Faith in the Flesh

by Maira Isabel Pita

  “Really? I’d love to read your articles and taste your recipes. I love a woman who’s into her career but also has time for the sadly endangered domestic arts. Anyway, I think…” His arms flexed beautifully. “I think I’ve got it!” He sat up so abruptly I didn’t have time to get out of his way. His eyes were suddenly so close they drowned my awareness of everything else and I couldn’t see any reason not to let his mouth lightly touch mine for an instant. His lips were cool and firm and, as far as my pulse was concerned, a complete flatline. I didn’t feel anything except the pleasant, gentle sensation. Nevertheless I was a bit flustered as I backed out of the car and straightened up. I smoothed my hair away from my face. It was slightly damp at the temples and my silk shirt was sticking to my back yet I realized the cotton panties beneath my skirt were surprisingly dry.

  Following me lithely out of the car, he tossed his half of the key triumphantly into the air. “Not bad,” he declared, trapping the fragment of metal in his fist as it fell. “For a cop.”

  “You’re a policeman?” I asked breathlessly. It turned me on that he had the right to restrain me if I decided to be a bad girl…

  He slammed the car door closed behind him. “I’m suspended from active duty at the moment. That’s why I’m helping my friend out here for a few weeks.” He strode around the hood. “I’ve got nothing better to do,” he closed the door on the driver’s side, “and I need the money.”

  I had to admire his frankness. “Why were you suspended?”

  “Not for kissing women without their permission, if that’s what you’re thinking. Come on, let’s go inside and I’ll make you a shiny new key.”

  I retrieved my purse from the top of the car and followed him into the narrow little corridor at the back of the shop, where he abruptly stopped and turned sideways so I could walk in ahead of him. The belated gentlemanly gesture was a double-edged sword since I was forced to brush up against him on my way in. I experienced a faint lightning flash of heat in my belly as my breasts brushed his hard chest but my heart handled his smile as easily as I had once played jump rope. He was just a bit too muscular, just a bit too obvious but I was having fun, and I stood closer to him than I should have while he pieced my key together, made a mold of it and forged a new one.

  “There you go.” He held it up between us.

  Respecting the spirit of the game, I reached for it.

  He let me take it but then, swift as a snake striking, he caught my hand in his.

  “How much do I owe you?” I asked, able to wrest my hand free only because he let me, making a point about his superior strength. It excited me against my will.

  “You owe me a drink,” he said. “I’m about to close up.”

  “Can you take a rain check? I just flew into town this morning for my great aunt’s funeral and it’s been a long day.”

  “I’m sorry. Where are you staying?”

  “With my mom. She has a house in the Gables.”

  “Nice. Then how about meeting me for a drink tomorrow night? I’m warning you, if you try to say no I’ll just have to find an excuse to arrest you. I was forced to give up my gun but I still have my handcuffs.” With the back of his hand he gently lifted a glossy dark wing of hair out of my eye. “Be a good girl, Ariana,” he urged quietly, his fingertips stroking my cheek as he let his hand fall. “Say yes.”

  “I’m not a girl anymore.” Considering how the rest of me responded to his sexy threat, I was very pleased with my cool reply.

  “Good, because I much prefer women. Girls are too easy, yet at the same time they’re almost impossible to please.” As he spoke he walked to the front of the shop and locked the door. “Anything turns them on,” he added, turning the sign so the side that said Closed faced the street. “But they don’t know their bodies well enough yet to experience truly intense pleasure the way a woman can.” He returned to stand directly in front of me.

  I was more impressed by his perceptions than shocked by how intimate our conversation had become.

  “You have to let me buy you a drink, Ariana,” he insisted.

  “Well…” I had no idea what was going to happen with John tonight and it had been a long day. I didn’t have the strength to resist but I also didn’t need to surrender completely. “Give me your number and I’ll call you, Eric. Maybe I can fit you in…”

  His eyes narrowed as though my tone had made him catch sight of a dangerous possibility. “Why not fit me in right here and now, Ariana?” he asked so quietly it was almost possible for me to believe I had only imagined the proposition.

  I have no idea why I hesitated to respond. I should have said “No” at once and turned my back on him for daring to insult me like that but for some reason I just stood there letting him hold my eyes long enough for him to reasonably interpret my silence as submission. Even when he took the key out of my hand again and laid its pristine metal body on the counter I had time to protest. Yet I remained as silent as my great aunt lying on her eternal silk bed deep in the earth. I was hypnotized by this strikingly handsome man’s confidence and directness. There was something irresistibly pure about his maleness that was already intoxicatingly mixed in my imagination with authority and forcefulness.

  “Come on,” he whispered, gently taking my hand as though he realized I was under a spell that could easily be dispelled if his attitude was not appropriately reverent. He led me to the back of the shop and opened the door to a room that had to be windowless because it was pitch-black. Black as the pupils in John’s eyes as he held the coffee shop door open for me…black as the suit John had been wearing.

  In my oddly compliant state, I scarcely realized I was thinking about one man while docilely following another one into the small lunch room that was revealed by the dim overhead light he flicked on. I took in a small wooden table and two chairs, a shelf holding an ancient microwave, a coffeemaker accompanied by the usual entourage of Styrofoam cups, plastic spoons and refined sugar and a tiny refrigerator purring quietly in a corner. The walls were bare and the dark gray floor was concrete. I could feel its chill through my high heels and for some inexplicable reason its cold hardness turned me on.

  The down-to-earth, bare-bones atmosphere of that bleak little room acted like a perverse aphrodisiac on my senses as Eric closed the door by turning to face me and pressing me up against it, letting me feel the hard bulge growing inside his tight jeans. He was so tall his buried erection pressed into the base of my belly, making me thrillingly conscious of my bikini panties pressed damply against my labia and affording me no real protection whatsoever. I caught my breath in disbelief that I was about to let a complete stranger’s cock head kiss my sex lips and then thrust casually up between them but it was definitely going to happen. Already one of his hands had slipped between my legs and up my skirt while his other hand flung open my jacket and covered one of my breasts through the silk top.

  “Mm…” His clear blue eyes burned into mine like ice as he yanked my cotton panties down with one hand just far enough to cup my pussy possessively, and he smiled almost grimly as I gasped from the pleasurable shock.

  “I-I’ve never done anything like this before,” I confessed.

  “Are you afraid?” he asked quietly, his smile dimming as his thumb searched for my clitoris amidst the slick folds of my smoothly shaved labia.

  “No,” I whispered truthfully.

  “Why, because I told you I was a cop?” His thumb found my clit and began undoing me from the inside out by gently circling and teasing so that there was no way I could even think of resisting what was happening now.

  “No…” I loved the way his other hand kneaded my breast through my shirt, breathlessly arousing me with the sensation of my stiff nipple pressed against his even harder palm.

  “I want to get naked with you, Ariana. I want to take my time with you.” Despite the tender promise his voice was rough. “But not now… Well, right now I’m just going to turn you around and fuck you.”

  I remained s
ubmissively silent as with my eyes I commanded him not to disappoint me. A collage of images and feelings accumulated throughout the eventful day darkened my mind, stoking my sexual excitement in a haunting way, and all I wanted in those illicit moments outside time was the ultimate experience of a big, hard cock filling me up.

  As he stepped back to unzip his jeans I quickly turned around and braced myself on the door with both hands, arching my back and lifting my hips invitingly back toward him. I didn’t even want to see his penis, all I wanted was to blindly, wantonly experience its thrusts, not knowing anything about it just as I scarcely knew anything about the man behind it…the man wielding his rigid cock like a weapon in one hand as with his other hand he pushed my skirt up out of his way.

  “God,” he groaned. “What a beautiful ass!”

  I cried out in surprise and pleasure when he spanked me. Both my tender cheeks burned beneath the blow and the heat surged enticingly down into my pussy. I was deliciously conscious of my soft panties shackling my thighs as I spread my legs just far enough, bracing myself on my thin high heels as best I could, preparing for his penetration. I closed my eyes and kept them closed because it made me feel even more vulnerably open and exposed.

  “You want my cock inside you, Ariana?” he asked harshly.

  “Yes,” I whispered, afraid he would give me too much time to think. I wanted him to thrust me out of normal space, so I was aware only of his pulsing force stroking me and lifting me up on it…

  I whimpered when I felt the promisingly thick head of his erection kiss the hungry, wet heart of my vulva, a kiss that illuminated darker depths inside me than I had ever realized were there.

  The sensation of his cock plunging into me all at once was unbelievable.

  He gripped my hips with both hands and began swiftly sliding in and out of me, stretching my tight passage open around his forceful strokes in time with my grateful cries. He fucked me exactly as I had hoped he would and it felt too good for words. I can scarcely describe how fulfilled I felt inside that sparsely furnished room at the back of a locksmith’s shop. It was as though a rock-hard cock was the key to everything when it was driving into me like that.

  I felt as though he was thrusting himself to a point deep in my flesh where the pleasure was so intense I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand it unless I opened myself up to it absolutely… Unless I shed all traces of anxious resistance and relaxed my innermost being around his relentless rhythm… Unless I accepted and embraced the power his erection possessed to ram deeper and deeper into my body… Until he was banging me mercilessly, cruelly digging his fingers into my skin for leverage. And just as all my senses came together in the delirious desire to be violently fucked from behind forever he pulled out of me abruptly. I moaned, only slightly consoled by the sensation of his cum raining down on my ass.

  * * * * *

  Finally en route to Mami’s house, I was talking to myself in disbelief. “Jesus, I can’t believe I did that! My God!” Death was decidedly an aphrodisiac. I was completely out of control today. Yet maybe it was Miami that was doing it to me, resurrecting my passionate, wildly in-love-with-life nature that seldom had a chance to express itself up north where people were generally as coolly reserved as the weather. Did I really have to go back there?

  Eric had been as tender with me afterward as he had been rough during the act. He commanded me not to move while he procured a napkin from the counter and then cleaned his cum off me slowly, clearly enjoying the job of caressing me. Then he gently slid my panties back up my thighs, smoothed down my skirt and, turning me around to face him, he took me in his arms. He didn’t kiss me—he simply held me against him for a few moments while I savored the look I had glimpsed in his eyes—an expression of reverence mingled with a ghost of shock, as though he couldn’t quite believe what I had let him do, a reaction I found both reassuring and flattering.

  I, on the other hand, had felt utterly fulfilled and relaxed. I would have regretted the experience only if he hadn’t been able to fuck me long and hard enough but he definitely had and I was happy. Back out in the shop he carefully wrote his phone number down for me and I slipped it into my purse with a smile.

  “Are you going to call me?” he asked, as vulnerable now as he had been forceful just minutes before.

  “Yes,” I promised, not really knowing whether I would or not.

  Chapter Three

  After a long, hard day—and it had definitely been that—it always felt wonderful to take my clothes off and toss them aside like so many used up emotions. After the baptism of a long, hot shower I would be ready for a fresh start.

  I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about John. The memory of him had been there at the very heart of my awareness even while another man was banging me from behind. I had only spent a few minutes in John’s company yet already he had branded himself into my feelings the way looking directly at the sun leaves a darkly luminous spot behind the eyelids. The thought of him had been in the back of my mind while they lowered my great aunt into the earth, while I ate and conversed with my relatives in the restaurant, while I flirted with Eric and even while he fucked me in a way that made me feel all in favor of police brutality.

  * * * * *

  John stood framed by the large painting hanging in the window behind him. The artist had flung random waves of color over the canvas, which now provided a dramatic contrast to his short-sleeved black button-down shirt and black Dockers. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets as he glanced up and down the street in between looking down at his watch. It was five minutes to eight. She wasn’t late yet—he had only just arrived himself five minutes ago—but she wasn’t early either. The sun had long since retired behind the pastel buildings and the soft light lingering in the humid air made the street feel like a watercolor come to life. He loved Coral Gables. Tonight however, his vision was trained like a periscope on the currents of people flowing up and down the sidewalk, and at last he spotted her. Already he recognized that relaxed, confident stride. That’s it, he thought. Come to me. She was wearing red over white—sexuality and innocence all wrapped up into one irresistible package. He turned his eyes up toward the heavens for a grateful instant and then began walking toward her.

  * * * * *

  In Coral Gables, all the streets have names not numbers but I knew Andaluciawas only a couple of blocks away now. I had walked all the way from Mami’s house, about three-quarters of a mile. The temperature was ideal, especially when cool gusts of wind coming from the direction of the ocean played with my hair and slipped up my skirt to caress my thighs. I thought of Boston’s frigid wind tunnels and paralyzing windchill factors, often on the wrong side of zero degrees, and shuddered inwardly. The sky above the old-world Spanish-style buildings had gone from the loveliest blue imaginable to a luminous violet that just happened to be my favorite color…

  “Ariana.”

  The deep, quiet voice brought my eyes down from the sky to a man’s tall body in a black shirt and pants. “John,” I gasped because I had almost walked right past him in my celestial contemplation.

  His smile deepened. “I’d love to know what you were thinking just now, Ariana.”

  “Oh, I was just admiring the color of the sky. You never see shades of violet so subtle anywhere else.” We began walking in the direction of the gallery.

  “I guess you’ve never been to the desert,” he remarked. “In the desert the entire horizon can be a whole shimmering spectrum of violet, purple and lavender colors impossible to describe. Colors so beautiful you almost feel as though you’re looking at a magical portal into another world.”

  From the moment I met him my instincts had told me this man meant every word he said so his poetic description wasn’t just calculated to impress me. “What desert was that?” I asked earnestly.

  “The Sahara, in Egypt.”

  I sighed. “I’ve always wanted to go to Egypt! But is it safe these days?”

  “As safe as anything else in li
fe.” He held the gallery door open for me and I preceded him into the cold, shadowy interior where all the lights hung inwardly over individual paintings. The small space was crowded but the atmosphere was formally hushed. He took my arm and guided me toward a young man in a white waiter’s jacket who was walking around with a tray of little plastic champagne glasses. His fingers were warm against my bare skin and his grip was somehow both polite and possessive. My awareness of his hand was the only thing that mattered. Everything else in the room felt like a dream in which only his touch was real.

  I accepted the glass of champagne he handed me. “Thank you.” I smiled up at him.

  He touched his plastic rim to mine. He seemed about to say something, because one of his dimples deepened like a period at the end of a silent sentence, but he merely sipped the sparkling wine.

  “What?” I asked. The champagne was a bit flat and tepid but I didn’t mind.

  “What?” he echoed.

  “You were about to say something…”

  “I was?”

  “Yes, you were.”

  His smile deepened. “I think you heard me.”

  I couldn’t seem to feel the floor beneath my feet when he looked at me that way.

  He touched his glass to mine again and then drained it. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” he said abruptly.

  My heart seemed to stop. “What do you mean?”

  His eyes fell to my painted toenails in white-strapped sandals, traveled slowly up my legs, then my breasts and finally came to rest on my face again. “It’s hard to look at anything else with you around, Ariana.”

  I felt exactly the same way about him. “We should make an effort.”

  “Whatever you like.”

  It was an effort to turn away from him but I managed to move over to a wall dominated by a large, realistically surreal work. The naked man in the dark foreground was facing into the painting, half lying down, half sitting as if he had just woken up. He was staring up at a canvas resting on an easel before him, the painting inside the painting depicting a flesh-colored maze.