Crazy 4U

by Cach, Lisa

  “You’d do it if we were married?”

  She laughed. “That’s a huge ‘if’!”

  “But you’d do it?”

  Given that she would only marry someone she loved, and she could only love a responsible, stable, capable man, the possibility that she would ever marry Tom seemed remote. But in the unlikely event that after a couple years had gone by he had proved his stability to her and they were in love, and if they married, then, “Yes, I’d do it.”

  “Marry me.”

  “No!”

  “Why not?”

  She gaped at him. There was a hint of embarrassed smile on his lips, but his eyes looked serious. “I barely know you! You barely know me!”

  “Sometimes you just know it’s right.”

  “I don’t know it’s right! Far from it! The fact that you would seriously ask me to marry you on our first date is good evidence that it’s not right for me. Not right at all!”

  He looked wounded. “What would convince you?”

  “There’s no ‘convincing.’ It’s something that has to be proved over time.”

  “How much time?”

  “A lot of time.”

  “A couple weeks?”

  “Now you’re just teasing me,” she said. “Can we talk about something else?”

  To her relief he let her change the subject. The next two hours passed pleasantly, finishing off the cheese and fruit, chatting about where they’d grown up, their families, their friends, and places they’d been. He told anecdotes about his experiences scuba diving, often poking fun at himself and making her laugh again and again. She shared with him how hard she’d fought to convince her parents to let her go to art school, and how proud they were now that she worked on films they could see at the theater and tell their friends about.

  Lunch was a picnic from a Greek deli, served with a rustic red wine and finished off with baklava that melted in Angelica’s mouth. She used her fingertip to capture every last crumb of sweet pastry on her plate.

  “Want the rest of mine?” Tom asked. He was still shirtless, half-lying on the bench opposite her in the open cockpit of the boat. He’d taken in some of the sail and tied a rope to the wheel to keep them on an easy course.

  His offer was barely out of his mouth before she’d scooped the pastry off his plate and gobbled it up.

  “Jeez, you’ve got a real sweet tooth.”

  “I don’t, usually,” she said around her full mouth. “And I shouldn’t be eating this.”

  “Why not?”

  She gestured towards her hips.

  He snorted. “You know what a girl with some curves looks like to a guy?”

  She swallowed and shook her head.

  He gave her a slow smile full of suggestion. A subtle alteration changed his posture from idle lounging to open invitation. “She looks like a lot of fun.”

  Angelica felt her body responding to the suggestion, her eyes traveling down his belly to his shorts. Alarmed at her attraction, she snapped, “Well, I’m not a lot of fun!”

  He laughed, the muscles of his torso flexing.

  “That didn’t come out right,” she muttered, her eyes glued to his body. “And I’ve had too much wine.”

  “You’ve had two glasses.”

  He sat up and started gathering the detritus of their meal. She moved to help, but he shooed her away. “Relax.”

  She did as bidden as he went below with the dishes and clanked around in the galley, cleaning up. She took off his T-shirt and lay back on the bench, her knees up, one arm over her forehead to shade her eyes as she squinted up into the blue sky and watched the clouds. The movement of the boat and the quiet slosh of water against the hull was lulling, and she felt herself starting to doze.

  “Have you got any lip balm I can borrow?” Tom called from below, some minutes later.

  “In my bag,” she called back. “Help yourself.” So peaceful… A girl could get used to days like this. A girl— She bolted upright. “Tom, wait!” she cried, and scrambled towards the hatch. “I’ll get it! Don’t…” The words died as his upper half emerged, her toiletries bag in his hands.

  “I got it,” he said, digging through her things.

  She grabbed at it, but between his surprise and her desperation the bag went tumbling through the air, spilling its contents on the deck at her feet. The linked packets of condoms unfolded like a bright blue snake in the midst of face powder, lip balm, sunscreen, and comb.

  “Ah jeez, I’m sorry,” Tom said, and hurried out of the hatch to pick everything up.

  “No, let me,” Angelica said, but her reflexes were strangely slow and he beat her to it, his big hand landing on the condoms. For a long moment he seemed not to recognize what he was holding, and started to shove them back in her toiletries bag, but just when they were about to disappear inside his hand stopped, then reversed direction.

  “You brought—?” he started to say.

  Burning embarrassment scorched her skin. Angelica grabbed his hand and tried to pry the packets away. “Gimme those!”

  He was too strong and too curious. He held the condoms out of her reach. “You want to sleep with me!”

  “No, I don’t!”

  “At least three times, by the looks of it!”

  “No!” she protested, her whole soul cringing in embarrassment.

  “You knew before I even picked you up that we would end up in bed together.”

  “No!”

  “That’s why you packed them.”

  “Tom, stop it!” she pleaded, verging on tears of humiliation. “I just threw them in. I wasn’t thinking. I just…”

  “Shh, sweetheart,” he said, lowering his arms around her.

  “I just…”

  He nuzzled her ear, his breath warm on her skin. It sent a shiver down her spine and she melted against him.

  “Of course you weren’t thinking,” he said. “You didn’t have to think. You already knew.”

  “No,” she murmured, slowly shaking her head, but sharply aware of his hand on her lower back, holding her gently against him. The hand slipped lower, caressing the curve of her buttocks and sending a shot of arousal through her loins.

  She rested her cheek against his bare chest and closed her eyes. She heard him toss the condom packet on the bench, and then his other hand slid up her back to the nape of her neck, where his fingertips brushed at her hairline. She lifted her face from his chest and looked up, smiling for a moment as she caught sight once again of the ludicrous nose tubes; but then her gaze was caught by his eyes, electric in their intensity, and she forgot about everything except his body against hers, his hand pulling her hips tight against him, his hard thigh wedging against her sex. Her eyes fluttered closed as his fingers slid up into her hair, pulling out her green scarf and then cupping the back of her skull in his strong palm. His lips lowered to hers, kissing her tenderly, persuasively, asking her to give herself over to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and returned the kiss, and the moment she did she felt him release the reins on his hunger.

  His lips devoured hers, his tongue plunging inside, roughly stroking her own. He leant back against the cabin for balance, his knees slightly bent, and pulled her thigh up against his hip, bringing the mound of her sex against his rigid arousal. The pitching of the boat against the waves created a rhythmic pressure everywhere their bodies touched, her sex rocking against his, her breasts brushing his chest again and again with each movement of the boat.

  With a few tugs Tom untied the lacing of her dress, loosening it enough that he could push the straps over her shoulders. The bodice fell to her hips, leaving her naked from the waist up. He groaned, taking in the sight. He gripped her thighs in both his hands and hoisted her up to where his mouth could reach her breasts. His waist was locked between her thighs and she clung to his shoulders as he lowered his head and laved her nipples with his rough tongue. She dug her fingers into his hair, tugging on it in delight, like a happy cat.

  He painted e
very inch of her breasts with the brush of his tongue, and gently rolled her nipple between his lips, flicking its end with the tip of his tongue. When she moaned in pleasure, he lowered her slowly to her feet, letting her sex slide against his body while his mouth trailed up to her neck, nipping and licking.

  As soon as her feet touched the deck he spun her around so that her back was against his chest. His left hand cupped her breast, playing with the nipple, while his right pulled up her skirt and then slid inside her silky underpants. He kissed her neck as his hand brushed over her folds, as lightly as the confines of her underwear would allow. She raised one arm and wrapped it round his head as she arched her back, her hips moving in rhythm with his delicately stroking hand. She could feel the peak of her folds catching against his palm, the friction magnified by the moistness of her flesh. His palm grew slick as he stroked her, but his movements remained maddeningly slow and light. She moaned again, rocking her hips against his hand, begging for more.

  In answer, he suddenly slid his finger deep inside her, thrusting, then curling forward to stroke the sensitive spot inside her. Her knees went weak, and her hand gripped his hair so tightly that he flinched.

  He gave her a few more thrusts and then slowly withdrew his finger. She mewled in protest and turned around, ravenous for more. She captured his lips with hers while her hands yanked down his shorts, freeing a huge erection. Her greedy hands closed around it, the velvet shaft as thick as her wrist. It bobbed in her grip and she dropped slowly to her knees, letting the head brush against her breast as she went.

  She looked up at him as she dawdled, swirling the head of his penis with its drop of moisture against her nipple.

  “Angelica,” he breathed, his hands hovering near her head as if to stop her. With her eyes locked to his, she dropped down a few more inches and took the head into her mouth. He jerked against her, and in answer she swirled her tongue around him. He grabbed her head and weakly tried to pull her away. She sucked him more deeply into her mouth.

  “Oh, god,” he groaned, and then with obvious effort forced her to stop. He kicked off his shorts as he raised her off her knees and pushed her to lie back on a bench. With a few tugs he had her underpants off, and then he was reaching for the packets, tearing into the foil with his teeth.

  “Anything medical we need to stop and talk about?” she asked in a hoarse breath.

  He shook his head. “You?”

  “No.”

  “Thank god.” He grasped her ankles and lifted them to his shoulders. Her dress pooled around her waist. With one knee on the bench and the other foot braced on the deck, he lifted her hips to meet him. She helped guide him into her opening, and then stretched her arms above her head, using her hands to brace herself against the gunwale.

  With slow, shallow thrusts he began to enter her, stretching her to the edge of pain. But as each thrust brought him deeper inside her, the awkward angle of their joining brought the end of his shaft against that place inside her that his finger had so recently stroked.

  “Oh my god,” she moaned, and locked her feet behind his neck. “Oh my god…”

  He thrust into her like he meant it, his face taught with desire, his whole body straining against her. She felt herself building toward a climax, slowly, surely, but as his speed increased she started to fear he would get there before her.

  He read the need of her body, and a moment later she felt the pad of his thumb against the peak of her folds, stroking lightly against her with each thrust of his hips. For several long seconds she hovered on the brink, her body locked rigid with passion, and then she tumbled over, falling in pulsing waves of pleasure. He fell a moment later, crying out as he held motionless inside her.

  And then he had his arms around her, rolling her onto his chest as he took her place on the bench. They gently separated their sexes, and then fell into a doze, naked in the sunlight.

  *

  Two more blue foil packets later, they were at last on their return trip to Marina del Rey. They’d eaten what was left of their picnic between their joinings, and Angelica was pining now for something sweet. She’d ransacked the galley, but there was not a chocolate chip or jellybean to be found.

  “You okay?” Tom asked from behind the wheel. They’d raised more sail, and were speeding along at a good clip.

  “Yeah.” She sat at one end of a bench, her back against the cabin, her knees pulled up under her skirt. Except for the sugar craving, she was floating in a blissed-out haze of good sex. She was enjoying the moment for once, and not letting herself fret about the future.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, of course. Why?”

  “You look…” he said, gesturing at his own face, “I don’t know. Blank.”

  She scowled; or tried to scowl, anyway. “I, er…” she started, and then grimaced, not wanting to confess. Or she tried to grimace. She touched her face, trying to feel what emotion was displayed there. She couldn’t feel any change. A hot flush of alarm flamed to life inside her. “While I was having my scars filled, Dr. Velazquez gave me a free injection of his Phi-Tox formula, to keep me from frowning so much.”

  “Phi-Tox? What the hell is that?”

  “It’s like Botox, but it’s not from botulism. It’s his own secret formula.”

  “You let him put that in your face?” Tom asked incredulously.

  “He was very persuasive.”

  “Well, don’t let him persuade you any more! It’s not permanent, is it?”

  “It’s not supposed to be,” she said, feeling her cheeks and trying to smile. She still could, barely. “I don’t know what’s going on; my face seemed fine this morning!”

  “It’s migrating,” Tom said darkly. “There’s no way to keep a toxin locked in one spot in your flesh.”

  Her panic increased. “It can’t migrate to my heart or something, can it?”

  “I don’t know; depends on the toxin, and how it travels in the blood.”

  “You’re scaring me!”

  “You’re not the first person he’s given this to, are you?”

  She shook her head. “No. Dozens, if not hundreds of people have gotten it. It’s all very hush-hush.”

  “Any of them die?”

  She shook her head.

  “There you go. I assume it’s FDA approved?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said meekly.

  He gaped at her. “You’re super-cautious about everything in your life, but you let a doctor inject an experimental drug into your face?”

  “Like I said, he was very persuasive,” she mumbled defensively, ashamed. She wrapped her arms around her knees. “They’d given me a sedative, too. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  “This is unethical on so many levels, I don’t know where to start.”

  “Please don’t. I feel stupid enough as it is.”

  “No doctor should—”

  “Please, Tom!”

  “But the AMA should—”

  “Tom! Please! Don’t!”

  He ground his jaw. “I need to have a few words with him.”

  “Tom! He’s Karen’s boss. I don’t want to cause trouble for her.”

  “This is bigger than that. You can’t let him harm people in order to keep someone’s job.”

  “But I’m not really harmed. I’ll go in and see him, and I’m sure he can give me some sort of antidote for it…or at least reassure me the effect will go away in a couple weeks.”

  “You can’t trust that guy!”

  “You have to trust him, too. He’s taking those tubes out of your nose on Monday, isn’t he?”

  He grunted in assent. “Although any doctor could do it, I bet. Hell, I could do it, with the right pair of scissors to cut the sutures through my septum.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake. Just go to your appointment! He’s not Dr. Evil.”

  “Looks enough like Satan, with that slick black hair,” Tom muttered.

  Angelica shook her head, exasperated.

/>   “Prepare to come about,” Tom said a few minutes later.

  Angela got up, ready to scramble forward and deal with the jib, but she caught herself and turned. “How about you do the jib, and let me take the wheel?”

  He shook his head. “There’s the mainsail to deal with, back here. It might be too much for you to deal with at this point.”

  “Oh.” She turned towards the bow, disappointed and wondering if he was punishing her for not letting him go off on Dr. Velazquez.

  “Angelica, wait! You really want to take the wheel while we tack?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. You take the wheel, but I’ll stay here with you and deal with the mainsail. It won’t hurt to let the jib wait until we’re done.”

  She grinned. “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  She took his place at the wheel, and he told her how many turns to take while he hauled on the lines to move the mainsail.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Yup!”

  “Go on, then. Make it so.”

  She turned the wheel as he’d directed, and he hauled lines. She ducked as the boom at the bottom of the sail passed over them and swung out to the other side, lurching into place as the boat turned and the sail filled with wind.

  “One turn to port,” Tom said.

  Angelica spun the wheel with confidence, and the boat changed direction.

  Tom looked up. “Did you turn to port?”

  She nodded.

  “One more turn.”

  She repeated the motion, turning the wheel to the right.

  “Port!” Tom cried. “Left! Left!”

  Angelica jerked the wheel, but the boat was slow to respond. It had already turned enough in the wrong direction that the mainsail spilled its wind, and the boom lurched back towards the boat. “Tom!” she screeched in warning, pointing.

  He turned his head just in time to be walloped on the nose by the boom. He fell back across the bench, blood pouring from his nose and violent curses from his mouth.

  “Tom!” Angelica cried.

  “Left!” he gurgled, and let out another stream of expletives.

  She corrected course, checking that the mainsail was back where it belonged before tying off the wheel and going to Tom’s aid, wadding up her skirt to press against his nose.