Chapter 4
Moira
Zach was silent once
again as I came into the kitchen for a cup of coffee this morning. I
had introduced him to java when we were in Brasilia, and he fell in
love with it. I told him that we’re going to run some errands
today—for which clothing is required—and he just gave me
a smirk.
But he dutifully
went and showered, emerging wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a
light blue T-shirt, along with a pair of running shoes I bought him.
Today’s errands include some shopping for more clothes, because
I only bought him a few sets while we were in Brazil.
His long, brown hair
hangs loose in messy waves, which looks completely at odds with the
preppy look of his clothing. I’m sure any person who looks at
Zach will do a double take. He just projects the look and feel of a
wild man that lived in the rainforest for eighteen years and most
would probably envision him better in torn jeans and an AC/DC T-shirt
or something. I might offer to take him for a haircut again, but not
any time soon. He flat out shut that idea down when I suggested it a
few days ago, telling me that Caraican men prize their long hair.
Our morning is busy
and Zach tolerates me taking him to a department store, while we
stock up on men’s apparel. Underwear, shirts, shorts, jeans,
socks, and T-shirts. He calmly and quietly accepts my direction,
trying on clothes to make sure they fit. His silence drives me batty
sometimes, and I’m dying to know what he’s thinking. He
doesn’t ask me a single question, nor does he show any
curiosity about anything.
After our
conversation last night, when he demanded I teach him about sex,
unfortunately sex is all I can think about now. He saw my body’s
reaction to him. He knows I want him to take me, just as I wanted it
while I watched him take that woman in the glow of the firelight. But
I made it clear… I can’t. I cannot mess up this
opportunity just because my body is yearning to know what it would be
like to be fully dominated by a man.
But not just any
man.
A man like Zacharias
Easton, who walks around my house gloriously naked with his massive
cock swinging confidently.
He’s killing
me. Absolutely killing me. I went to bed last night and kept thinking
about how he had moved so quickly… grabbing me by my neck and
pushing me to the ground. I wanted to give in… oh, so bad, and
my body was screaming in frustration, even as my brain was screaming
at me to stop that nonsense. I had no sooner stripped my clothes off
and crawled into bed than I reached into my nightstand drawer and
pulled out my trusted pink rabbit vibrator. I was so worked up from
the hunger I saw in Zach’s eyes as he gripped me by the neck,
it seemed like just a nanosecond before I was screaming into my
pillow and hoping Zach had not heard me.
Zach actually does
show some marginal interest when we go to the grocery store. He tells
me he remembers doing this with his mother and father after church on
Sundays. As we stroll the aisles, he picks up various items to look
at with curiosity. When we reach the cereal aisle, an actual smile
comes to his face as he grabs a box of Cocoa Puffs.
“Do you
recognize that?” I ask him.
He nods his head.
“My mom used to buy it for me. It was my favorite.”
“Well, throw
it in the cart then,” I tell him, feeling like doing a victory
dance inside because he is making a connection to his roots.
After we are fully
loaded with enough food to feed an army, I push the cart toward the
checkout lane.
“Anything else
you want while we’re here?” I ask Zach as an
afterthought.
Zach’s eyes
dart to the floor in an uncharacteristic display of uncertainty. He
is one of the most powerfully confident men I have ever met, and the
mere fact that for the first time ever he’s lowered his gaze
away from me, puts me on alert.
I wait patiently for
him to look back up. When he does, he asks, “Do you know how to
make chocolate chip cookies?”
My smile burns
bright. “Absolutely. Want some?”
His return smile is
tentative, but I can tell it’s something that is personal to
him. It’s a complete victory that he shared a secret part of
himself.
He nods. “If
you don’t mind.”
“Of course I
don’t,” I reassure him, thrilled beyond measure that he’s
actually showing some interest in something other than scowling at
me. “Let’s go get the ingredients, and I’ll make
them as soon as we get home.”
“You’re
a very smart woman,” Zach says as he looks around the
restaurant I chose for us to eat lunch at. While his words are
complimentary, his tone is not.
“What do you
mean?” I ask as I unwrap the sandwich I just purchased.
“Bringing me
to a restaurant that serves only food you eat with your hands,”
he says with a smirk.
I can’t help
myself—I laugh. Zach’s eyes crinkle as he unwraps his own
sandwich. “You got me. I couldn’t risk having you slurp
your food off your plate somewhere else.”
Zach doesn’t
respond but merely takes a bite as he looks around at the various
diners. I eat my meal in silence, watching Zach as he takes in his
surroundings. He may act like he wants nothing to do with this new
life, but he is an avidly curious man. He watches people with
stealthy grace, drinking in details… learning by merely
observing.
“That couple
over there,” Zach says as he inclines his head, and my gaze
turns to follow what he is looking at. “They’re kissing.”
“Yes,” I
agree, but I don’t say more because I’m not sure why this
is important.
“Why do people
kiss? I remember my parents kissing, but we don’t do that in
our tribe. I’m curious what the point is.”
Swallowing the food
in my mouth, I take a drink of bottled water while I contemplate how
to explain kissing to Zach. What a complex ritual that he has asked
about, and while my anthropological studies are not necessarily
focused on sexual norms of the tribes I’ve studied, I do know
that the way in which different cultures show affection through
kissing, or even foreplay through kissing, varies radically.
Glancing at the
couple, who are more or less giving soft, teasing, and flirty kisses
to each other while they hold hands, I tell Zach, “What they
are doing right now… that type of kissing… it’s a
way to show affection to someone that you care about. See how their
lips don’t linger long on one another? See how they’re
smiling and laughing with one another?”
“It’s
like they’re in their own world,” Zach observes, and I
smile because he doesn’t miss a thing.
“Yes…
they have eyes only for each other.”
“That’s
the way my parents kissed in front of me,” he says with a
measure of sadness in his voice.
“I understand
they were very in love with each other,” I tell Zach. “At
least… that’s what Randall told me.”
At the mention of
Randall’s name, Zach’s eyes harden, and he takes another
bite of his sandwich. After he swallows, he asks, “But there
are other types of kissing?”
“Yes,” I
tell him with a smile. “You can kiss someone in greeting or
when you are leaving to say goodbye. You can kiss a sick child on the
forehead to comfort them. There are lots of ways.”
“Do you kiss
when you have sex?” he asks with direct challenge.
I swallow hard,
because it looks like we may be having a sex lesson in the middle of
this restaurant. “Yes, you do. But why do you ask? Did you see
your parents doing that?”
“No, I never
saw that.”
Now he has me
insanely curious from a cultural perspective. How does a man that has
never seen a sensual kiss know that it can be very much a part of
sex?
“Then what
makes you think it might be part of sex?”
He shrugs his
shoulders and gives me a look that’s half smile, half sneer.
“Because… I think about kissing you, and I don’t
even like you in the slightest. So I’m thinking there must be a
sexual element to it, because… otherwise, why would I even
think that about you?”
Well, hell. I’m
part offended, part flattered, but regardless of my feelings, I need
to answer him from a teacher’s perspective.
“Yes, kissing
can very much be involved with the act of sex. Many people use it as
foreplay… it excites two people to kiss one another.”
Zach glances back
over at the canoodling couple. “They don’t look like they
want to have sex.”
“The sexual
type of kissing is a bit different,” I tell him with a blush.
“It’s deeper… the tongue is involved.”
“The tongue?
Show me,” he demands with hunger in his eyes, and I find myself
falling prey to that look.
“No,” I
exclaim as I shake my head. “We’re in a public place.”
“Then when we
get home,” he urges.
“No, Zach.
Absolutely not.”
He looks angry and
frustrated with me, so I can’t help but try to appease him
because I don’t want him to shut down when this is the first
time he’s actually interacted with me. “But I bet I can
find some videos on YouTube when we get home.”
“YouTube?”
he asks, his curiosity piqued once again.
“It’s
um… it’s this way to search for videos on the Internet,”
I tell him.
“Videos?”
“Yes…
like movies. Do you remember those?”
He nods but asks
quickly, “What’s the Internet?”
“It’s
something that you can search on a computer and will pretty much give
you an answer to what you need to know,” is all I can think to
lamely say, because seriously… how do you explain the Internet
to someone that has never heard of it before?
“Gives you the
answers to everything?”
“Yes,” I
say. “Pretty much.”
“Then what do
I need you for? Give me one of these computer things, and I can learn
all I need to know from that.”
I just stare at
Zach, not knowing what to say. Because he has a good point… I
could probably sit him in front of a computer, teach him some basic
search skills, and he could learn whatever he wanted about this new
world he has ventured in to.
Shaking my head to
clear my thoughts, because they are spinning now, I tell him, “I’ll
teach you how to use a computer, but you can’t learn everything