Bohemian

by Kathryn Nolan

  “Do you know where we’re going?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “Okay, good.” Her hand was warm, the night was slightly cool and I knew, without looking, that the stars would be phenomenal. We walked in silence for a minute, the threat of being caught hanging over us. We could hear the sound of the ocean and Lucia instinctively head that way, passing a white gazebo, a yoga center, trees decked with Buddhist prayer flags like splashes of bright paint. Meditation pillows, gongs, the slight scent of sage still on the wind.

  A large, low wall with a huge mural appeared out of nowhere. I couldn’t tell what the background image was, but the letters stood out stark and white against the night sky. We both read the quote silently, Lucia’s hand squeezing mine in recognition.

  “Now this,” she whispered, “is an actual poem. And, dear Calvin, a sign.”

  In large white letters was a quote from Mary Oliver, a quote both of us knew, a famous quote, two lines absolutely fitting for this intense moment in time:

  Tell me: what is it you plan to do

  With your one wild and precious life?

  I looked over to catch Lucia wiping tears from her cheeks. I pulled her closer.

  “It just happens when I read a poem I love,” she said. “Always has. And I love her. Not just the message, what she’s trying to say, but the use of ‘tell me.’ The juxtaposition of the words ‘wild’ and ‘precious.’ It makes my heart ache.” She turned to me. “What about you?”

  “Your one life…” I said. “I don’t know how a person can sum up the full magnitude of life’s beauty and life’s wretchedness in so few words.”

  A pause. “I love the word ‘wretched,’” she said.

  I pressed a kiss at her temple. “I like using words that you love.”

  We kept walking, but the gravity of that moment: those words, at that time, had settled over us like a heavy cloak. Not in a bad way, necessarily, but Lucia and I were two people meeting at a crossroads in our lives. This night might be like pressing the pause button, but once the sun came up, we would both split, back on our separate roads.

  We passed a large, nondescript building, a statue of Buddha. The fields here had been cleared and almost immediately we could see the ocean: a black, swirling mass ahead of us, white caps of waves illuminated in the moonlight. We reached the cliff’s edge—I could smell, faintly, the scent of sulfur which meant the hot springs were close, but Lucia seemed glued to this spot, staring.

  “This is a poem,” she said. “This is why I fell in love with poetry when I was a little kid.”

  “What specifically?” I urged.

  “Just…the power behind each word. It’s not the same as prose, there’s no natural wordiness, or the ability to prattle on. You’re reading the words a writer has chosen out of every word in the universe. Sometimes using words to describe things you could never imagine doing—or, a moment in time, like this. A moment in our lives we’ll forget if we don’t write it down. Before modeling, all I wanted to do was to write like that—I had a very Emily-Dickinson-style sense of my life.”

  “Being discovered after you die?”

  “No,” she said smiling, “but a quiet life, writing poems in my little cottage in the country. No distractions, just creativity, dry wit and a pencil to keep me company.”

  “I can’t quite imagine you in such a…matronly life.”

  She shook her head. “I’m no matron. But even a few years into modeling, when I was still writing on the side, I thought I would go back to it. Just make a shit-ton of money, enroll in the country’s finest creative writing program and then…well, to be honest, I don’t know what after that.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t think dreams have to be completely fleshed out—there’s always a level of uncertainty.” I paused. “It’s what makes them so terrifying.” We were both silent, watching the waves. “Why didn’t you do that? Go back to school?”

  “Oh, well, I got famous, I guess. As a teenager, which really screws with your head. You already have this grand, egotistical sense of yourself, and then when you see your face on a magazine cover, it’s like your brain just explodes.” She laughed quietly. “I remember tossing that little poetry journal into a suitcase and forgetting about it for years. But then, every so often, this…feeling would roar up inside of me. I’d get antsy, and anxious, and my fingers would actually itch.” She looked at them, bathed in moonlight. She had beautiful fingers. “And this feeling would always coincide with long periods of unhappiness.”

  I moved closer to her, my hand making big, soothing circles on her back.

  “You know what’s funny?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been feeling kind of off this past year,” she said. “Different, about things. Even Josie’s noticed. I didn’t write, but I think that’s where some of the feeling was coming from. And when I stepped out of the car that first morning, and saw the bookstore. And the trees. And…and you, the feeling came back. And it hasn’t let up since.”

  “Big Sur is the ultimate writing inspiration.”

  She held my gaze for a long time and I felt trapped by it, drawn into her web. Never leave me, I suddenly wanted to shout, and when she stood on her tiptoes and pressed a passionate kiss against my lips, I almost did.

  “So are you, Calvin. So are you.”

  ◊

  LUCIA

  “I think they’re this way,” he said as we stepped gingerly along the cliff.

  I’d seen pictures on the brochure, of calm, blissed-out looking people soaking in water against the dramatic backdrop of the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean. If the pictures were accurate, we were close by.

  “Do you think your grandfather ever did this?” I whispered.

  I watched Cal smile in the darkness. “Oh…probably. I think when he and my grandmother were younger, they were very romantic. Very adventurous. They used to close the bookstore for a month in the summer and go someplace new. Sometimes expensive and far away, when they were doing well. Sometimes just to go live in the woods. Shake things up.”

  “See things from a new perspective,” I said softly, since the last two weeks here had just about split my life in two. I understood the urge now.

  “Do you have a favorite memory of your grandfather?”

  “Yes,” he said, “The one I shared at his funeral. It’s more a collection of memories, but one thing we used to do, all the time when I stayed here in the summer, was we’d read poetry or books out loud and discuss them. It was like a book club, but it only had two members. I thought it was so magical, as a kid. To be introduced to words that way. We’d always drink hot chocolate, or roast marshmallows around that fire pit. Sometimes his friends would come over and we’d all talk about the section we were reading. It’s funny now to think of people like Gabe’s father coming over to discuss The Giving Tree with me as a little kid.”

  I grabbed his arm. “The first poet I ever loved. Shel Silverstein.”

  He looked at me, gaze searching. “That’s what I told everyone at the memorial service. We’d read Silverstein and he’d ask me these questions, get me to really think about what was going on in the poem. Then, later, when I’d come out and talk to him about…I don’t know, Star Trek: Next Generation or Harry Potter or—”

  “Magic the Gathering?”

  Cal gave me the kind of look a husband gives his wife on their wedding night.

  I actually squirmed. “What? You’re not the only nerd here.”

  “Y-yes,” he said, stumbling. “Things like that. He could tell I was going to be into science fiction, so then we’d start to read the classics.”

  “1984?” I guessed and he nodded.

  “Fahrenheit 451. Brave New World. The Left Hand of Darkness. Kindred.”

  My skin broke out in goosebumps. “I can only imagine, reading such brilliant fucking books on that deck, surrounded by the entire universe. The stars and the moon and that kid feeling.”

  “Yes,” he whispered, reverent. �
�It was like Christmas every morning.”

  “Because every Christmas you’d get tons of books and then spend the entire day reading?” I guessed.

  He laughed, turning against me and putting his head against my neck, muffling the sound. I broke out in goosebumps again, shivering, as his breath coasted along my skin.

  “I’d do the same thing,” I said, and he kissed my cheek.

  The hot springs were upon us now, two small pools, no bigger than hot tubs, in the side of a mountain. Directly in front of them was a view of the ocean that made my chest ache it was so damn beautiful. Beautiful, and a little lonely—that moment when you realize how small you are against the expansiveness of the natural world.

  “Wow,” Cal breathed.

  “Indeed,” I said, stepping forward. The hot springs threw off elegant, pale steam that caressed my face as I lowered it towards the water. I dipped my fingers in.

  “Oh, Cal,” I said, turning towards him. “It’s perfect.” As I turned towards him, already lifting my shirt, I thought about the sheer number of people I’d undressed for in my career—not lovers, but makeup artists and hairstylists and wardrobe assistants. Men like Ray and Taylor who viewed my body as a piece of art to move and manipulate, not sexual. Just legs and arms and a stomach draped in expensive clothing that some teenager in Middle America would beg her parents to buy her. That was the purpose of my body, of this body.

  But as I tossed my shirt to the ground, shivering in the cool air, my body existed to submit. To yield. To receive the pleasure Cal needed to give, needed to lose himself in. I unhooked my pants, sliding them down my thighs with the balance of a ballerina.

  I watched Cal’s transformation—it would never get old. He slid off his jacket, one hand already unbuttoning his shirt.

  I unhooked my bra, the night air like a lover’s touch.

  His shirt slid down his arms. There was no last gasp of awkwardness, no shy blushing. Only Calvin with his messy hair, his broad shoulders, his lean stomach. I blinked and his pants were sliding from his hips.

  I swallowed as I saw the outline of his cock. I slid my underwear off, tossing it at him coquettishly. I winked, trying to lighten the mood, but Calvin took his cock out, stroking the length with my panties in his hand.

  “Get in the fucking water,” he said firmly and I did, turning around and slipping my toes, then my ankles, then my calves. The air was cool, almost cold, but the water was so perfectly hot I couldn’t help but let out a low, keening moan. I undid my bun, dipping my head back and letting my hair soak in the steamy warmth. I slipped lower, until the water came up to my chin, and then I turned around.

  Calvin was right there, pulling me towards him and wrapping my legs around his waist. Kissing me roughly, hands in my hair, his cock already pushing at my entrance. I wanted him, already, wanted him to fuck me into oblivion but he had other ideas. He moved us towards a large rock, lips against my neck. I sighed happily.

  And then he lifted me up onto the rock, spreading my legs wide, baring me to the night air. My first instinct was to cover myself, close my legs, but he held them open with a punishing grip.

  “Do you want to know what my favorite word is, Lucia?” He asked, eyes pinned on my pussy.

  “What?” I asked, mesmerized by the look on his face.

  “Cunt,” he said, sliding a long finger inside of me.

  “Oh god,” I said, as he stroked my g-spot. Slowly, no hurry. Exploring. He added a second finger, then a third, fucking me. We both watched his fingers moving in and out, slick in the moonlight.

  “I’ve always loved it,” he said calmly. “It’s filthy and raw and real. And your cunt,” he said, bending down to take a long, slow lick, “is perfection.” He removed his fingers, replacing them with his tongue, which licked inside my body so deeply I thought I would pass out.

  “Calvin—” I gasped, holding his head there.

  A low growl escaped his lips and he grabbed my hands, holding them at my sides. His tongue moved, fluttering against my nerve endings. He pulled out, his tongue tracing up to my clit, circling. I swallowed a cry.

  “Your cunt tastes like the ocean. Your cunt tastes like chocolate.” Another lick, and he sucked my clit into his mouth, humming. “Your cunt is the best fucking thing I’ve ever tasted.”

  He pushed me back gently, my back against the rocks, warm from the hot springs, the steam everywhere. The sky was a riot of white stars, the ocean waves drowning out the sound of my heart, slamming against my rib cage. I felt almost overwhelmingly alive, my body like a work of art, Calvin’s head between my legs, his tongue dancing over my clit.

  I knew we had to be quiet, but even still I couldn’t stop moaning, my hand over my mouth, as Cal worked his tongue over me. He was groaning too, and as he slid two of those fingers back inside of me my hips thrust up, desperately seeking the orgasm already building.

  “This pretty cunt is going to come for me,” he said, flattening his tongue and lapping at me greedily. I could only nod, my head thrashing on the rocks, the entire universe flooding my nervous system as I came, explosively, against his mouth. I let out a long wail, not giving a shit if anyone heard me, because nothing in my life had ever felt so magnificent.

  “Cal—” I started to say, hips jerking as he kept licking, stroking back inside of me, drinking me in. My muscles clenched around his tongue and he gripped my ass so hard I knew I’d have fingerprint bruises tomorrow. His thumb wandered down to the ring of muscle below where his mouth was working, thumb tracing the sensitive nerve endings.

  Cal was a filthy little freak and my back arched as his thumb slipped inside my ass, tongue working my g-spot, his other hand finding my nipples. Tweaking them roughly and all of a sudden Cal was going to tongue-fuck me into another orgasm, or maybe I was still riding the same orgasm, but either way my body was suspended in pleasure, tiny climaxes exploding like light against my skin. I was being devoured and I fucking loved it, nothing to do except lay back and enjoy the all-out assault.

  Another orgasm beckoned, but before it reached me, Cal pulled me back into the hot springs.

  ◊

  CALVIN

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Lucia sighed against my lips as I wrapped my arms around her body, pulling her close. I couldn’t tell where my body began and hers ended and I liked it that way. Liked that the musky scent of Lucia’s pussy was on my fingers, my hands, my lips, my tongue. Liked that for the rest of my life I’d have the memory of her coming in my mouth, the delightful way Lucia Bell climaxed, her endless capacity for pleasure.

  I was on my knees, her legs wrapped around me, and as I thrust inside of her, part of me wanted her like this. Slow and lazy, riding me like we had all the time in the world. Her rhythm was sensual, perfect tits in my face, my lips against her throat.

  But then I looped my fingers in her hair and pulled, instinctively, and the plaintive sound that came from her flipped a switch deep inside of me.

  I flipped her around, forgetting to be gentle. Hauled the entirety of her body out of the hot springs, arms outstretched and ass in my face. I bit her inner thighs and she whimpered. Wondered about the sounds of my hand spanking her, how many people it might wake up, our odds of being caught.

  But then she shook her ass and I cracked my palm against it so fast she cried out in surprise. I liked the look of her pussy like this—wet with arousal, inches from my mouth. I ran my tongue over her ass, spreading her cheeks. I rimmed her asshole, sucked her pussy lips into my mouth, spanked her again.

  I couldn’t get enough of her—something inside of me worried this would be our last time together, and I wanted to taste, to feel, to know every goddamn inch of her.

  I slid her back down, back against my chest. Wrapped a hand around her throat and thrust inside of her. She started to work herself against my cock but I spanked her under the water.

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” I said, hand still on her throat, other arm wrapped around her hips, holding her in place.
>
  “Feel me, Lu,” I groaned. “Feel this.” I lifted my hips, rocking in small circles, cock moving inside of her. She whined, fingers gripping the rock in front of her as I made subtle, slow, movements deep in her pussy. Like stoking a fire from banked coals, making her wait, so that when I finally started fucking her in short, fast strokes, we both let out primal sounds of rapture.

  Lucia fell forward onto her elbows and I gripped her hips, lifting her in the water. The ocean waves roaring, the hot water steaming and my cock deeper than I thought possible.

  If there was ever a moment in my life to bare my soul, this was it. “You are the most intriguing woman I’ve ever met,” I groaned against her ear and she leaned back, sighing happily, laying her head on my shoulder. “Funny and smart and passionate and I was head over heels the first moment I saw you.”

  “Calvin,” she moaned and I circled her clit, giving her what she needed.

  “I will never meet another woman like you in my entire life, Lucia,” I said fiercely. “Never. And this?” I fucked her faster and she cried out. “This is a fucking privilege.”

  I turned her head so I could give her the kind of kiss I’d always wanted to give a woman, taking her mouth like I owned it.

  Because I did. Because Lucia was unraveling beneath my touch, my cock, my thrusts and that knowledge alone was enough to make me come so hard I bit her shoulder to keep from yelling.

  Lucia fell with me, shuddering for minutes, mouth still glued to mine. My heart lurched as slowly disentangled herself me, but she only turned to wrap herself more closely, kissing my cheek, my jaw, my neck. Squeezing me so tight I knew she was thinking about the same thing I was.

  Tomorrow.

  “Lucia,” I said, heart still pounding, but she shook her head.

  “Just let me…Cal, just let me have this moment.”

  So I did, holding her tightly, rubbing her back, whispering the same things I’d said to her roughly only moments ago, but now softly.