neil. For the first few days I was hopeful, fueled by still-palpable memories of naked skin and damp kisses. At work, I fluttered about the diner, cheerfully waiting on customers and not even noticing my sore feet. Then, when the weekend came, I grew despondent and my feet, heavy. I was sure he would have called me by Friday to make plans for the weekend. Friday night came like a wrecking ball and knocked me flat on my back. All I could do was watch TV in bed, refusing Verónica’s invitation to go out. The next day I did more of the same. Eventually, my thoughts became as blank as my stare at the television screen.

Sunday morning, though, I woke up brightly with a delusional hope. All week I had desperately wanted to see Neil, and now I could! All I had to do was stop by Tito’s while he was bartending his Sunday afternoon shift…. My logic was transparent, and I knew it in the hole in my heart that was enlarging each minute I loitered outside the bar. I felt ashamed for lying to Verónica about where I was going. Who goes grocery shopping in a miniskirt and red pumps, anyway? I still had a chance to turn around; he would never know that I came.

I decided to leave a second too late. The bar door swung open and out walked Teresa. She didn’t see me at first. She was looking back through the closing door to call,
Bye baby
, to someone inside. I wanted to push past her to see whom she was talking to: a friend, a drunk at the bar, her
abuela
—anyone, I hoped, but Neil. But I couldn’t move. I was frozen to the sidewalk, whose cement glittered like ice crystals. She saw me, and the corners of her smile sharpened with recognition.

“You’re in my way.” I should’ve slapped her then. Slapped her for looking at me the way she did, with that haughty, knowing look. Slapped her hard for giving me the once-over, making me feel like a schoolgirl dressed up slutty for her first dance. I should have slapped her for talking to me like an ant she was about to step on.

Yet, surprising both of us, I moved out of her way. I stepped aside to let her pass because if I had said one word to her, either pleasantry or obscenity, I would have burst into tears. Strange, how I had not cried all week, but was now suddenly struck with a visceral pain in my gut, like an appendicitis, that made me want to cry out. I had come face-to-face with the realization of why Neil hadn’t called, and I cowered before her cold, pristine beauty. What miraculously kept me from crying as Teresa smugly walked away, I could not say. The minute, however, she rounded the corner, tears cracked my stony resolve like a weeping statue of the Holy Virgin. I turned and walked slowly back to the apartment, barely able to see through my veil of tears.