Message From Viola Mari

by Sabrina Devonshire

  “It sounds wonderful,” I said. Who knew this writing class would lead to so much excitement?

  Early Sunday morning, Justin and I drove up to Alpine, an hour’s drive inland. We parked at a trailhead and organized our backpacks in preparation for an eight-mile hike. I watched the sun recast the pastel-colored morning sky into brilliant turquoise.

  As I followed Justin up the rugged, rocky trail, admiring his well-sculpted backside, he turned to speak to me. “So I was thinking, since there’s only a couple more weeks until the semester ends, we might take a little trip together when I’m on break.”

  The love and desire I saw in his gold-flecked eyes made me want to yell of course I’ll go. Guilt got in the way. “A trip?” As much as I wanted to run away with him to some exotic place, I’d planned to spend extra hours studying the NRG meteorite sites during the holiday season when Matt and my other supervisors took days off and there was less other work to distract me. Since the day the rock went temporarily permeable in class, it had transformed back to a solid and stayed that way. I was eager to dive down to one of the shallower sites when the composition shifted, to see if I could film an object passing through the rocks.

  “I guess it was a silly idea. I just thought it would be fun to spend a romantic week together without distractions.”

  Why can’t you just do this for yourself just this once? Allow yourself to spend every minute of seven whole days with him before it all ends. I longed to awaken to his aroused nakedness morning after morning. But by the time I thought of something to say, he’d walked on. “Wait,” I shouted. I jogged up to catch him and tapped him on the shoulder. “It doesn’t sound silly. It sounds really romantic, actually. I mean if you really want to get to know someone, you travel with them, right? And if you don’t hate them by the end of the week, you know the relationship is worth something.”

  He turned toward me, frowning. His tanned face glistened with sweat. “You make me sound like one of your science projects. Test and analyze. I just want some alone time with you.”

  “I’d like some alone time with you, too.” I tugged on one of his blond curls. “Where do you plan to take me?”

  He leaned in and kissed me, sending shockwaves of excitement through my body. “Oh, I thought maybe we could hole up in some remote beachside resort in Central America—where we could skinny dip at sundown without catching a chill. What do you think?”

  “I think that sounds perfect.” I leaned in for another, more prolonged tongue entangling kiss.

  Chapter Twelve

  We flew to Belize, sipping Chardonnay from plastic cups. Just as I began to feel pleasantly intoxicated, Justin pulled some papers from his briefcase. They looked all too familiar. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about these,” he said. Uh, oh. He pointed to a paragraph on the page where the heroine determined the rock had transformed so someone or something could pass through it. “Where did you come up with this idea?” he asked. “This concept of people passing through craters? The green light you mentioned made me think of that boy who disappeared a couple of months ago.” A foreign-looking man sitting across the aisle from us elbowed a dozing man beside him. The man opened his eyes and both of them glanced in our direction. Somehow, they seemed interested in our discussion. I must be imagining things.

  I shrugged my shoulders and feigned a yawn. “It just seems to make sense, that’s all. For the story, I mean. It would have been gross to have man-eating meteorite rocks.”

  Justin frowned. “Well for most of the semester, you had me fooled. But after reading your work several times last night, I figured it out. This person I’m reading about is you—and I believe you’re using the writing process to help you make conclusions about your research.”

  I threw back my head, clapped my hands, and burst out laughing. “Oh now that’s just hilarious.” One of the suspicious men raised an eyebrow while the other typed something into a handheld device. Damn—they are eavesdropping.

  I fumbled around nervously in my pocket, jumbling the sample of meteorite rock I’d been carrying with me everywhere like a good-luck charm.

  “I went to the library and read every article you’ve written on the NRG meteorites.”

  I’ve got to find a way to derail him from this conversation. We could be in danger. “That’s great. I’m glad you find my research so interesting.”

  “And in those articles you mention how the rocks change structure sometimes.”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “So have they ever transformed so objects can pass through them?”

  I forced out a laugh. “Of course not--I was just writing science fiction.”

  “Why can’t you be honest with me, Marissa?”

  Where do I start? With the two men in the next aisle staring at us and entering notes in their handhelds? Or with the fact that if word gets out to Matt without proof, I’ll soon be holding up a will work for food sign? “I am being honest. It’s just a story, okay. Now can you let this go?”

  “Fine.” Justin shoved the papers back in his briefcase and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning away from me.

  I felt guilty for shutting him out. It would be such a relief to share my secrets with him, to let the person I trusted most into my unbelievable world. Once the two men dozed off, I whispered in his ear. “I’m sorry I lied to you earlier. You were right about my story. But this information could be dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. And I think we’re being watched.” I pointed toward the two men nearby.

  He turned toward me, his breath warming my cheek. Then he grasped my hand and squeezed it. “Don’t worry—your secrets are safe with me.” I smiled and laid my head on his shoulder, feeling comforted by his words, even though he, like everyone else, didn’t believe me. My female intuition gave me a jolt of life-preserving adrenaline, warning me that our lives were in peril.

  It was dark when we reached Belize City. A taxi transported us from the airport through a city of narrow, crowded streets to a small beach side hotel. We rang the bell outside the gate and waited for a sleepy manager to emerge. He asked our names in Spanish, handed us a wooden key and escorted us to our room. We dropped our bags inside and stepped out for a walk.

  The moon had risen, tracing a shimmering pathway of light across the ocean. The warm breeze blew strands of hair around my face. All my senses aroused, I skipped ahead of Justin, threw up my arms and twirled around. “I love it here.” And I love you, my heart whispered.

  My enthusiastic dance brought me back to him and he took my hand and spun me around like we were dancing and then slung his arm around my shoulder as we strolled down the beach.

  As we ducked under a cluster of palm trees that dipped low toward the ocean, Justin dropped into the sand and, pulled me down with him. I dropped neatly into his lap. Pulling me tight up against his chest, he folded his lips over mine. His kisses were rough and hungry. He penetrated my mouth with his tongue, exploring and setting all my nerve endings on fire. I met his urgency with equal fervor. I yearned to feel the contours of his lips, his tongue, and his muscular body pressing into me, to heighten the desire that brought my nipples to attention and created a warm wetness between my thighs.

  I clung to the unruly curls behind his head, tugging his face in closer. Five o’clock shadow bristles scraped against my face, inciting my desire. I tipped back my head and let him trace circles on my neck with his tongue. I moaned and writhed with pleasure. “You want me bad, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes,” I cried. He raised my arms so he could yank my shirt over my head. Without pause, he hurriedly unzipped and pulled down my jeans. He moved his hands over my thighs and slid a finger inside my slit.

  “Oh my God, you’re wet. It’s going to feel so good to bury myself inside of you.”

  After sliding in and out of my wet opening several times, first with one, then two fingers, he quickly disrobed. I let out an aching sigh. The sight of his rippling muscles under the moonlight incited my lust. “Ge
t on your hands and knees,” he ordered.

  I wasn’t used to men ordering me around, but for some reason, his brusque command sounded so sinfully delicious, it turned me on more than ever. I could cum just listening to him talk. I kneeled on the sand with my buttocks exposed to him. I felt so vulnerable, so desperate to have him bury himself to the hilt inside of me. He slid his full length inside of me almost immediately, which made me cry out.

  “God, you feel good,” he moaned. “You’re so tight.” When he tongued the back of my neck, tickly tingles raced down my spine.

  He penetrated me deeper than he ever had before, so deep I felt the entire breadth of my vagina stretching to accommodate him. “Oh, yes,” I cried, gasping for breath every time he slammed into me so pleasantly deep I saw stars all around and every nerve ending inside of my cried out more, more, more. “Give it to me. This feels so good.”

  “Every inch I have is all yours.” His voice sounded hoarse with desire.

  “You’ve got so many delicious inches.” He laughed and then flicked his tongue over my back and shoulders, further inciting my pleasure. I moaned and licked my lips, turning myself over to the lusty pleasure that pulsed inside of me. “Oh, Justin,” I cried out as my insides shattered in ecstatic release.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In a battered Toyota 4-Runner, we drove on the two-lane Hummingbird Highway from Belize City toward Placencia. The sparsely vegetated, flat terrain gradually morphed into a lush jungle of rolling hills. Some of the tropical forest acres had been replanted with orange tree farms.

  “Look at all those orange trees. I feel like we’re on a set for a Minute Maid commercial,” Justin said.

  I laughed. “Yeah, really. We shouldn’t lack freshly squeezed orange juice, wherever we end up.” I loved the uncertainty of our plans, taking an unplanned trip with no need to arrive anywhere at a specific time. These were the kind of adventures I loved, the kind I’d usually done on my own. For the first time, I had a companion who shared my passion for excitement and the unfamiliar.

  We bounced over a narrow bridge that led us from the developed part of Belize into less explored territory. For miles, we climbed hills and descended into valleys of lush tangled jungle. Towering palm trees, bushy palm trees, wild banana trees with machete-shaped fronds and deciduous trees with enormous leaves—almost all of them draped with wild vines—thrived in the wet, tropical climate.

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere, now.” Justin sat in the driver’s seat, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on his muscular thigh.

  “Where no one can find us,” I said, laughing. He turned his head and his eyes flashed with intensity. Those flecks of yellow and brown I saw in his eyes were like a window into his heart and soul. I saw what he felt, like he’d just escaped with a treasure he wanted to hold onto.

  Forever. You can have me forever. I plucked his hand from his thigh and held it, weaving my fingers in around his.

  “It looks like there’s a walking trail over here.” He nodded toward the right side of the road. “You want to check it out?”

  “Sure, why not?” I’m up for anything with you.

  Justin pulled the car off the road and we walked along a narrow dirt path, damp from an earlier rain. The trail steepened and our feet slid as we descended a wet, earthy staircase toward pools of crystal blue water below. A trickling waterfall and bird calls echoed beneath the canopy of trees, which obscured the surrounding sunlight, making me feel as if we’d stepped inside a dark cavern.

  “You up for a swim?” Justin raised one thick eyebrow suggestively.

  “I am if you are.” I shrugged out of my clothes and slid one foot across the white sand into the crystal clear water. “Oooh.” This collapsed cavern must be really deep, I thought, as I gazed out at its sapphire blue center. The water chilled my toes, despite Belize’s muggy heat.

  “A little cold for you?” His gaze dropped to my chilled nipples, which projected like erect pebbles.

  Justin had already shucked off his clothes and submerged himself in the pool. “I’m waiting for you.” As he held his arms out to me, his well-defined biceps and triceps rippled beneath the dim light.

  As I stepped in, goose bumps crawled up my arms and neck. The cool water heightened my senses, making me feel giddy, energetic, jumping-out-of-my-skin alive. I stepped into the warm expanse of his arms, titillated by the contact of his warm, contoured flesh. I shivered and pulled him in closer, kissing him on the neck and cheek.

  I clasped one hand around the back of his head and ran my fingers through his long blond curls before I drew his face nearer. He kissed my face, my nipples and then lifted me gently into his arms. He walked along the sandy bottom, carried me to the edge of the pool and gently laid me onto a narrow limestone shelf. Moss grew in the rock’s fractured interstices. Lying on this jungle bed was unforgettable, partly because the colorful moss felt like soft fur against my spine, mostly because Justin slid from the water, his fingers tracing tingly shapes over my thighs before he separated them and covered me with his long lean body. He made love to me, gently, tenderly, because there was no hurry, no place we had to go—we had all afternoon to love each other in this jungle paradise.

  Our days on the beach in Placencia were bliss. We splashed in the ocean, strolled along the beach holding hands, and stretched out on our towels and just talked for hours. Expressing thoughts and emotions that floated through my head felt so much better than forcing them to build up inside until I felt like I would burst. I even found myself telling him about my lifelong fear of becoming an alcoholic, and how I’d fought that genetic disposition with all my might. Justin had rubbed my arm and consoled me, saying I was too strong to succumb to alcohol. “My father wanted me to be a physician,” he said. “Whenever he’d find me in my room writing, he’d ask me if I was gay, or tell me a story about how artists all turned out to be homeless people or something similar.”

  I poured some sunscreen into my hand and applied to it my face. “That’s terrible. Did he eventually come to recognize you had a gift?”

  Justin leaned toward me and touched my nose, wiping away a stray glob of lotion before planting a kiss there and gazing at me. “He never did. Even my mom tried reasoning with him, but he just didn’t want to accept that I’d turned out to be someone different than the son he wanted. That really hurt.”

  “Maybe it’s not too late.” I kissed him on the cheek and fastened my eyes on his.

  “My dad died of lung cancer last year.” Tears filled his eyes. “I visited him several times while he lay dying in hospice, sedated with morphine. He kept saying it wasn’t too late to turn my life around. If only he could have accepted the life I’ve chosen—the one that fulfills me.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s very sad. What about your mom? How does she feel?” I traced out his full lips with a fingertip and watched his frown melt away.

  “She’s always valued my creativity. And she’s encouraged me to keep on trying when the rejections blew me to pieces. The son I know would never give up, she’d say. Publishing is a tough business. You have to really persevere if you want to make it.”

  “But she knew you had it, and you must have too.”

  “In the end, yes. And it was worth it to finally see my name on my first book cover.”

  “I can imagine. I think you’re amazing.”

  Our intimate conversation was punctuated by lovemaking. He melted into me on a narrow sandbar nearby. Later, he wrapped his legs around me on a hammock on the front porch of our bungalow. Our undulations screeched to an anticlimactic halt when a bolt pulled loose from the wooden beams, landing us in a heap on the ground. But it didn’t take us long to regain our rhythm. That evening, behind a sand dune, he traced an erotic curve from my pert nipples to my inner thighs, letting the moonlight show him the way.

  Five mornings later, the alarm sounded before dawn. We reluctantly untangled our limbs. I missed the warmth of his body as I sat up and touched down on the cool tile floor w
ith my bare feet. We groggily packed what we’d need for the week-long diving excursion. “Did you remember to pack the drops to keep our masks from fogging?” he asked.

  “Got them.” I tugged the strained zipper on my dive bag shut.

  “We better get out to the dock.” Justin glanced at his watch. “The boat’s supposed to be here any minute.”

  I followed Justin down the stairs, across the beach and to the end of the dock. He held one duffel bag in each hand and his taut triceps rippled under the pale orange light of the early morning. The solidity of this man who made love to me, who laughed and listened to whatever I had to say, made me feel so safe and secure. I never thought I could love anyone this much.

  We stood side by side on the weathered planks and waited for the dive boat to approach. A distant shiny white image transformed into a full-size live-aboard vessel making a V through the water toward the dock. A dark-skinned deckhand tossed out a rope and Justin caught it before knotting it neatly around the moorings. The man leaped onto the dock and introduced himself as Michael. He shook our hands before snatching up our luggage and hopping back up on the boat.

  “Please follow me,” he ordered.

  Justin grasped my hand as we stepped unsteadily across the slick white boat deck.

  “I’ll show you to your room,” Michael said.

  Over the course of the week, our boat would anchor at various sites along the Belize reef system, the largest barrier reef in the Northern Hemisphere. The Belize atoll reefs, a colorful array of coral colonies and polyps along Glovers and Lighthouse submarine ridges, were reportedly a playground for schools of colorful fish, dolphins, sharks and manta rays.

  We followed Michael down a metal staircase and along a narrow hallway. He stopped suddenly, inserting a key into a door. Our heads touched as we peered into the tiny room and one of Justin’s unruly curls tickled my face. A twin bed occupied most of the space. It’s a good thing we like each other. Once Michael plopped our bags onto the tiny sliver of carpet, there was no extra space. “Your shower and restroom are behind the curtain,” he said. He turned and padded back down the hallway.