The Cuban

by Kim Rodriguez

  “Matrimony,” she said. “Same thing, accent on the first syllable. It means—you know what it means, Rafa. Matrimonio.”

  “Tell me more.” Amada looked at me sideways, not getting it yet.

  “Well,” she said stretching out, “it’s from the Latin matrimonium, so it’ll be the same in Spanish. We talked about that, remember?” Tonight she wore her favorite robe in lilac. She must have two dozen of the same robe in every color, I mused, thinking she’d probably like a silk kimono. They were everywhere in Cuba, but I had yet to see one here. Her little idiosyncrasies were beyond charming.

  “You’re right. It’s so obvious.” I agreed. “What else?” I bet she could talk about the etymology of a word for an hour, and maybe I’d get her to. I suppressed a smile at the thought.

  “Let’s see, the base comes from matrem, which means mother, and then the suffix monium, I’m not sure but I would guess it means something like being in the state of, like pandemonium means being in the state of chaos. But that last part is a guess. Do you want me to find out for sure?”

  “Yes, definitely get back to me on that,” I nodded seriously. I set the book down. “But for now, what do you think of that word? Is it a good word?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked. I took her left hand in mine and stroked her ring finger. Finally, after what seemed like an unreasonably long time, a look of recognition shot across her face. “Oh, yes, it’s a very good word.”

  “Amada,” I began, “in my mind, you’re already my wife.”

  “You’ve said it before,” she whispered. She looked down at my hands, which I’d placed around her waist.

  “I have?” I untied her robe and drew her close, wanting to feel her skin on mine. “If I had my way, I’d marry you tonight, but your brother wants to make sure you’re protected and I promised him we’d do things properly.”

  “The brother who ran off to Las Vegas and got married without telling anyone?”

  “I don’t blame him. I wish I had a brother or sister who loves me as much as he loves you. Truthfully, I agree. It’s important for me to be accepted by your family, and I never want there to be any question. Family is everything.”

  “So, what are you saying?” She put her cheek against mine the same way she did the first night we met. Her heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest.

  “When you’re ready, Amada, will you marry me?”

  “Yes,” she whispered in my ear. “Oh, yes. I love you so much, Rafa.”

  I kissed the side of her face until I could get her to look at me, which she always found it difficult to do. I kissed her the way I always did, yet somehow it was deeper, more full of love than ever before. I reluctantly broke away and opened the same nightstand drawer that had once contained those awful sex toys, because earlier when I was looking for a place for the ring, I was delighted to find it empty and decided to put it there. I opened the box and presented it to her, a large emerald cut diamond ring set in platinum flanked by two tapered baguettes, and I had the matching band set aside for the wedding day. She gasped and hugged me again, delirious with excitement. “I love it,” she said, over and over.

  “I saw it and bought it on the spot. It reminded me of you.” I hadn’t even been looking for a ring, but when I saw it, I knew it had to be hers. It was elegant and sophisticated, a ring fit for my queen. I slipped it on her finger, and naturally it looked even more beautiful. She put her delicate hand on my chest and kept it there for a while, admiring it.

  “I can’t stop looking at it, Rafa. It’s gorgeous. How do you know me so well?”

  “Because you’re everything I’ve ever wanted,” I said.

  We made love again, but this this time there was a whole different energy I couldn’t really define. This woman was going to be my wife, and every part of her body was now mine to cherish and honor as only a husband can. My wife’s breasts, I thought as I caressed her from behind.

  She offered me her body in a way she knew I liked, on her hands and knees, so I took her like that, but after a short while I pulled out and put her on her back to that I could get on top, which was her favorite. Predictably, she started to get excited and bit my shoulder, which I’d grown to crave, and when I went to enter her, she placed her left hand over her sex, the ring glistening between her legs in the soft light of our bedroom. “What do you want, Rafa?” she asked. “Tell me.”

  “You,” I said with a wry smile. Judging by her level of excitement, I had a pretty good idea of what she wanted me to say, but I played dumb. Let her have fun trying to use my own unscrupulous methods on me. The truth was I’d never used explicit language around women because it had always seemed disrespectful, but, then again, I’d never been in love.

  “Oh no, that’s not enough,” she said. “What part of me do you want? Say it.” Glad she felt safe enough to try something out of the ordinary, I decided I’d go as far as she’d let me. If she responded with disgust at any point, it might ruin a special evening, but at least then we’d learn where our limits were.

  “Your mind?” I teased, hovering above her.

  “Rafa,” she begged. I smiled and pushed her hair behind her ear, running my fingers down her neck to distract myself from feeling emotionally overwhelmed. I swallowed hard. There was no question I’d give her anything she desired, but I didn’t want to her to see a different side of me and not like it.

  “I know what you want. Are you sure?” I cautioned, leaning in. “If I accidentally say something a little too vulgar, you’re not going to get mad at me, are you? I’m not even sure if I’m forgiven for upsetting you this afternoon.”

  “If it’s too much, I’ll tell you,” she said, nuzzling my neck. “I won’t get mad.”

  “Good,” I said, trusting her. “Well, since you asked, I think I’m in the mood to eat my wife’s pussy.” I looked directly into her eyes and waited for a reaction, but I took her silence as a good sign, so I moved her hand aside and kissed it. I paused and took a moment to admire her, brazenly holding her open and contemplating her in a way that was so intimate I even surprised myself.

  “Open your legs for your husband, mamita. I want to look at you for a while.” She hesitated, so I put a hand on her knee and guided her so that she was comfortable but spread wide.

  I took my time caressing her vulva with an open hand, then slipped a finger inside. I continued to talk to her, watching as she squirmed. “So pretty. So soft. No one gets to kiss you here but me. Only I know what you taste like.”

  “Only you.”

  “I love to run my tongue along the slit of your pussy. Do you like it when I do that?” I withdrew my finger and lightly caressed her on the outside, simulating the movement.

  “Yes,” she said. “I think about it when I touch myself.”

  “Do you?” I ran my fingertips along the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. “When does this happen?” A while ago I’d gotten the feeling she was turned on by the idea of being watched but was still too shy to ask for it. Maybe tonight would be the night.

  “When you’re not here and I miss you.”

  “Oh, baby, you have to let me see,” I groaned. “Do you call out my name when you make yourself come?” I leaned in and gave her a peck on the lips, then licked the curve of her breasts as she ran her fingers through my hair. It drove me wild to imagine what she must look like on her bed, alone, eyes closed, legs spread, fingers slick, thinking of me.

  “Yes, I really do,” she gasped, then looked up at me with a mix of excitement and coyness. “Would you let me watch you?” she whispered.

  “Watch me what?”

  “Rafa.” My lady couldn’t say it. She was struggling to express her desires with me, of all people. We couldn’t have that.

  “This?” I asked, stroking myself. “You want me to make myself come in front of you? Of course, I’d do anything to make you happy.” I waited for an answer, but she only stole a glance and then averted her eyes.

  “It’s alright to look, m
amita. We’re in love.” I wanted to teach her how to keep her eyes on me, but she didn’t seem ready, so I stopped and put both hands on the outside of her thighs until she felt comfortable enough to turn back. I’d find another way that was softer, less aggressive. “How does your favorite poem begin again?”

  “Had we but world enough, and time,” she began, a faint smile across her lips, “This coyness, lady, were no crime.”

  “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about with me.” Wanting to give her something to look forward to, I had an idea. “It’ll be one of my gifts to you on our wedding night. I promise, you’ll enjoy it.” I caressed the side of her face with the back of my hand, reveling in her sweet femininity.

  “What if I’m shy again?”

  “You’ll let me know you’re ready.” I thought carefully about what would be easiest for her. “I’ll wait for you to ask me to show you how much I love you.”

  “And then what will you do?” she panted. I closed my eyes for just a moment and imagined Amada in her bridal lingerie.

  “I’ll sit you up against the headboard, legs spread, and enjoy the view of your beautiful pussy as I undress. When I’m naked, I’ll dip my fingers inside you to get them wet.”

  “Rafa—” She reached out to touch me, wanting me closer, but I kept still, not wanting to spoil the moment. Stroking my arm, her chest rose and fell like a scared rabbit’s.

  “Then I’ll lie back between your legs and take my hard cock in my hand, stroking slowly at first, then faster as I think about us, maybe the night you were in the tub and I had to pretend I wasn’t dying to fuck you.”

  “Then what?” she asked, her voice a thin whisper, her lips parted and dry.

  “You’ll watch over my shoulder until I come. And if you want—” Her eyes wide, I hesitated, wondering if it was too much.

  “Yes?”

  “You can clean me off with your tongue.”

  Amada gasped, but before she had time to react, I intertwined my hands with hers and dove down between her legs, thinking of nothing but how much I adored her as I made love to her with my mouth. When I knew she was close and I was about to burst, I came up and used her hand to wipe my face, making sure she saw exactly how much of herself was all over me. I was usually more discreet, but tonight was different. It was time for us to open up and begin to test the limits of our intimacy, if there were any, because I wanted my wife to be my best friend, too. Above all else, we had to be each other’s sanctuary.

  I know she was taken aback by seeing herself all over me, but this time she didn’t look away, even when I brought her hand to her mouth so that she could taste herself. She hesitated but did as I asked, and when she looked up for approval, I nodded. “Now you understand why I can’t get enough.”

  Never breaking eye contact, I inserted two fingers inside her and gave her an internal massage while putting pressure on her abdomen from the outside to intensify the sensation. I knew it had to feel very good by the way she clutched at my arm and gasped.

  “Oh, God,” she moaned. She brought her legs together and squeezed my arm, but I pushed them apart again.

  “Hm, you’re so swollen inside,” I said. I kept going until she started grabbing at the sheets and then at my wrist over my watch.

  “What are you doing?” she moaned.

  “I’m rubbing my wife’s G-spot. I could give you an orgasm this way, but I think I’d rather feel you come around my cock.” I applied particularly strong pressure and made her rise off the bed a little.

  “I think you’re ready to be fucked,” I said, meeting her eyes.

  “Yes, Rafa,” she said. She was so worked up she was struggling to speak, which I took as a compliment.

  “Tell me. Do you want to come this way or do you want me to fuck you?” I continued to finger her while using my free hand to caress her chest and belly. I waited patiently, deciding that I would give her as much time as she needed to find the courage to speak openly, occupying myself by thinking about what kind of pendant I’d like to see dangling between her breasts.

  “I want my husband to fuck me,” she said finally, then took my hand off her collarbone, licked it and then bit down hard on the fleshiest part. With my hand still across her mouth and cheek, I licked the fingers of my other hand clean, then positioned myself over her.

  Eager to please, I said everything that came to mind between deep kisses and gentle bites on her neck. “Amada, you’ll never want for anything in this bed. I was put on this Earth to please you.” I placed her hand on the base of my engorged penis. “Feel what you do to me. No one can make me this hard but my wife.” I stroked the inside of her thigh and continued to talk, hoping it wouldn’t be too much, but the uncertainty made it very hot for me, too.

  “You need your husband’s come inside you, don’t you?”

  “I do.” She was so aroused she could barely speak, and really, so was I.

  “Good, because that’s where I’m going to put it every night. Relax your pelvis and keep your legs spread for me so that I can go deep.” I told her to put her arms around my shoulders and checked one last time that she wet and ready, then entered her slowly, using long, measured strokes I knew would ignite every nerve ending inside her.

  “Deeper,” she begged, so I leaned back, put my arms under her legs and held her by the hips as I continued my slow, deep thrusts.

  “If you want more of me than that, you’re going to have to let me get behind you,” I said, noting with satisfaction that in this position I was still able to reach the A-spot beside her cervix at the finish of every stroke, just like I had the night we made love by the ocean.

  “No, this is perfect,” she said, stroking my arms. “I want to see you.”

  “Then keep your eyes on me, mamita,” I said. “I’m right here, fucking you.”

  I made love to her with as much vigor and passion as I thought she could endure, taking the time to push and grind into her hips with the satisfaction of knowing I’d be on her mind tomorrow when she felt the inevitable ache between her legs. She was all curves and softness underneath me, and when we found our steady, perfect rhythm, it was beyond divine. I looked down and saw that Amada had put one of her delicate hands on my chest, her long thin, fingers and French-tipped nails spread out across my skin like a silk fan. Contemplating her sweet face, I recalled a time when I never dreamed I could be with a woman like her.

  ***

  I had just celebrated my nineteenth birthday and was walking home from a bar with a couple of friends at two in the morning. It was warm and breezy as it usually is in Havana, and as we turned the corner of San Ignacio and Empedrado, she saw me and called out. “Pssst. ¡Oye! ¡Ojos azules!”

  We stopped in our tracks, drunk as skunks and barely aware of where we were and what we were doing. My friends Mateo and Samuel were even drunker than I was and burst out laughing at the sound of her voice.

  “Who’s there?” said Mateo, badly slurring his words. “Is that Patrizia and her horny sister?” He called out with the complete intellectual disconnect of every man who’s ever had way too much to drink and knows he’s doomed to pass out or throw his guts up, whichever comes first.

  “Shut up, stupid!” I said, my voice a low hiss. “You’re going to get us arrested.”

  Samuel came up behind me and pushed me in the direction of the darkened apartment building. “That’s Patrizia and Jacinta’s house.” He slapped me on the back and whistled under his breath. “Let’s go.”

  Somehow we managed to make it up three flights of stairs without killing ourselves, and we found Patrizia and Jacinta were waiting for us at the top floor, obviously blotto themselves. We went inside the dim, sparsely furnished apartment that usually smelled of pork fat but tonight smelled of cigarette smoke and cheap alcohol. The peeling paint was particularly bad in this building, and to make matters worse, it looked like no one had swept the floor in months.

  “Where’s your aunt?” asked Samuel, flopping down on the couch. Jacinta sat
down next to him holding a cracked drinking glass full of rum while Mateo laid himself out on the grimy floor, already half asleep.

  “With her boyfriend.” Patrizia came and stood next to me. Her frosted pink lipstick and skimpy tank top reminded me of the jineteras that approached tourists in Old Havana, and I wondered whether sooner or later this apparently unintentional look wouldn’t become a job requirement.

  “Why weren’t you in class today?” I asked.

  “I’m not going back to school. It’s boring, don’t you think?” She took my hand and led me to the other end of the couch where Samuel and Jacinta had already started making out. His hands were exceptionally busy under her tiny denim skirt, so I turned away from them and laid my head back to rest a second. Thankfully I’d shown some restraint tonight and hadn’t gone off the rails like Mateo.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I said, not in the mood to argue with someone drunker than me.

  “What are you going to do? Don’t you want to get married soon?”

  “Married?” I practically choked on the word. “No, I’m going to be a doctor.”

  “Sure you are,” she said, snorting.

  Before I realized what was happening, she’d climbed on top of me and had shoved her tongue in my mouth, but I maneuvered her back onto the couch at once, thoroughly repulsed. It wasn’t the first time she’d tried to get me to have sex with her, but tonight she was especially aggressive. She tried again, and when she put her hand on my chest, my eyes zeroed in on her chipped nails and thick fingers.

  “Patrizia, no.”

  “Why not?” she said. Her dark eyes narrowed. “Don’t you like me?”

  I was sobering up quickly and starting to realize what a mistake it had been to come up to the apartment, but I was stuck now, because Mateo was practically a dead body and Samuel was balls deep in Jacinta, who was beginning to moan a little too loud not to attract attention.

  “I’m too drunk. Let’s just hang out.”

  “Maybe what they say about you is true,” she said.

  “And what’s that?” I waited expectantly for her reply, but I knew what was coming. I could never win. She brought her hand close to her face and started absentmindedly flicking off more bits of blue nail polish.