by Luke Steel
“An installation. A lot of this area was abandoned after the storm, and the arts community is taking advantage of the space while it’s here.”
“But how do you get it out of here once the area comes back?”
Sara shrugs. “You don’t necessarily. The transient nature of art and all that.” She steps back and gestures for me to sit down on the mats. “Hungry?”
“Starved.”
I stretch out on the mats while Sara starts poking into the cooler bag.
She unfolds several compartments in the bag, revealing some napkins, a thermos and cups, two wrapped packages that already smell spicy and amazing, and a paper sack that she holds to the side. I see a little dusting of powdered sugar on the lip. I think I know what’s in there.
“You brought me beignets.”
“The special Mama True recipe. Also a crawfish salad muffuletta, and some hot coffee.” She looks up through her hair. “I told you I’d take care of you today.”
Sara pours the coffee while I unwrap the rest of the food, careful to keep that bag of beignets in my sights. I’m the kind of guy who goes for dessert first because I’m a grownup and can do what I want. Sara, though, keeps her eye on me, snatching the bag back when I get too close.
We stretch out and study the art around us while we eat. It’s quiet and not too hot, though the moisture in the air is building—I can feel it.
“I can’t get over how awesome this is. Amazing that it’s in the middle of nothing.”
Sara turns her face up to the sun and smiles. “I know. Alive in the dead, sad in the beautiful.”
“But that’s the point, right?” I say, my eyes roving over the jazz mosaic. The blues singer is writhing, almost alive on the wall, larger than life, but poised, as though any second she’ll open her glass eyes and step into the world. “Beauty in the ruins?”
“Not ruins. At least hopefully not. Buildings are for people. Even industrial structures are built for human activity. Commerce so we can live. And make art.” She sets her sandwich to the side and balls a napkin between her hands, studying the high walls around us. “Even if they tear all this down, I hope they put something beautiful in its place. Or why do it at all?”
She says it so matter-of-factly, I find myself nodding along. I develop land for a living. I never thought of it like that.
We sit without talking for a while then, just eating and studying. The food is ambrosia, of course. And we could not have asked for a more beautiful day. The sky is a deep, clear blue above us, and in the distance between the buildings, I see the wildflower fields and the shuttered buildings contrasted against these sheer walls of paint and sculpture. It’s like sitting in the window looking into a completely different world of color and light. I’m engrossed, so I almost don’t notice when Sara goes peeping into the beignet sack.
“Caught! Don’t even think about it.”
“I brought enough for both of us.” She pulls the pastry out of the bag, and the powdered, fried goodness is almost as beautiful as she is.
She tears off a piece and feeds it to me, laughing when I bite the tips of her fingers on purpose. Playtime is short though. Beignets are serious business.
I know I’m in love with this woman when she shows me she has more than one in that sack.
After the sandwiches are gone, we sit a little longer, sipping coffee, and I reflect. Sated, surrounded by beauty, and in the company of a beautiful, sexy woman. It’s a New Orleans fantasy come to life, miles and miles from Bourbon Street. I don’t want it to end.
After a while, though, Sara looks around us. “Going to get hot real soon. You ready to go?”
I look once more up at the Jazz mosaic. This one is definitely my favorite. “Yeah, I guess.” I turn to her. “Thank you for showing me this place.”
“I’m glad you liked it. Really glad.”
I lean in to kiss her. She lets me explore, her lips parted and open for me. She tastes like coffee and sugar. Sweet like the rest of her.
“Do I have you for the rest of the day, too?”
She breathes out. “I don’t know. What do you have in mind?”
“Hot day. Let’s go find some coastline and grab a beer.”
“I didn’t bring a swimsuit.”
I stand up and pull her with me, sneak a hand under her dress and grab on. “Perfect.”
6
I asked her to spend the night with me again. I knew better. If we were parting ways and that’s all it was going to be, spending the very last night together was the worst thing I could do. I couldn’t help it. We got back from the beach late after a day of sun and drinking, and in the end I couldn’t let that be it.
She hesitated, but not for long. And even when I thought we might be too exhausted to do much, I couldn’t keep my hands off her until late, late into the night.
After a week of early mornings, this is the one day we slept in—and by sleep in I mean nine. My flight’s at noon. I order everything on the room service breakfast menu while Sara showers. And then I join her for the tail end—to help wash her back. I’m a giving guy that way.
Room service arrives just as we tumble out of the shower.
Sara eyes the spread appreciatively. “Nice. I could get used to a guy like you.”
I feel a little hitch in my chest. I recognize it as the same heartburn I felt the very first morning when she left the room and I thought I would miss her on the elevator.
We’re wrapped in hotel bathrobes. I pull a chair out for her and enjoy the view of the robe spreading open over her chest when she sits. “I don’t think those beignets are Mama True, but they’ll have to do.”
Sara pulls a chunk from one and I love watching it disappear into her mouth. “No, they’re not. But they’ll do. This is wonderful.”
I kiss the powdered sugar from her lips and then sit down on the other side of the table. I was starving when I ordered, but now seated, I feel the clock ticking behind me. This feels good, right. Breakfast with Sara after a week of making love to her. Am I really not going to have this tomorrow, too?
I pour the coffee and try to pick at the mushroom omelet.
“Something wrong?”
“No,” I say. Then, “Yeah. I wish I didn’t live so far away.”
Sara chews, sips her coffee, looks down at her lap.
Not the response I hoped for. I feel like a dumbass. I’m breaking my own rules. And Sara doesn’t seem to be on the same page with what I want.
I paste on a lazy smile, go for the charm offense. “Plus, I hate to fly. It’s like traveling on a city bus, only with wings.”
Sara smiles and shrugs. “Beats the alternative. How long would it take you to drive?”
“I don’t even want to think about it.”
I pick up my coffee cup and walk over to the balcony and look out. I feel Sara come up beside me. Still beautiful—especially beautiful—in the morning. She points to the horizon.
“Little bit of rain brewing there. You fly out when?”
“Noon. I’ll beat the weather, I think. I hope.”
She leans up on her tiptoes and kisses my cheek, then turns to go back inside. I tug at the sleeve of her robe and she comes back, moving in to kiss me again. Longer, a real kiss this time. The cups are left abandoned on the ledge when I pick up her up and carry her back into the room.
I don’t make it to the bed. I set her at the edge of the table. She’s still naked under the robe. She tugs at the belt of mine and strips it away, her thighs opening for me. I’m hard, ready, and I feel her hand grip my cock as she urges me into her.
I can’t have her, it seems, but we have this. We’re very, very good at this.
We’re lucky most of the dishes are still on the cart otherwise everything would go flying. She bites my ear, sinks her fingers into my shoulders. “Are you going to tell all your friends about your crazy weekend fling with a N’awlins girl?”
Her pussy feels so good around my cock. I pull her hips hard into me. “Yep. All of
them.” She arches back and I feel her leg hook around my hip. “Are you going to tell all your friends about your irresponsible fling with a tourist?”
“Not a story. Everyone gets one of those.”
“Except you.”
“Except me. Until now.”
“Glad I could be of service. In and out.”
“And in again.”
“And in again,” I agree, pushing with my hips. She hangs on, still at the edge of the table, her thighs wide for me.
After a while, it’s not enough. I love watching her tits bounce up and down while I fuck her, but I want them in my mouth, I want her all over me. I pick her up again and walk back to the edge of the bed. This time I sit on the edge of it while she rides astride me, moving high up on her knees to give us leverage. She rises and falls. When she rises up I take one, then the other, nipple into my mouth, sucking and licking while I feel her pussy get wet and slick as she gets close.
No more words. I’m watching the pleasure on her face as she takes my cock, milks it. Watching her is driving me closer. The robe falls off her completely now, and she’s so beautiful it hurts.
At the last second, she opens her eyes and then kisses me. I realize what she wants—the same thing I wanted, to see the pleasure she’s giving me. Her eyes are open when she puts her hands in my hair and pulls my head back, leaning in to bite and lick at my mouth while she rides me. I close my eyes and let her have her way. I lean back and let her control the rhythm, the pace, all of it. When I open my eyes again, her face is flushed and hot.
“You holding back again, baby? I can feel you getting close. I can feel that tight pussy so slick and wet. You’re almost there, aren’t you.” It’s not a question.
She’s battling it. “I want to see you. I want you to come, too.”
I stand and toss her back onto the bed. She bounces on the mattress, her legs spread, and I fall down onto her, push back in. “Try to hold back now.”
Pumping into her faster, I hold her hands down on either side of her head. But even pinned, I can feel her fucking me back, stroke for stroke. I press my forehead to hers as it builds. I’m going to fucking explode. I can’t stop it. I feel it happening to her, too. A hot wave moving up through her, pulsing around my cock, locking down tight as we both come. When it finally happens, I can’t even breathe.
“Safe flight,” she says.
She walked with me to the lobby, after my bags were packed and sent down to the valet. And now here we sit, and here I am, battling this tightness in my chest, my stomach. It was even hard to look around the hotel room before I closed the door behind us that final time. Now we’re adrift in the tide of new tourists checking in, checking out, exploring the lobby, while I wait for the car to be brought around.
“I had fun,” she says.
“You never have fun,” I tease back, and brush a hair away from her cheek.
“That’s true. But I did with you. Thank you.” She moves to kiss my cheek, but forget that. I take her face in my hands and kiss her the way I want to. When I pull back, her eyes are like melted chocolate. That’s what I like to see.
“Don’t mention it,” I tell her, and then clasp her hands. Her hands are still silky soft in mine, flexing nervously. And suddenly she seems anxious to leave.
I don’t blame her. I’m awful at goodbyes, too. I don’t really understand why this has to be goodbye, either, but all signs from her point to sticking to the original deal. Have fun, and so long. I don’t want to know that she’s taken, has a life with some lucky bastard and I could never be a part of it.
Still, when she starts to move away, I grab her hand back, hold on a little longer. “Listen, I might be back in a few months. If I can pin it down, would you meet me here? Would you see me?”
Sara looks sad and breathes deep, her mouth opening on an answer that I have a feeling I will not like.
I cut her off before I can hear it. “No, I know, bad idea. I … yeah.” She squeezes my hand tight and then lets go. The space opens up between us and this time I don’t close the distance again. “I had a really good time, too.”
Sara puts on her dark sunglasses and smiles from behind them. Turning in a patch of sunlight, she gives me a small wave, and then she steps out the doors of the hotel.
And then she’s gone.
“Now’s not the time, Gloria. I’m serious. Your timing can not, could not, will never be worse than right now.”
“Then why did you answer your phone, silly? God created voicemail for a reason.”
The woman’s right. I’m in the back of the limousine speeding toward the airport. When my phone rang, I was trying to figure out how exactly to kick my own dumb ass. I answered the phone to drown out the dull screaming in my head.
I’m calling myself all kinds of stupid. I should have run after her into the street. I can’t believe I let her go. I know she would have just told me, in a nice way, to take a flying leap, but there’s a part of me that feels like an idiot and a coward for not even trying. Sara. I met this perfect, gorgeous, amazing woman and I let her walk out of the hotel and away forever.
“Clark, you’re leaving the city without even a word to these folks. I’m telling you, you’ll want to see what you can work out with them—we’ll get so much more support from them if we’re all on board. We’re talking press, ease of permits, the right construction. The whole deal. It’s a big ole family down here.”
“I don’t need to kiss the cousins, Gloria. We’re going to be pumping millions of dollars back into this city—they can damn well be grateful for that.”
“Clark, it’s not just the money. Katrina ravaged so many of these places, it would come back to us tenfold to do something for the community while we’re at it. Otherwise, what’s the point?” I can almost see her shaking her head at me through this phone. Sara said something just like this to me only yesterday.
I hope they put something beautiful in its place. Or why do it at all?
Gloria sits silently on the other line while I brood.
Finally, I bark at her to send over the dossier from the development board. What else am I going to do on the plane other than cry into my vodka over the woman I let walk away.
I flip open the cover of my tablet and access email. It’s an introductory packet of the Greater New Orleans and Regional Redevelopment board. A portfolio of corporate and commercial projects follow, along with brief bios of each of the members. I’m skimming through them, seeing but not seeing what’s in front of me.
Until I find Sara on page seven.
Sarafina Sepion, assistant executive director of development. The bio mentions a native New Orleanean family with Master of Fine Arts from The New York Academy of Art. I’d recognize that smile anywhere, even if the picture wasn’t taken right next to the art installation she showed me just yesterday. An installation of her work.
The redevelopment board offices are not far from the center of downtown New Orleans. The day is starting to slip into hot when the driver pulls up to the front of the building. The blast of air conditioning is very welcome, even though it’s less than twenty feet from the curb through the office doors.
A receptionist is tapping away at her computer when I walk in. “Can you tell Sara Sepion that J.C. Woodson is here to see her please?” Her eyes go wide when she hears my name. Seems they recognize it here. “Oh, and can you give her these, please?” I hand her a bouquet of flowers I picked up on the way here.
The receptionist scurries off, and I take a small turn around the lobby. There are large paintings here, very abstract, along with a third mosaic piece of a style I think I recognize.
“Mr. Woodson, this is such a pleasant surpri—Clark!” Sara rounds the corner of the office lobby ready to welcome J.C. Woodson. She shrieks when she sees me.
I rehearsed what I was going to say, but I’ve forgotten it now. Something sarcastic and self-deprecating. Will you please be my girlfriend levels of pathetic.
I don’t have a chance because Sara
runs flying at me and throws her arms around my neck. “You’re here. I can’t believe it. You’re here!” The next moment she’s pulled my lips down to hers and I’m only too happy to take a few minutes to give back as good as I get. Two hours ago, I thought I’d never see her again. Kissing her now is a minor miracle.
She pulls back a moment. “Oh, lord, stay. Please stay. I have to see this guy and get him squared away. But …” She arches around, looking to either side of me, trying to spot someone. “But you … I’m so happy you’re here!”
“Sara,” I take her cheeks in my hands, kiss her forehead, her nose. “I’m J.C. Woodson.”
It takes a minute, but I finally get through to her that Clark and J.C. Woodson, i.e. Joseph Clark Woodson, are the same person.
She sits down. “Wait. I spent the week with you and the whole time you’re the guy we’ve been hoping to hear from since Tuesday?”
“Is that why you kept checking your phone? You don’t have a boyfriend?”
“What? No. Wait. Am I the reason you didn’t answer any of our messages?” She grins. “Because you were too busy having a fling with a local?”
“Well, if I’d known you were the welcome wagon, I might have made the time. It would take a lot for you to compete with you.”
It’s many, many more minutes before we work out the whole thing.
Sara asks, “So you’re not here because of my letter?”
“What letter? I saw your bio in the portfolio my assistant sent over. Once I knew your name and where to find you, I had to come.” I kiss her hands, her wrist. “I’m J. Clark Woodson and you’re Sarafina Sepion. Screw the rules. I made them up anyway. I want to see you.”
Sara cuddles closer, her cheek against mine. “I wrote you a letter. I tucked it into your shaving kit.”
“What does it say?”
“That I was too chicken to try to break the rules. I thought you only wanted the fling and I was just being a dumb clingy girl to try and change them after we agreed. So I wrote out my full name and my address and phone number and told you to call me if you thought you might bend the rules just this once.”
“Jesus, woman, I thought you didn’t want to … forget it. God, we’re idiots! From now on, you want something from me, you take it. Just take it. Agreed?”
