Moti on the Water

by Leylah Attar

  “Mpampa!” Alex dropped two plates on the table and rendered Vasilis scissor-less. A string of curses followed between the two. If hand gestures had been punches, they would have knocked each other out. And then, just as fiercely as they’d clashed, they were laughing.

  “Moti, this is my father, Vasilis. Sorry he came at you with his scissors. He’s a barber, but he thinks he’s a doctor. Give him a lock of your hair and he’ll give you a full medical report. If you’re getting enough sleep. If you have enough iron…”

  “If you have a good womb for Alexandros’ children,” Vasilis said.

  “He’s had a go at everyone on the island,” Alex said, unfazed. “Every time he sees someone new, out come his scissors.”

  That would explain why everyone was smiling at me. Sympathy-smiling. They’d all endured his antics.

  “Yes?” Vasilis approached me once again.

  “Mpampa!”

  “Bah.” Vasilis was clearly disappointed at having fathered someone who didn’t indulge his whims. “You, eat,” he said to me, absolving me of the responsibility. If his own son didn’t support him, how could he expect a stranger to do so? He lit a cigarette and sighed, contemplating his misfortune.

  “We should listen to him.” Alex grinned and pushed a plate toward me—tomatoes cut into flowers, fresh goat’s cheese, pasta topped with red sauce, string beans, grilled lamb. On another platter was a pile of assorted bread and some pies with a wonderful, smoky aroma. “Let’s eat.”

  Dimitra watched as Alex and I dug in. “Good?”

  Alex took a few bites and squinted. No answer.

  “Good?” Dimitra turned to me.

  The pasta was sweet. Maybe it was the sauce. I switched to the lamb. Delicious, but also sweet. Puzzled but wanting to say something nice, I reached for the bread, dunked it in olive oil, and tried again.

  “It’s…” It tasted like cake, coated with olive oil. “It’s different.”

  The buzz of conversation around the table stopped. Vasilis held his cigarette away, mid-puff. Everyone’s eyes fell on me. In the still, quiet seconds, a bead of sweat formed on my forehead. It hung there a few mortifying beats, then slid slowly down my skin.

  “It’s different.” Dimitra said. “Did you hear? She said it’s different!”

  I wasn’t prepared for the hoots of laughter and clapping that broke out.

  Dimitra came around and kissed me heartily on both cheeks.

  “You have shared in my pain. My son is leaving tomorrow. Without him, every day for the next nine months will feel like this for me. Like something is not right, like something is different. I want everyone to feel it with me, so today, I used sugar instead of salt in every dish. You will all remember when Dimitra protested mandatory military service!” She beamed around the table.

  “Yamas!” Glasses clinked as everyone cheered.

  “You must finish.” Dimitra looked at my plate and Alex’s. “And then, you must dance.” She led everyone else to the circle gathering in the center of the square—an outer circle of men and an inner circle of women, holding hands and alternating slow steps with fast steps. They pushed Pantelis to the middle, where he improvised with his arms wide open.

  “Welcome to my home.” Alex raised a string bean from his plate. I raised one from mine and we ate Dimitra’s soggy, sugary protest.

  “It’s beautiful.” I didn’t think such places still existed, places where you could walk into a town square and find yourself caught up in a celebration. “And everyone is so warm and sweet—”

  Alex swooped in for a kiss. “Warm and sweet.” His lips hummed against mine. “So, tell me, when you agreed to come here with me, what exactly was going through your mind? Were you hoping, as I was, to explore this thing between us? This madness that leaves me breathless every time I look at you. Do you think about us lying naked next to each other, Moti? Does it do to you what it does to me?”

  I hadn’t thought about anything but playing hooky for the night, but my thighs clenched at Alex’s words, as surely as if his hand slid between them. My eyes must’ve given me away, because Alex let his breath out in a slow exhale.

  “Come on.” He grabbed my hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

  My heart was beating hard and fast when Dimitra intercepted us.

  “Dance with us,” she yelled over the music. I lost sight of Alex as she pulled me into the circle of women. I moved cluelessly at first, going one way when everyone went another. After a while, I caught on. Two steps to the right, one step forward, then back with a bounce. And repeat. The woman to my right gave me an encouraging nod. Maybe she was just happy I wasn’t stomping on her foot anymore. Either way, we laughed and moved in unison.

  I glanced over my shoulder as Alex passed by in the outer circle. The dance turned into a game. Eyes-on-eyes—our gazes meeting and holding, before we lost sight of each other again.

  And then he was gone. I searched one way, then the other. No Alex.

  I was about to excuse myself when someone pulled me away from the circle.

  “Gotcha.” Alex grinned as we stood together, a little breathless, a little giddy, like two kids playing hide and seek.

  I didn’t know any of the music playing, but I will always remember the track that came on as Alex held my hand—something about belonging together. My heart synced to the drumbeat, loud and thunderous, as people milled around us. In the silence between the beats, there was only Alex and me, and the sweet, sharp fire flaring between us.

  Someone jostled me closer to him, sending my hair across my face. It didn’t help that my lips were sticky with the sugary dinner we just had. Alex brushed the hair off my lips—strand by strand—his gaze both soft and heated. Just when I thought he was about to claim them, he smiled, like he’d uncovered something unexpected and enchanting. The little bubble that had been rising inside me burst through the surface with a pop of joy. Our smiles connected. And then we were breaking through the circle, running away from the crowd, hand in hand.

  We stopped at the edge of the square, grinning because we couldn’t help it. A white path zigzagged up to a commanding church at the top of the hill. Below us, rocky cliffs gave way to moonlit waves. It was the kind of place, the kind of night, that filled you with the thrill of being alive.

  “Tha se sfakso! Tha se pnikso! Tha se skotoso! Tha sou vyalo ta malia! Tha se kano me ta kremmydakia!” Dimitra ran after her son, Pantelis, with a fork in her hand. He weaved through the tables, laughing and screaming and dodging her attack.

  “What is she saying?” I asked.

  “That she will butcher him, drown him, kill him, pull his hair out, and cook him with onions.” Alex laughed. “He must’ve done something to piss her off. Or maybe it’s because he’s leaving tomorrow and she can’t stand it.” He fell silent as he watched the two of them.

  Across the courtyard, Vasilis caught his eye. Father and son shared a look before Vasilis stubbed his cigarette out and walked over.

  “Hey.” Vasilis patted Alex’s cheek. “I miss her too.”

  Alex nodded. “I miss the way she used to get angry with me.”

  It dawned on me that they were talking about Alex’s mother.

  “You know,” Vasilis gestured to the plates on the table, “Frida would’ve messed up the food without even trying.”

  They laughed and we raised a glass in her memory. I meant to take a sip, but it turned into an embarrassingly wide yawn.

  “She is tired.” Vasilis laughed. “You must be too, Alex. Why don’t you take my car and head home? I’ll catch a ride with one of our neighbors.”

  “Thanks, Mpampa. It’s been a long day.” Alex took the keys he was holding out. “See you in the morning?”

  “Yes.” Vasilis pointed to Alex’s hair and made a snip-snip gesture. “We do it in the morning.” He waved us off and lit another cigarette.

  Alex and I took the one road that ran through the length of the island.

  “You don’t live in the town?” I asked
, as terraced farms and thyme-scented hills whizzed by in the dark.

  “No. I live there.” He pointed to a cluster of lights on a hill. “In Ano Meria. Although I spend so much of my time away, it feels like I live on the water.”

  I thought of the cabin we shared in the yacht.

  Nothing is going to be the same after tonight.

  “Moti?” Alex had switched off the engine and was looking at me.

  We were parked outside a small stone home, its white walls old and worn, but lovingly looked after.

  I got out of the car and followed Alex to the door. A glint in the garden caught my eye, something round and silver. Before I could make it out, Alex pulled me inside.

  His kiss was hard, then soft, then hard again, lighting up every inch of me with a sharp, burning need.

  Lifting me so my legs wrapped around him, he pushed the door shut and held me up against it, his mouth hot and hungry in the dark. I gasped as his teeth raked my neck, softly biting his way down.

  “Alex.” I tipped my head, giving him more of my skin, exposing nerves that begged for his lips.

  He broke away and gazed into my eyes, his own dark and dilated. I couldn’t hide the rise and fall of my chest, the tips of my nipples clamoring for attention through my top.

  His hand slid under the hem of my shorts and gripped a curvy ass cheek. Wet heat flared between my legs as he slipped past my panties, kneading the soft, round flesh beneath. My body arched against him, greedy for more.

  “God, yes.”

  He reached for the junction between my thighs and slid his finger inside. His thumb parted my slick folds and found my clit. I opened up to him like a flower to the sun, one leg sliding to the floor while he kept the other around his waist.

  Pinned against the door, I gripped his shoulders, giving in to the fiery sensation of his touch. Pleasure came in cascading waves. Building. Building. But the peak eluded me.

  If ever there were a time for a mind-blowing orgasm, this was it. I wanted it to rip through me, leave me panting and breathless. But orgasms are strange beasts. Like cats, they don’t always come to you when you want them to. At least for me. The only orgasms I’d experienced were self-induced. Still, Alex’s touch was a different kind of bliss. My whole body uncoiled, the chase replaced by a sense of molten rapture.

  “Feeling more relaxed?” Alex’s nuzzled my ear.

  “Mmm.” All my bones had melted.

  “Good. Because I plan on serving a lot more courses tonight.” He scooped me up with a panty-dropping grin.

  Dear Lord in Heaven. I glanced at the night sky as Alex carried me past the living room.

  Thank you.

  I snuggled into the crook of Alex’s arm, stretching out beside him.

  “Alex?”

  “I’m listening…”

  It was how all our late-night chats started. In the dark. With him on the top bunk and me on the bottom. Except we weren’t on the yacht anymore. We were lying side by side on a pile of quilts on his roof, the stars scattered above us like space dust.

  He’d carried me into the shower and we’d made out, steam condensing on the glass panels of the stall. Wrapped in towels, we stumbled into bed. The sheets were dusty from his absence, and I ended up making the face you make before you sneeze. Like a naked mole rat squinting at the midday sun. Thankfully, Alex’s lips were on my nipple, so he missed it. When he looked up, his bold gaze locked on mine. The moment sizzled with eroticism.

  I made the face again.

  And the damn sneeze still wouldn’t come.

  Seriously? There’s a man between my breasts—a sexy, chiseled Adonis worshiping my boobs, and I’m staring at him with that face.

  The corners of Alex’s mouth turned up as he took a strand of my hair and tickled my nose with it. I let out an explosive sneeze.

  “Better?” he said, as I stared remorsefully at his sneeze-spattered chest. “I think we need to get you out of here.”

  Which was how we ended up on the roof. I slipped into his T-shirt, he slipped into a pair of boxers, and we raided the linen closet. Dragging every quilt and pillow we could find upstairs, we made a makeshift bed under the crisscrossing clotheslines. The flat roof had a half-wall around its perimeter, lined with re-purposed containers—olive oil buckets, tins of canned tomatoes, rice buckets, flour buckets, ice-cream containers—all spilling mounds of fragrant herbs and flowers.

  “What’s your favorite childhood memory?” I asked.

  He propped himself up on his elbow and traced my jaw. “You really want to know?”

  “I do.”

  “My favorite memory…” Alex ran his fingers up and down my palm. “My mother, peeling an orange and bringing it to my room while I was studying. She never said a word. She’d come in, put it on my desk, and leave. Sometimes I didn’t even know she’d been there until I saw the plate. She had this way of flipping each segment inside out, with the flesh arched out, so I didn’t have to bite through the stringy white fibers. Mountains of orange spikes waiting to be scraped off with my teeth. Nothing says love like a plate of cut fruit left silently for you.”

  Our fingertips touched and held. It felt like a soft, buzzing rope—binding me to him slowly, hypnotically.

  “And you?” Alex asked. “What’s your favorite childhood memory?”

  “Flying a kite.” I smiled. “I can’t remember where I was, or who with, but I remember the feeling. Running barefoot, looking at it over my shoulder. That feeling of delight when it finally took off. Up, up. Higher than I could ever fly.”

  My eyes shut as I recalled the tugging of the string in my hand, the way the kite soared and danced in the sky. I lay in Alex’s arms, watching the child in me run down the beach, against the endless expanse of the horizon.

  I don’t know when I drifted off, but the world was blue when I opened my eyes. Blue sky. Alex’s blue jeans hanging on the line to dry. A blue bowl next to me, with a note:

  Can’t believe you conked out on me. Some blueberry yogurt in honor of my blue balls.

  I laughed and swirled the spoon in the yogurt. Sitting cross-legged on a sea of quilts, I settled the bowl on my lap and licked the spoon. I could hear the gong of tiny bells and the bleating of goats. In the distance, the sea sparkled with the promise of a new day. A rhythmic, metallic sound came from the garden below. Snip, snip, snip.

  I walked to the edge of the roof and looked over. Alex sat on a plastic chair under a trellis of grapevines, getting his hair cut by his father. Shirtless under the sun, his skin took on a warm, bronzed hue. Bare arms, bare chest, bare throat. My cheeks flamed as locks of thick, dark hair collected on the patio stones. I sat on the half-wall circling the roof, observing their ritual.

  Every once in a while, Vasilis would stop, take a puff from the cigarette Alex held for him, and step away from his handiwork like a painter assessing his masterpiece. Then the comb would come down and off he’d go with the scissors again.

  All through the garden, dozens of CDs were strung, row after row. They dangled over elephant-eared zucchini plants and reflected off buckets spilling the most brilliant red geraniums.

  A sudden burst of white light blinded me. I held my hand over my eyes and squinted.

  “Kalimera, asteri mou.” Alex flashed a CD straight in my face. “Sleep well?”

  Sleep? I flushed, only remembering the feel of my nipples swelling like ripe berries in his mouth. Then I double-flushed because Vasilis had caught me in nothing but Alex’s T-shirt.

  “Kalimera.” I waved to them both, tugging the shirt over my knees. “What’s with all those?” I gestured to the CDs sparkling in the sun.

  Vasilis tugged the string holding them up, making them jingle and jangle like little mirrors. “They keep the birds from eating the vegetables.”

  “Clever,” I said, finishing the last of my yogurt. Then I gasped as he cut a big chunk of Alex’s hair. “How much are you taking off?” Bye, bye, Man-Bun.

  Vasilis shrugged. “I keep going until he
says enough. I’m the only one he’ll let cut his hair. Since he was a baby. This time he’s been away too long. I have been cutting and cutting, and still…” Vasilis lifted Alex’s hair to illustrate his point. “This time his hair is like Dimitra’s.”

  I stifled a snicker. Nothing about Alex was like a woman. Not his hair, not his hard, bronzed chest, and certainly not his blue balls.

  I folded the quilts and headed to the kitchen. It was a sun-filled room with a window opening to breathtaking views of the windswept hill and beyond it, the Aegean Sea. I could hear the low hum of conversation between Alex and Vasilis as I washed the blue bowl. Its hand-painted markings were time-softened, but still a beautiful shade of cobalt. I held it up, the suds trickling down to my elbows, studying the border—a row of spiny fish following each other around the rim.

  “It belonged to Mrs. Tavoulari,” Alex said.

  I stared. With his locks shorn, his eyes looked bigger—stark and arresting. They settled on the bowl for a few beats, then the corners crinkled as his gaze met mine.

  “This was the bowl in your story,” I said. “The bowl you brought to her every day.”

  How many times had it gone back and forth between them, filled with whatever he’d made from her recipe book?

  “It was like an ongoing conversation.” Alex hugged me from behind, his arms sliding down mine. Our fingers entwined, soapy and wet, around the bowl.

  “That’s…”

  It was all I could manage. Alex was making love to my fingers, his hands over mine, clasping them and then letting go, sliding his fingers in and out of the spaces between them. He nudged my hair aside, exposing my neck to stubbled kisses. The sun filtered through the window, warming my skin, lighting up the smattering of hairs on Alex’s arm. A slow, golden moment passed. A siga-siga moment. Soapsuds, warm water, goose bumps. The hard muscles of his legs spooning me as my head fell back and I relaxed into the thick heat of his body.

  We both jumped apart as Vasilis walked into the kitchen. Alex grabbed a washcloth and started wiping his hands. I was pretty sure it was a ruse to hide his erection.