Chapter 26 With Her. Alone with Her. #2
“Look, now you know which of your boyfriends is better.” Aroa’s comment chokes all of us. It shatters the vibe, the look, the shine, the hope, and even my butterflies explode in a cloud that turns into rage. I look down at my plate and scratch my blackened burger.
“You’re so sweet, Aroa,” I grumble. “Always thinking about everyone else and making sure the whole gang has a good time.”
“You seem to have a complaint.”
“Should I make a list?”
“Yeaaaaaah,” Gus exclaims.
“Let’s just have a nice time.”
“I can’t take it anymore.” Aroa throws her cutlery down on the table dramatically and heads into the building, which I guess must be the bathrooms. Nobody makes a move to follow her.
“Loren, you go,” Blanca pleads.
“Can’t I even eat in peace?”
“You’re the only one who’s not scared of her, apparently,” Gus points out.
“Scared isn’t the word. He’s just the only one who doesn’t want to abandon her at a gas station,” Blanca replies.
“I thought about it, but it was enough drama just getting her to come out of the RV. She’s impossible, that girl.”
We all laugh, and Loren picks up his plastic plate and walks calmly over to the bathroom.
“Eating in the toilet is filthy!” I yell after him. “And not the good kind!”
Filthy. Like pulling Coco’s hair with my cock in her throat.
Wait, what the actual fuck?
“Listen, after we eat I’m gonna head back to the hotel to take a nap,” I murmur.
I need to relax, to be alone, have a little privacy…to touch myself. To touch myself a lot. That’s the truth.
“Cool, I’ll go with you,” Gus says. “Then we’ll be ready to turn up tonight. This whole not sleeping thing…”
“You slept for eleven hours,” Blanca side-eyes him. She’s always the first to get up in the morning.
“I’m like a model. I need a lot of water and a lot of sleep to look this good.” He rubs his beard against the grain with a seductive look.
“Can’t you take a nap here?” I ask him.
“Now you’re sick of me?” He pretends to be offended.
“I can’t remember the last time I spent ten minutes alone.”
“Ahhh!” He smiles. “I know what’s going on.”
“What’s going on?” Coco says with her mouth full.
“He needs love.”
“What are you talking about?” I say tersely. “Shut up!”
“Love?” Coco asks, looking at Gus.
“Babe…Marín needs to jerk off. Probably in the shower.”
The look between Coco and me last a few seconds longer than expected, and Gus and Blanca’s eyes are glued to us.
“Jeez Louise,” Blanca whispers slyly. “Goose bumps.” She shows her arm to Gus, who sticks out his tongue and licks it.
The argument that kicks off makes everything chill out a little. There are no questions. There don’t seem to be any suspicions. But yes, I need to go back to the hotel to touch myself, unwind, and see if all this is just the consequence of my overhyped imagination. Maybe there’s still hope for me.
* * *
No. There’s not.
I know when my head sinks back into the pillow, exhausted, with the third round of jizz in my hand and I feel that tingle. That one, the one that keeps coming back no matter how much I jerk off, no matter how much I imagine it, no matter how much I try… This isn’t going to go away.
The first time, all it took was thinking about Coco and me in the shower.
About finishing what we started. Right there, up against the wall, grinding, thrusting hard, her nails digging rhythmically into my ass.
When I came, I bit my lip so hard it hurt, wishing with everything that I were doing it inside her.
Aroa never wanted me to do that. She said she didn’t like it, that it was kind of icky afterward.
And I never really cared. Either I left everything in a condom or I pulled out at the last second and shot my load onto her stomach.
Now with Coco I want to do it every way possible.
So, of course, I was still thinking about it, and I had no other choice but to do it again.
My erection hasn’t gone down, even after I walked over to the bathroom and stuck it under cold water.
This time, my head created an image of her taking it in her mouth, wide open, staring up at me, like she’s daring me to hold back while I come.
And I went from zero to a hundred.
The third time, I didn’t even come…physically, I mean. I twisted with pleasure like a bastard, imagining coming all over her tits, her tan belly, …
I hurl myself into the shower and turn the water so cold it feels like tiny razors hitting me.
It doesn’t calm me down. Well, it makes my erection go down and makes me stop wanting to masturbate like a monkey, but it doesn’t calm me down.
Because right in the middle of my empty mind, the question of what the hell is going on with Coco keeps popping up.
You don’t fantasize about Coco. You carry Coco like a torch, with your head held high, with respect, like a prayer even the most fervent would believe in. Coco is…
Fuck my life. Am I in love with Coco?
* * *
My phone rings, and I jolt in bed. First of all, I’m startled because I must have been dozing off and then because I’m worried it’s my work phone ringing, but no. It’s my personal phone, and it’s…Coco.
“Were you asleep?” she asks when I answer with a bleary voice.
“I didn’t think so, but now it feels like I was. Did something happen?”
“No. I went to the bathroom to wash some stuff so I don’t get the RV dirty, and when I came back, all the bunks were full. There are people passed out everywhere. All the soldiers have fallen, general. I await your orders.”
“They’re all sleeping?”
“Let’s see…” I hear her footsteps on the gravel. “Aroa’s probably awake, hating all of us. Now she’s saying she doesn’t wanna go out tonight.”
“She wants us to insist.”
“Should I?”
“No fucking way. We’re not here to grant her wishes. That’s what happens when you raise someone to believe she’s a princess.”
“I don’t know, Marín. I never really thought she was like that.”
“That’s because you’ve never pissed her off before.”
“I pissed her off now?”
“I don’t think it’s anything personal,” I lie. “What about everyone else?”
“Loren and Blanca were talking in the double bed, but now the only noise is the deep breathing of a good siesta. There’s someone in the other bed with the curtain drawn, and…unless some psychopath snuck in to take a nap, that must be Gus. And he snores. He snores like Loren, to be honest.”
“Are you tired?”
“A little. But if I unfold the living room bed I’m gonna wake everyone up. Although, I dunno. If I push Gus to the back a little, we can both fit in there.”
Crammed in that bunk with Gus? No fucking way.
“Wanna come here?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
* * *
She’s wearing the same loose white shirt and jean shorts. She slips off her shoes as soon as she comes into the room and goes over to the window to look at the view, chattering on about the seaside decor.
“It’s perfectly walking the line between cozy and tacky, don’t you think?”
The only thing I think is that she’s beautiful, that I love her bare neck when she pulls her hair up in a bun, and how tan she is.
“Do you want to sleep?” I ask awkwardly, almost interrupting her.
“I’d probably bug you in there.”
“It won’t be the first nap we’ve taken together,” I say.
We’ve fallen asleep on the couch hundreds of time and even in my bed, watching a movie. We always joke that we’re confirmation that “Netflix and chill” is always a lie: Others use it to disguise their sexual intentions, and for us…it means a two-hour nap. At least up until now.
Coco leans back on the dresser and raises one eyebrow with a smirk. “Well, excuse my hesitance…but you’ll probably agree that certain things have changed since the last time we took a nap together.”
“You mean because of”—careful, Marín—“our urges?”
A smudge of red pops up on her cheeks. God, I never noticed how incredibly beautiful she is when she blushes. I’m scared. I’ll admit it. I have a flash of panic because I’ve never even kissed her and I have a fucking “I love you” on the tip of my tongue.
“Our urges, yes.” She nods. “But this is just going to be a nap.”
“But of course. Please, lie down, my lady.”
She cackles and murmurs something about playing doctor. I’m going to make some retort when she unbuttons her shorts and drops them onto the same dresser she was leaning against a second ago. She’s wearing transparent black panties with embroidered polka dots and lace around the edges…
I clear my throat. This is weird. Really weird. There’s even something weird about the light streaming through the window.
“You coming?”
I’m wearing cotton shorts and nothing else. She’s just in her shirt and panties. I can make out a white bra under the thin fabric, and she follows my gaze down to it.
“It’s impossible to find matching underwear in that camper. My clothes are more jumbled than—”
“Than my urge to kiss you…”
She raises her eyebrows in surprise. No, I wasn’t expecting to say that either. I lick my lips.
“We’re fucking it up,” I say, going over to the bed.
“Are you going to kiss me?”
“Do you want me to?”
I sit on the bed next to her and weave a couple of fingers into her hair, even though it’s tied up. It’s one of those messy buns women drive me wild with. She’s looking at my mouth. And I’m looking at hers. She nods.
“Do you think I should?”
She arches, and it’s enough of an answer even though its wordless. I lean toward her. I smell her. God. She smells like home. She is home. What the fuck is happening to me?
My hands don’t ask permission to grab her waist and make her arch more. I slide one hand under her shirt and caress her stomach. She’s panting. I think I am too, but I’m not sure because everything feels like a fucking astral projection.
I kneel on the bed and push in between her legs, which settle onto my thighs, spread so that I fit perfectly between them. I put my hands on her waist again and slide them down to her hips, pressing her into me.
“Now all that’s missing is the kiss.” She sounds like she’s begging.
“All? We’re missing a lot more than that.”
“Like what?”
“Kissing. Biting each other. Licking the skin that…” I stop when I pull her hips up and down to rub against me a little and then I let her go and settle on top of her, holding her in my arms. “The skin that gets wet when we do this. We’re still missing getting naked, fitting together, feeling how you moan when I’m inside you and exploding when… ”
I push into her, grabbing the nape of her neck, and I’m barely two millimeters from her mouth.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she says.
“I can’t either. I want to stretch out the moment and…”
The pressure of her lips is perfect, and her saliva is sweet. I moan into her mouth and…
Knock, knock, knock…
“What is that?”
Knock, knock, knock…
It happens again.
Knock, knock, knock… Knock, knock, knock…
It’s insistent, dragging on.
I open my eyes. The ceiling. I’m confused, foggy.
Knock, knock, knock…
It’s the door. I must have fallen asleep. I was dreaming.
* * *
She’s wearing the same loose white shirt and jean shorts. She slips off her shoes as soon as she comes into the room. She smiles at me. “You passed out.”
“Totally.” I scratch my neck.
“I can’t have taken more than ten minutes to get here.”
“Bah, shut up.”
I grab her by the waist, hug her, bury my nose in her neck, and carry her over to the bed.
This closeness is different from the one we had five days ago.
Neither of us has changed, but everything between us has completely transformed.
I never thought I would feel so full with my lips on the arch of her neck.
“Sleep,” she whispers as a warning.
“Let’s sleep.”
I don’t know why. I think it’s because I want to stretch this game out, the first kiss, the desire. Or maybe because that dream was so weird. Even in my dreams, we’re she and I. Coco and Marín. Sardine and Anchovy. This is the girl for me; that seems to be what this pounding in my chest is saying.
We settle on the bed, and she complains that her shorts are digging into her, but holding her from behind, I ask her not to take them off.
“Why?”
“Because I bet you’re wearing those transparent black panties that are going to drive me crazy.”
“I’m wearing gray ones with a picture of a duck on the back. They’re the least sexy underwear in the world, I swear. My mother bought them for me.” She laughs. “I don’t even own black transparent panties.”
“Well, if you see them in a store, don’t buy them. I’m serious. My sanity is at risk here.”
I press my lips into her neck and feel her shaking with laughter.
I’m scared and happy. I feel full and simultaneously like I’m making room for everything I know she can give me, tossing everything else out the window, like a madman.
I’m falling in love with Coco; it’s starting to be pretty obvious.
Our legs intertwine; we hold each other tighter.
I close my eyes peacefully. It’s like we’ve always been two compatible pieces and we’ve been going around wondering why we don’t fit with anyone else.
But here we are. Do I believe in destiny?
Is Coco my destiny? I met her in a bar one night when I wasn’t even supposed to go out.
I don’t drink. What was I doing on La Via Láctea some random Wednesday night at two in the morning?
What was she doing there? Coco doesn’t go out in the middle of the week, not even when we were younger and had less responsibility.
How did we hit it off so quickly? Why didn’t I try to kiss her even though I thought she was incredible?
I never looked at her that way. She seemed…
Fuck, she seemed like fucking Wonder Woman to me.
I can still see her going over to those strangers who were harassing two girls at the bar.
She asked me to hold her beer and off she went.
“Hey, lightweights, my friends have said no a dozen times. Even an ape would’ve gotten it by now. What’s your problem?”
They called her every name under the sun, but she didn’t care. Even when they threw her out of the bar for starting a fight. I remember saying goodbye to her thinking, Some people have all the luck.
Always, always, I just accepted that she wasn’t for me. But…is she? What about that guy she’s hung up on? The one she covered up by pretending she was still pining for Gus?
I squeeze her a little tighter and give in to being scared, nervous, jealous, overwhelmed before I ask her something that won’t let me sleep if I don’t. “Maybe this isn’t the right moment, Coco, but I’m starting to wonder who the person is who makes your eyes shine and if—”
“You’re so obtuse,” she says, cutting me off, and I can tell she’s smiling. “Who else would it be? It’s always been you, you idiot.”