I love to write... to string words together and make them flow through the tongue smooth like wine and rich like honey. Though I grew up with the notion that I wasn't good enough, and maybe I'm not, I learned that it's a free world and everybody deserves a place in the sun and his 15 minutes of glory.
This site will serve as a collection of my short stories. My entries may be painfully sporadic, depending upon the dictates of my muse.
This is my place and here I dare. This is your place too, should you care.
dark river beds where the eternal thirst flowsand weariness follows, and the infinite ache -Pablo Neruda
All this shade! All this shade and it doesn’t help. This must be the hottest summer since that year in her childhood when her mother, in utter desperation, picked her up and dumped her into the clay jar filled with water and told her to drink up and stay there. It had been horribly hot since May on that year and her tiny body was shriveling before her mother’s eyes.
She had thought of going to the beach but she knew the sun would scorch her on the way and even then, the water would be of no help. Not in this temperature. She couldn’t stay inside the hut where the wretched, old fan droned on and on in futility. The heat was simply driving her nuts! Damn Louis for not having the main house fixed earlier! Damn that beer-guzzling, sorry excuse for a man she had for a husband, she wouldn’t be back here if not for him. Him, and that whore… her so-called friend. She should have seen it coming. How could she have trusted that skimpily-clad twat? One wrong move and the whole world was her gynecologist… and she believed those lunches were innocent? Damn!
So much for finding peace here in the solitude of the island, with this heat and the flies that pestered her all day and the bugs that kept her up all night. It’s just what she needed to get her mind off her troubles. Why, in heaven’s name, did she have to come here? Why? She could have gone to the mountain retreat where it would have been cooler. Yes! There was peace to be had there! Or why not…
Emilia stopped her musings when she caught a glimpse of Camillo, the boy who tended the garden… the boy who has never spoken all his life. He lived on the island with his mother. Between the two of them, the island thrived in its verdant, primeval profusion. They were good caretakers. They loved the island and have lived here all their lives. The fact that the boy didn’t speak presented neither predicament nor concern, and was never brought to the fore. He was a good kid. He had good hands and the garden flourished under his care.
He has grown since she last saw him. The rich tan of his skin was pure cocoa and his budding muscles rippled under his shirt when he moved. There was promise of a good built. He had good bones, she could see that. Life, whatever there was of it on this island, sat well with him.
Emilia went to where the boy was pulling at some weeds and said, ‘Camillo, I need you to help me. Nod… if you can understand what I’m saying.’ And the boy nodded.
‘I can’t stand this heat anymore. Go and ask your mother for a pail of ice and bring it to my hut. Wash your arms and your hands very well and take your shoes off before you step in. Do you understand?’
Another nod.
Camillo dashed to their quarters and started to wash himself. Arms and hands indeed… huh! He’s been out in the sun all morning drenched in his sweat. This is the nearest he has ever been to Emilia… the same Emilia he took with him in his dreams. The same Emilia whose body he has memorized, or at least the silhouette of it… the very same nymph that made him feel all sorts of sensations he didn’t even have a name for. He has watched countless times through the moonlight, when she stood naked by the window, desperate to cool herself with the night breeze. He didn’t know how she wanted him to help her and he didn’t care. Whatever it was, the only thing he understood was that he was going to be in her room, in the very same room with her. He couldn’t possibly just wash his hands and arms and leave everything else to stink.
Camillo hurried with his washing and tossed the rest of the bath water to the floor. He grabbed the pail and ran to the kitchen, opened the ice box and lifted the tray. There were 10 plastic bags of ice and he took them all, chopping each into four sections before dumping them into the pail.
‘What are you doing with all that ice?’ his mother asked.
‘Uhm… ahh! Uhm… ahh!’ Camillo responded, while pointing to Emilia’s hut. He didn’t waste another minute trying to explain to his mother what he obviously couldn’t. He grabbed the pail again and ran out to the hut.
Reaching it, he swung the heavy pail through the door and dumped in on the floor with a slight bang. He heard Emilia dreamily call out as he removed his shoes.
‘I’m in the room Camillo. Come on in and bring the ice with you.’
He has never entered this hut. Surprised, he noted that there wasn’t much in it… a bed, a closet, a bureau, a table and a couple of chairs, an old black and white TV and the droning electric fan. Even more surprising was the fact that Emilia has stayed so long on the island with just these things to keep her amused. She didn’t really venture out all that much. It smelled nice in the room… flowery fragrant, like the smell of juniper blossoms in the crisp evening breeze.
Emilia was lying on the bed on her stomach, with nothing on but a short towel covering her bottom. Her arms were nestled criss-crossed on a stack of pillows and cradled her face which she has turned towards the window. Her hair was all piled in a bun on top of her head and from her neck to the soles of her feet, Emilia was all skin and nothing but.
Camillo stood frozen right where he was. All of a sudden he couldn’t breath. His legs felt wobbly, like they were turning to wax. He dropped the pail on the wooden floor with a loud thud and he almost straggled along behind it.
This startled Emilia and in a flash her body pulled away from the bed half rising, forgetting that she had absolutely nothing on.
‘What the hell, Camillo! Will you be careful, please!’
Too late. All of a sudden, Emilia remembered how naked she was when she saw where Camillo has planted his gaze… on her breasts… her plump, pert breasts with their light pink nipples. Conscious of the gaze, she felt the skin on her nipples tighten, as they grew stiff and hard.
Emilia arranged herself on the bed again, as she gave her instructions.
‘Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to take a piece of ice and run it down my back, the whole of it, then down my legs, to my feet… everywhere that I am not covered. I need to be cooled down. And please be careful, Camillo and be quiet. I am hoping to fall asleep while you’re at it. I have hardly had any since I arrived.’
It took a while before Camillo was able to move. When he was able to, he picked up the pail very carefully and went near the bed. He fumbled, arguing with himself whether he was expected to sit on the bed or kneel beside it. Meanwhile, he was feeling unusually and increasingly hot as he thought of what Emilia had on, or didn’t… at the thought of her breasts… at the thought of what she was asking him to do.
‘The ice will melt soon, Camillo. Sit down and get on with it, please.’
Sit down. Well that pretty much spells it out for him. Gingerly he did, and picked up a piece of ice. The cold startled him and he dropped it. He bit his lip praying that it won’t strike the pail and make another startling noise. Slowly, he picked it up again.
Emilia’s skin was smooth like ivory and soft like cream. His heart was beating so loud he wondered if she could hear it. As he ran the melting ice against her back, beads of sweat gathered on his forehead and started trickling down his neck to his chest. Camillo tried to be very quiet as he worked. All that could be heard was Emilia… moaning in deep pleasure. He wondered at this, how each moan seemed to make him feel vibrations running through his belly, like the sound was coming from him and not from her.
Taking another piece of ice, Camillo moved towards the foot of the bed to work on her legs. His hands quivered a little as he ran the ice through her inner thighs. Her skin was so warm, especially up between the legs. He wasn’t sure but he could almost swear he felt some coarse hair brush slightly against his fingers as he reached up and he wondered just how little she had on.
He hadn’t known skin could be so supple. He can’t help but imagine how it would feel to be able to squeeze those bums, how soft they would be in his calloused hands. And all of a sudden he was seeing her breasts again… full, pert with their pink nipples. He started heaving, breathing through his mouth, careful not to make a sound.
He didn’t know how he survived the minutes. He was down to his last piece of ice and he wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or sorry. Emilia has been asleep almost instantly, and he had been dreaming all that time.
He moved towards her back again, regretting that the last piece would not be cooling down her legs. As he placed the ice on her shoulder, he lost grip and it slid down her side, landing right next to her breast.
Camillo knew he had to leave that piece of ice right where it landed, pick up the pail and trod quietly out of the room, out of the hut, and into the blazing sun. He knew that if his hand went anywhere near that piece of ice, he would be crossing a zone totally alien to him. But he was mesmerized. All he could think of was that last piece of ice.
He didn’t know that all this time, his hand lay smack on Emilia’s back until he lifted it to reach for the ice. The stack of pillows where Emilia’s arms were nestled was high enough to lift her breasts a little… just enough not to squish her nipples underneath her. He moved his hand, slowly, furtively, more out of knowing he was doing the unthinkable rather than caring whether he woke her up or not.
And he reached the ice, the same time that his little finger brushed against her nipple. Camillo froze, closed his eyes and tried to calm the heart banging against his chest. Slowly he moved his hand and he felt the soft skin burn a line against his finger. He moved it up again, and down again, ever so slowly, careful to keep his hand right where it was… just barely sensing the nipple. And he felt it go stiff. Right that minute, Camillo felt a thousand different things that were all at once driving him crazy. Sharp, uncontrollable spasms rippled through his belly. His crotch tightened up to a knot. His groin felt like it would burst. He couldn’t move. Something was jammed in his throat. He was almost certain he would die!
‘That will be enough, Camillo. It was wonderful. Thank you.’
He snatched his hand away and in a shot was out of the room. Before he could leave, he heard her call out…
‘Maybe you can help me again tomorrow.’
Camillo ran to the beach like a mad man and busted the waves head on. He didn’t know what it was he was feeling and it made him want to scream! He needed to make some sense of it. Somehow he knew there was more to it but what? What?!!!
The rest of the days came and went that summer but Emilia never called him again. He wasn’t really sure if he wanted her to. The things he felt that afternoon were terribly, terribly frightening.
Strange how nothing really damnable even happened. And yet, he was never quite the same.
- posted by Jet @ 3:47 PM
