by Brandy Blake
She didn’t have her own kids yet and didn’t know if she would ever. She believed that a child felt grounding, like some of your independence was taken away once you chose to create life. At the same time, she wondered if having a baby would be what she needed to feel whole again. Perhaps that was the part that was missing with each new adventure. Did she need a family, someone to mutually love unconditionally, to really help her feel complete? That didn’t always come in child form, but Imani couldn’t help but think about having a baby of her own as she watched families walk up and down the stone paths that snaked in between the bright white houses.
Imani paid her bill in cash and started walking around, excited to get the chance to do this in Greece now. It felt good to be someone from across the world just walking down the street alone. She felt the misshapen stone underneath her feet, the wobbly rocks poking her feet through her flat sandals. Her sundress blew in the wind, a bright yellow against her deep mahogany skin. She kept her hair long and curly, pulled into a high ponytail, bouncing around as she walked up the street. She carried a green suitcase in one hand and a small pink purse in the other. With wide black sunglasses, she looked like she was on her way to a photoshoot.
She walked from the café to her hotel, wondering where she could spend the rest of her day. Her eyelids were heavy, and she felt like she was being told by her own body to get some rest. She was alone, but she still had serious FOMO, worried that if she didn’t seize every moment, she would come to regret her decisions of flying right through life. A mindset like that had gotten Imani far in life up until this point, but it also made her constantly tired, sometimes wishing she could just relax in pajamas on the couch and watch an entire season of a show in one sitting.
Imani found the place she was staying and used the keycode to get into the room. She had done the entire process online, allowing her to have an easy time traveling As she opened the door, she saw the small room in front of her. There was a flat but big bed against a long and plain wall, a small door to the left leading into a bathroom. There was a balcony that looked over a public garden, light beaming through the arched doors. There was a small half-kitchen, just a burner and a mini fridge next to a sink with a few dishes stacked on a wall shelf above. It was all clay tiled floor, and Imani felt like she was truly in a Greek dream once she was in the small room.
*
After just closing her eyes for about an hour, Imani decided that since the sun was setting, it would be a good time to grab a drink. She was still full from her salad and figured she could hopefully find some street food on the way back from the bar. She headed to a place across the street from her secret apartment called Alley Cat. She kept the same thing on, figuring she’d only go out for a drink before returning home into some pajamas and the comfy bed in which she had been resting her eyes before. She easily could have slept through the night, but her mind was telling her to go out and do something fun.
She walked into the bar, a quiet atmosphere that hummed with the sound of a few people having conversations dotted throughout. She walked up to the bar, taking an empty seat towards the end. She liked sitting at bars alone, getting a good position to people watch for the night. After having a drink, she might even get the courage to start a conversation with a stranger. She loved getting to know someone from wherever she travelled. Normally, she’d look for a local to give her some tips on where to eat or what show to see. Since she was there for work, she didn’t know what she would really be looking for that night.
She hoped she’d get the chance to go out a little more, but she was worried that her boss wouldn’t let her. It would be nice to make a few friends at a local spot, but she worried that wouldn’t matter if her boss wouldn’t let her leave the house or apartment, wherever she was staying. She hadn’t even looked it up on the map yet, no idea of where she’d be living for the next couple of months or however long she might be staying there. She looked at the menu, struggling a bit to figure out what exactly she should order.
A man walked in, Stavros Mena, a Greek entrepreneur worth hundreds of millions. He was quiet and kept to himself, but occasionally, he liked to get out of his Mykonos mansion and experience some night life. It seemed as he walked into the club that this was not where he was going to get that. He had frequented that spot plenty of times, but that night, there just weren’t’ many people there. He would spend many nights drinking alone and going home by himself anyway but walking into an empty bar was never a good sign. Perhaps he was getting too old to go out that much anyway. Stavros decided to order a drink, only needing to give one hand signal to the bartender to let them know his usual order.
Before he gave up all hope, he spotted a pretty girl at the end of the bar, knowing right away she wasn’t from there. He wanted to walk right up to where she was sitting and sit next to her, but that didn’t seem like the best approach to getting a positive reaction from the mysterious beauty. Her bouncy curls sat like a halo on her warm skin. She had bright wide eyes that took up half her face. She kept her mouth partially open, studying the menu like she had an exam when the bartender approached.
He eyed her as she ordered from the menu, her confused facial expressions working their charm on the stone-hearted Stavros. He smiled as he watched her order a drink. Imani had a smile that illuminated the room, dimples dotting either side of her thick coffee lips. Her yellow dress only made her skin look smoother; Stavros wondered already what was hiding beneath the bright yellow fabric. He took a sip of his drink, hoping it would give him enough courage to approach the beaming beauty. It had been a while since he had been that interested in a woman so quickly.
Imani was having difficulty figuring out what cocktail to order. She could have just gone with a drink, but it was in her character to always try new things. She just feared that she would order something made with duck’s blood or fish eggs. The guy staring at her from the end of the bar wasn’t making things any easier for her either. She didn’t like that he was laughing a bit while she was trying to order, already embarrassed enough that she didn’t have much of an idea what she was doing. Imani didn’t let her self-consciousness take over, doing her best to act confident when the bartender approached.
“Can I get tonight’s special?” Imani asked sweetly, not sure how the bartender would react. She didn’t say anything and walked away, and Imani was suddenly scared that she had offended the bartender by speaking English right away. Not everyone on the island was happy about the tourism that came in, many locals still loyal to the island’s original culture and heritage.
Just as Imani wondered if she should leave, the bartender came back with the drink, laughing.
“Sorry, I definitely speak English. I just like to see the customers struggle a little bit,” Tula, the bartender, told Imani.
“Yeah, I guess it’s pretty obvious I’m not from here, huh?” Imani laughed as she sipped her drink. Tula walked away, and Imani was relieved to feel the alcohol running through her blood. The drink was bitter with just a hint of sweetness, not sure how she would order the same thing if she was back in the states.
She sipped her drink, catching the smirking man looking at her once again. He had lightly dotted brown hair and brown eyes that felt like warm vacuums stealing Imani’s stare. Imani could see that he was dressed nicely, and she wondered if he was a fellow vacationer or a local that attended the bar often. She felt like he read her mind as he stood up and approached her table; Imani froze up a bit.
“Can I buy your drink?” he asked with a smile. Imani could tell that he was a bit older, but she hadn’t been approached by a man that attractive in a while.
“That’d be nice. You can make it up to me for laughing while I struggled to order,” she told him, smiling.
“I’m sorry, I just thought you were adorable struggling to read the menu,” he told her. He had a thick Greek accent, but his English was still easily decipherable.
“You have a great accent. Are you from here?” she asked. She could cle
arly tell that he was from Greece, but being born and raised on the island would have been a coincidence, Imani’s first conversation being with a legitimate local.
“I was born in Athens but always loved it here as a kid. I’ve bounced around plenty. What about you?” he asked her. Imani was having trouble paying attention as she fantasized about what he would look like without his shirt on. She could see from his wide shoulders and long legs that he was pretty fit.
“I’m here for work,” she told him, seeing that there wasn’t a ring on his finger. He looked older, and she wondered what his story was. Did he come to the bar to pick up tourists, or was he just trying to get out for the night? Imani didn’t really care either way, and she was already thinking about how she could get him to come back to her hotel room.
“Aw, that’s no fun,” he said jokingly. His skin cracked around his eyes a bit, making the golden specs around his pupils shine brighter as he narrowed his vision to really listen to what Imani had to say.
“Well, I’m trying to have a little fun tonight at least,” Imani said, finishing her drink.
“You came to the right spot,” he told her with his thick Greek accent as he finished off his own.
Stavros looked at the beads of sweat dotting her neck. He hadn’t even asked her name yet, and she hadn’t asked his either. He didn’t care if her name was also Stavros. He just wanted to know what she looked like without the dress on. Their chemistry was undeniable, and he couldn’t help but feel pulled towards her. He thought about kissing her right there, a move she probably wouldn’t have completely hated.
She couldn’t stop watching the way his mouth moved as he spoke and thinking about his soft thick lips kissing her neck. He had a prickly beard, and Imani knew it would probably tickle a bit, but she figured it was worth it if she could spend the night with him. His straight white teeth glowed next to his sun-kissed skin. Imani realized that he had asked her a question, zoning out so hard she didn’t even know what he had said. She just shook her head and laughed, having no idea what the conversation they just shared was really about.
Imani could see that he was wealthy, wearing a nice watch to compliment his plum-colored button-up. His hair was bleached in spots, clearly an outdoorsy man who spent plenty of time in the sun. Imani was starting to wonder what it might be like to start a relationship with him. She knew she was thinking way too far ahead, as she just met him and didn’t even know what her own future held. When meeting someone that attractive that she felt connected to already, she couldn’t help but think ahead a bit, wondering what their life might be like together.
She wondered if she should ask him to come home, not sure if that would complicate things. She listened as he discussed his different businesses a bit, mostly sounding like he was in real estate and sales. Imani didn’t have much interest in that, preferring to get to know his body instead of what he did to buy his nice watches and purple shirt. She licked her lips after taking a few sips, hoping that he would start to fantasize about what her lips would feel like around something other than a straw.
He waved his hand to order two more drinks, the bartender knowing exactly what to bring the couple. There weren’t many people in the bar, so it wasn’t all that difficult for them to get special treatment. It still felt strange to Imani to see him treat the bartender a bit like she was a robot. It was clear he came here often enough that the staff treated him differently, but Imani didn’t think that it was always a good thing.
It wouldn’t hurt her to have a one-night stand. He was undeniably cute, and though a few things turned her off every now and then, she still wanted to have someone to keep her bed warm that night. It would be nice to get to hook up with someone quick. Imani wasn’t the type to sleep around, but she didn’t know that Stavros certainly was. Imani was exactly what he was looking for that night. Someone random to jump into bed with, a momentary relief to forget about life’s troubles and focus on pleasure only.
They hardly knew anything about each other, so Imani wouldn’t mind just randomly letting a stranger in her bed. She had let people she knew for years into her bed, and they ended up treating her badly in the end, so why not let this guy come home with her? It was a large island, but the part she’d be in was small; she wondered if she shouldn’t mess up where she was going to be living just yet. She couldn’t help it. Her mind couldn’t shut off the thoughts about the bulge she kept having to remove her eyes from that was showing just a little bit beneath his soft black pants.
This part was a little out of character for her, but it was something that her soul desired and her sanity needed. She only had one day to vacation, and she wasn’t going to just let that slip out of her hands.
Imani finally worked up the courage to ask him, “Do you want to come back to my hotel room?” Imani felt like a cloud again but not necessarily in the way that she wanted. She wished she could just completely float away like a cloud, knowing that even if he was down to come back to her room with her, she was still going to be eternally embarrassed on the inside that she was so forward.
He liked that she was so forward. It wasn’t often that he met a girl who was willing to invite someone back to their hotel room right away. He had his own house, but he was there any time he wanted, so it would be nice to get away and spend the night at someone else’s home, even if it was a random hotel. They had only had two drinks, the bartender bringing them their third without him even asking.
“I’d love that,” he said honestly. After losing his wife, Stavros bounced around from girl to girl, hoping that he could have at least a few nights when his bed wasn’t cold. His wife wasn’t his first love, and he at least had a small part left inside of him that it wouldn’t be his last. He never had any interest in settling down with one person, but his wife, Iliana, had every intention of making him hers and only hers. He eventually caved, figuring that he should probably settle down at some point. She was gone again, meaning it was back to bed hopping for Stavros. He didn’t know what he was looking for, and this had become a recurring theme for him on Saturday nights.
“I’ll finish our tab,” he told her.
“Wait, just one more thing,” she said, signaling the bartender to come back over. She was starting to feel like him. She ordered them each a shot, feeling a little nervous about the anonymous hook-up but wanting it badly. Neither Imani nor Stavros had asked each other one another’s name at that point, but if they had realized what they had yet to do, they might have realized that it didn’t even matter at that point anyways.
She hadn’t changed much from the airplane ride, her body feeling a bit sticky. That wasn’t something that Stavros didn’t like. In fact, he enjoyed the scent of a woman, and Imani’s was thick with floral notes. She had slept on the plane but not much, and she hadn’t eaten much either, really feeling all the alcohol hit her once she stood up from the table. She grabbed his hand, leading him out of the bar and down a small alley back to the place she was staying. It wasn’t a far walk at all, and Imani was thankful that she was so close to home.
She entered the code wrong the first two times, the shot starting to take over her body. She realized she shouldn’t have taken that last shot, but it was certainly making her feel confident enough to start touching Stavros as soon as they closed the door behind them. She had only been on the island for a few hours, but she was already having the time of her life. At the very least, at least Stavros would be a good hook-up buddy, that is, if she even bothered to get his name before he left. He started kissing her neck quickly, but she pushed him back, wanting to slow things down a bit.
She started kissing him, slowly unbuttoning his shirt at the same time. They had made their way to the end of the bed, moonlight pouring through the doors. She could hear people talking outside and in the room next to hers. Nothing mattered now except for taking Stavros’s clothes off slowly. She slowly took his unbuttoned shirt and pulled it delicately around his shoulders, revealing his toned arms and long stretch. He wrapped his arms
around Imani, squeezing her tight and lifting her up slowly. He wanted her bad and was interested in speeding up the slow kisses she was planting around his chin and neck.
He turned her around and pushed her down onto the bed, Imani pushing her butt up towards his waist. She was already feeling herself dripping in anticipation for him, wanting to go slow but liking the change-up. She was feeling excited knowing that he was taking charge, lifting her dress up and over her butt to reveal her brown spandex panties. The dress was thin, and you could certainly see through the fabric. Stavros had wondered if she was even wearing any. He pulled her underwear down, and she let out a moan as he spread open her legs a bit.
He slowly slid his penis into Imani, her head down in the pillow, still wearing her dress around her waist.
“Ah yes,” Imani moaned as he pushed himself all the way in, hitting her walls and pressing all the right buttons. He pounded her for a few moments, and Imani was able to quickly orgasm. The excitement of the hook-up as well as her relaxed nerves from the alcohol made it easy for her to climax, her vagina pulsing around his penis. She collapsed to the bed, knowing that if he kept going in and out after she orgasmed that she would be able to do it again if she just regained her strength. “Can we switch?” she asked.
He turned her over, lifting her up and pushing her back onto the bed so he could mount her. “How’s this?” he asked, lying flat on top of her and moving up and down. She moaned loud to let him know that it was perfect, their bodies tight against each other. He moved hard and fast, his motions building. Imani knew she had it in her and was able to orgasm again; then, he pulled out just as he released his warm liquid all over Imani’s smooth brown skin.
“Sorry,” he said as he walked into the bathroom to grab some towels to clean up. He hadn’t even taken his pants all the way off, and Imani was still wearing her dress, now without underwear for real. He laid down next to her, and they slowly fell asleep.
