Faith in the Flesh

by Maira Isabel Pita

  “You’ve really embraced the concept of the domestic goddess,” he teased, yet it came out sounding more like a taunt.

  “Eric, can I call you back?” His sarcasm turned me off. “I don’t want to burn anything.”

  “Except me?”

  Oh God, I thought. “What do you mean?” I asked innocently.

  “I want to see you again, Ariana, but I get the feeling you’re trying to blow me off.”

  “I already did that, didn’t I?” I just couldn’t resist.

  “That’s not why I want to see you again,” he said without hesitation. “I’d like to take you out to dinner so we can get to know each other better.”

  “Eric, I’m seeing someone else and it’s very serious.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I thought you came down to Miami for a funeral.”

  “I did… That’s where I met him.”

  “So you already knew him when you fucked me?” He suddenly sounded hopeful.

  “Yes, but…but I told you, that wasn’t like me. I don’t know what got into me…”

  “I got into you, baby.”

  His tone stoked a traitorous warmth in my pussy. “Yes, you did,” I whispered.

  His voice hardened. “Did you like having my cock in your mouth?”

  “You know I did.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “In my bedroom,” I replied even as I told myself I shouldn’t be encouraging him like this.

  “That’s good. Lock the door and take off your clothes.”

  “Eric…”

  “You heard me. Do it.”

  My breath caught and I found myself getting up to obey him. The tone of his voice was completely irresistible. He was a cop. He wouldn’t hesitate to force me to obey him. He was an expert at restraining and handcuffing people…

  “Are you naked yet?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “No, not yet, sir.”

  The command in his voice felt like a powerful blow that struck me so deep inside there was no way I could defend myself against how much it turned me on. “No…sir, I have to put the phone down first.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?”

  I dropped the phone on the bed and impatiently pulled off my sundress before quickly slipping out of my panties. Then, deliberately not removing my high-heeled sandals, I got comfortable against some pillows before cradling the instrument between my left ear and shoulder to keep my hands free.

  “Okay,” I said breathlessly.

  “Okay?”

  I smiled, thrilled by how coldly displeased he sounded. “I mean…I did as you said, sir.”

  “You need some serious disciplining, honey.”

  My pussy juiced hotly. “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t need to ask you if you’re wet. I can hear it in your voice, how wet you are. You want my cock don’t you, sweetheart? Too bad you can’t have it. Not now. All you can do is imagine it. And you know what? That’s going to be enough. Just imagining my cock inside you is going to make you come.” He paused. “I didn’t give you permission to touch yourself yet.”

  He had noticed the change in my breathing and my respect for him deepened along with my need as I lifted my fingers off my clit. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “You’ve never been punished before, have you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that’s twice you’ve neglected to address me with the proper respect. Ask me, properly, for permission to touch yourself.”

  I told myself it would be easy to disobey him because he couldn’t see what I was doing but I didn’t believe it. I knew he would somehow be able to sense how excited I was even if I managed to keep silent. No man had ever spoken to me like this before and even as I wondered how much of his dominant attitude was an act I quickly decided I didn’t care. Phone sex was mysteriously liberating and I was very grateful to him for making it so intensely enjoyable.

  “Please, sir,” I said respectfully. “May I touch myself?”

  “That’s not good enough. Try again.”

  Excitement nearly bubbled out of me in the form of a happy giggle. I managed to suppress it but I was grinning as I struggled with my modesty. I could guess what he wanted to hear but I was discovering that it was much easier to do things than it was to talk about them or ask for them.

  “Sir, I’m…I’m thinking about your big cock and how much I…how much I want it inside me. I want your big cock so much, sir. May I touch myself, sir, please?”

  “Yes, you may. And while you touch yourself I want you to imagine my cock slipping into your pussy nice and slow.”

  “Oh yes, sir!” I spread my legs, amazed by how vividly I was able to picture his big erection there on the bed with me, penetrating me.

  “I’m on duty, Ariana. I don’t have all day to spend with bad girls like you. But you’re so fucking beautiful I’m going to let you come. But you’re not just going to come all by yourself whenever you feel like it. You’re going to come with me. You’re going to come when I tell you to. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir.” I closed my eyes and idly fondled one of my breasts as I eased the pressure off my clit a little. I was already so close to the edge it was incredible. I was so hot and wet lying here by myself with his commanding voice flowing through my blood I never wanted the experience to end.

  “Are you ready, baby?”

  “Oh yes, sir, please!” His voice had lost its perversely exciting hardness but already I was past caring. All I wanted was to come and I wanted to come with him and I wanted to come hard.

  “Oh yeah, that’s it… Come for me, sweetheart. Come for me now!”

  I clutched the phone with my left hand so I wouldn’t lose him. I loved listening to his breathless groans as an orgasm crashed through my body, arching my back and forcing me to cry out as all my nerve ends burned like stars for a few divine seconds. Then I became aware of my contentedly pounding heart as my blood cells sizzled slowly back to normal like the foam of a receding tide.

  “That was wonderful, Eric. Thank you.” I felt the need to gain control of myself and the conversation again.

  “My pleasure. Have a nice day with your grandfather. I’ll call you again tomorrow. Believe it or not I can be a very patient man, Ariana.”

  “Eric, please don’t, I—” I never finished the sentence because the quality of the silence told me the connection had gone dead. He had fucked me twice wherever and however he pleased and I sensed he was becoming addicted to the power I let him have over me. And I really liked it too. I was trying hard but I still couldn’t imagine never seeing him again.

  * * * * *

  It was sweet spending time with my grandfather again but after only about an hour I was figuratively climbing the walls of his studio apartment overlooking Coral Way. The constant sound of traffic that would have driven me crazy seemed to keep him company. Being elegantly frail and over ninety years old had done nothing to dampen his appetite. He devoured one-third of the chicken I had roasted for him while I enjoyed a big bowl of salad as Mami settled for a modest portion of skin-free breast along with a small bowl of salad. That she was suddenly watching her weight further confirmed my suspicion that there was a serious man in the picture but there was no chance of talking about him around my grandfather, who would not approve. He was still trying to get over his daughter’s divorce from my father years ago.

  I painted a smile on my face and suffered through a host of family albums for what felt like the hundredth time. They contained faded black-and-white photographs of a time and place as romantic and as dead as the moon even though their physical setting was still only ninety miles away in Cuba.

  While we were sitting on the couch with the past spread open across our laps, the stooped and wrinkled specters of many of the people smiling with youthful radiance in the pictures dropped by to see me, for I was one of the family’s principle roots in the present. I accepted countless dry-
wet kisses on my cheeks and frail hugs from relatives I couldn’t even remember the names of. They arrived in batches of two and three, literally holding each other up. Fortunately none of them stayed very long or we would have run out of places for them to sit. For most of the day the small space rang with lively, energetic conversation that defied the geriatric vocal chords producing it.

  The sun was beginning to set when the flow of visitors ebbed and it was a sad but sweet relief when Mami and I finally said goodbye to Abuelo and drove home. My cell phone had been with me the whole time and at about three o’clock in the afternoon I was blessed with the wonderful intermission of a call from John that gave me the strength to deal with my family for the rest of the day. He would be picking me up later that evening on foot and taking me out to dinner. I couldn’t wait.

  * * * * *

  Mami was sitting in the living room watching BBC World News when I emerged from my bedroom. “Dios mio!” she exclaimed. “Where did you get that…that shirt?”

  “Some catalogue.” I sat down beside her on the couch. “It’s a corset shirt. Isn’t it nice?”

  “Hmm. So where are you going for dinner?”

  “I don’t know. We’re walking to Miracle Mile. There are dozens of places to choose from, as you know. We’ll see what strikes our fancy.”

  “Hmm,” she repeated, meaning, “If you don’t pick one of the Italian restaurants, it’s your culinary loss.”

  On the television screen a bomb was going off on some nameless street in a part of the world I couldn’t imagine living in and then a woman dressed in black robes from head-to-toe angrily held up a photograph. Her husband had died in the blast. The volume was turned down low but unfortunately I could hear what she said. “Now I’m one of those women who wants to be a suicide bomber!” She was cradling a baby in one arm.

  There was a quiet knock on the front door.

  “That’s him,” my mom announced grimly, but I knew her tone related to the story on the news not to the man standing outside our house on the same planet yet in a totally different world.

  I quickly rose to open the door.

  When I saw John standing on the threshold I felt light years removed from the pain and suffering the media constantly exposes us to. We were obeying completely different laws when I stepped toward him and his arms came around me like the horizons of another dimension. He was wearing a black suit and the way it contrasted with my white shirt for a magical instant elevated my senses to an arousing metaphysical point free of all doubts and fears. His arms were a pure, dark force cradling me against his chest and the sound of his heart beating was the pulse of time itself as I rested in the infinitely promising space of his arms.

  Chapter Eight

  I’ve discovered that it’s much easier to clearly remember an uncomfortable event than it is to recall the specifics of a totally happy one. John and I walked hand in hand along the quiet residential streets of Coral Gablesthen along the bustling luminous sidewalks branching out around Miracle Mile, talking and laughing, talking and every now and then kissing without breaking our stride. I began to realize just how curtailed my self-expression had been in previous relationships as I found myself telling him what I thought and felt about things without needing to explain or justify my opinion. Not only did he understand exactly what I meant, he very often showed me the path of a perspective I had not realized was there before, leading me to a more fulfilling conclusion than I had believed possible.

  We ended up in a little Italian place—Mami would be pleased—that was all wood and brick and hanging plants. We were given a small private table in a corner next to the window looking out on the street. We sat facing each other and only the arrival of the menus separated our hands where they were tightly clasped on the table. The restaurant’sspecialty was homemade brick-oven pizzas. Being a relatively good cook who knows exactly what food costs, I always bristle a little when I first open a menu and look at the prices being charged for each dish but that night I was too happy to care.

  “We could always split a pizza,” John suggested.

  “Yes, but I don’t really like pizza that much. I think I’d like to have the linguini with fresh clam sauce.”

  “Mm, that does sound good,” he agreed, studying the menu, “but I think I’ll go for the spaghetti with shrimp and fresh basil. However, first I’m ordering us some buffalo mozzarella as an appetizer.”

  “Great!”

  “And now for the wine…”

  I set down my menu and gazed in wonder at his handsome face intently studying the wine list. “I must have done something right,” I mused out loud.

  He smiled at me. “What was that?”

  “I was just thinking that somebody Up There must like me.”

  “Why?” he asked, but his smile deepened as if he knew.

  “Because somehow I met you, John.”

  “Two deaths brought us together,” he reminded me quietly, closing his menu and resting it on top of mine.

  “Life and death—two sides of the same coin. Human existence is a truly mysterious currency. Do you really think it’s worth anything in the end?” I looked hopefully into his eyes. “Or is buying into concepts of immortality a doomed investment, a counterfeit that just helps keep us happy?”

  “Ariana,” he reached for my hand again, “if you had asked me that a few days ago I’m not sure what I would have said but now I believe everything is possible.”

  * * * * *

  There’s an intangible moment when good food and good wine and great company combine in a way that transcends time and space, or at least it feels that way, and past, present and future come together in a sense of infinite possibility. At some point during dinner that night John and I crossed over into that dimension as I finally learned some biographical facts about the man I already wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

  He was a Florida native, born and raised in Gainesville. He had left years ago because he found the cultural and social scene too claustrophobic and limited. He said it was a beautiful place with lots of good qualities but he had outgrown it. When he was ten years old his grandmother had bought him some modeling clay and from that moment on he knew what he wanted to do when he grew up. The path to sculpting for a living had not been an easy one and he warned me that it still wasn’t. The odds were he would never be wealthy. In fact, he would be lucky if he could go on managing to make ends meet. When I hastened to assure him that money meant nothing to me, that I actually thrived on a budget, he smiled ruefully.

  “Those filet mignons you made last night probably cost as much as my weekly food budget, Ariana.”

  “It was a special occasion,” I pointed out. “You can eat well without spending a lot of money. Trust me. I’ve been doing it for years.”

  “I do trust you and the fact is I might make it one day.” He concentrated on his food for a moment. “My friend, the one who owns the gallery you saw my piece in, he called me today. He sold it.”

  “That’s fabulous!” I exclaimed and then was abruptly hit by an entirely different sentiment. “But how can you bear to part with it? It’s so beautiful!”

  “Don’t worry, I can always recast it. I made quite a lot of money off it.”

  “You deserve it. It’s the most beautiful piece of work I’ve seen in a long time.”

  “Now you’re lying, Ariana.”

  “I am not lying, it’s—”

  “You looked in the mirror this evening when you were getting dressed, didn’t you?”

  I laughed.

  “I have to confess, Ariana… I’ve started a new piece inspired by you. I hope you won’t be offended but I never put clothes on my statues. Rarely anyway.”

  “Why on earth would I be offended? I’m honored.”

  So our conversation progressed, during which he confessed to occasionally working as a massage therapist to make ends meet. “I got a degree in massage therapy thinking what the hell, it’s a lot like sculpting except I’m kneading living f
lesh, and it’s oddly relaxing for me because there’s no pressure to mold and shape it to my will. I’m not trying to bring anything to life. I’m just kneading and caressing, kneading and squeezing. I think of it as a good sculptor’s workout.”

  “You’re a massage therapist?” I said in awe. “I’d have a full body massage every week if I could afford it.”

  “Well now you can.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean I want you to feel obliged to give me—”

  “Ariana.”

  He said my name so firmly I almost gasped. How serious he suddenly looked worried me.

  “I never feel obliged to do anything, Ariana. Whatever I do it’s because I want to do it, so if you find yourself getting full body massages every week from now on, then relax secure in the knowledge that I’m doing it because I want to do it. Because it pleases me as much, perhaps even more, as it pleases you.”

  “Yes, John, thank you, that means a lot to me. I…I’ve been with so many men who did things because they felt they had to or because it was what everyone else was doing or because it was a means to an end for them, not a pleasure in itself. Do you know what I mean?”

  “There are many lost people out there, Ariana, but they need not concern us anymore. We have each other now.”

  * * * * *

  Parting from him that night was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. The only thing that made that it possible for me was the knowledge he would be coming for me again first thing in the morning. I would be spending the whole day with him tomorrow at his studio, which was also his apartment. Nevertheless, saying goodbye or anything else was still hard since we couldn’t stop kissing. No words were needed to express how I felt about him. Body language took over and was as eloquent as any of the conversations we’d had all evening. The feel of my arms wrapped around his neck and of our tongues wrestling and of his buried erection digging into my belly as his hands squeezed my ass, all these sensations added up to one indelible fact—I wanted him to possess me, to take me, to make love to me, to fuck me. There was no truly satisfying way to express the hot, urgent reality of my need.