Fabián
D on’t get the seats dirty.
I read the text in the Cuervo brother and cousin group chat and rolled my eyes at César’s antics. I replied with an emoji flipping him the finger then pocketed my phone to give Ofelia my full attention.
She sat snuggly in the passenger seat of my brother’s precious car. A bright spot in a backdrop of black.
I’d taken her away from the party, content to drive in silence, the windows rolled down so the warm night breeze filtered through. Stray strands of hair slipped from her top knot and flew with the wind, the only thing out of place in her perfect demeanor. I was content to watch her in my peripheral vision, one hand thrown lazily behind her seat, one hand on the wheel. I noticed the way she watched my arms from the side, and the fact that she was looking at me while flushed brought me sick satisfaction. We’d gone on for a while in silence until I found the perfect spot to park. We overlooked the city below, high up on a hill on a plot of land that belonged to somebody I knew, surrounded by an expanse of pine trees.
“Did you bring me up here to murder me?” Ofelia asked, a smirk on her lips and in her tone to let me know she was joking, though her voice trembled when she asked it. Not of fear. No, it felt like something else.
My fingers found the back of her neck, toying with the few hairs that slipped loose on the drive over. I wrapped a finger round and round a single chocolate-colored strand, turning it into a soft curl. Her body visibly shivered against my touch and a smile pressed against my own lips at that little gesture.
“I brought you here...” My fingers lifted to the band holding her hair back. I moved gently, pulling it off so her hair tumbled down to her shoulders. “...to learn more about you.”
As if we hadn’t spent most of the party talking about music and poets and books.
I always thought you could tell a lot about a person based on the literature they liked to read. And I knew that Ofelia hid her pain deep in her chest. Like she took the tragedy she was blessed with and held it close, but she didn’t even know she did it. It was like she was waiting for the misfortune of her namesake to happen with bated breath. Like she knew something grand was coming, but she couldn’t tell if it was good or bad just yet.
Ofelia’s breath hitched and my fingers massaged her scalp, rubbing gently before sliding down the strands to smooth them out.
“I dance,” she whispered, her tone bordering on a moan. “Ballet. At the academy.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ballet before.”
“You should. They’re amazing. We have a... recital coming up.”
Her breath hitched, so I did it again. “Tell me about it.”
So she did. I watched and drank in every word she animatedly gave, her hands gesturing, her lips turning up in a smile that illuminated the dark thing I called a heart.
“I think I impressed Maestra Rosalba last year. She chose me to lead this year. We’ll be doing a rendition of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.”
“How bleak.”
“It’s supposed to invoke emotion,” she said. “It was... my idea.”
Her gaze darted downward, almost shyly. I released her hair to press my fingers against her dainty chin, pulling her gaze up to me. “Give me your eyes, preciosa. Don’t look away.”
Warm breath blew against my fingers as she shuddered and moved her head up and down in a slow nod.
“So, why The Raven ? When I think of ballet, I think of things like The Nutcracker or something...”
“Because it’s unexpected,” came her reply. “And I know it’s bleak, but it’s also dramatic. It’s amazing how one small poem can tell an entire story from beginning to end. Like a man’s tragic and lost love...”
“Like his descent into madness for losing her.”
She slowly blinked at me. “All artists have a touch of madness in their soul,” she whispered, shifting slightly forward. Her hair fell over her shoulder. I had the urge to touch it again, so I did just that, wrapping my fingers around the ends. “Madness begets greatness.”
I leaned over the middle console of the car. The space was confined, tight, so pressing forward a fraction only brought us closer quicker. With one hand entangled in her hair, the other dropped to her bare knees.
Earlier at the party, I’d noticed her reactions every time my fingers slid up her thighs. So I did it again. I let my fingers roam over the smooth skin at her inner thighs.
“I’m neither an artist nor great,” I told her. “But I do have something dark inside me.” Something that could now understand that maybe it wasn’t really madness inside the man in that poem at all, but a deep rooted obsession for something he could no longer have.
Fucking symbolism.
“I know.” She shifted forward and my hand slipped up further, encased in the warmth of her body. “It’s the first thing I noticed about you.”
That didn’t surprise me. Everyone always noticed that first. I was a malandro. A gangster, through and through. It made people uncomfortable. Not her. She leaned into me like she couldn’t get enough.
“Tell me more.” My fingers reached the edge of her panties.
Her breath hitched. Her voice trembled. “I–I’ve been waiting for this opportunity since I was a kid. The academy has the best dance program in the country. The possibilities for the future are endless.” Passion leaked through her words, making her bright eyes shine even brighter.
I teased the lace, pulling it away and snapping it back into place. Her cunt had a breath of its own, warm and wet against my knuckles. “You’ve been dancing for that long?”
In the dimness, I could make out the flush rising on her cheeks. “My mamá says I could dance before I could properly walk. If I’m honest, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t dancing.”
I didn’t know shit about ballet, but when she talked, I could picture her on that stage. Body twirling, moving along with dramatic music and a smile that was both bright and blinding.
“That’s cute, preciosa.” My fingers tightened against her hair and her breath hitched.
“What do you do?” she asked, flipping the script on me instead. Like she couldn’t take answering anymore.
“Whatever my dad asks of me.”
I knew it was a vague answer, and for a moment, her eyes went to my pockets and the bulge of money and weed I had stashed there. Almost like she could see through the fabric and to the filthy secrets that lied underneath. Like she could undress me with her eyes and find the blood staining every inch of me and my life. But her eyes didn’t seem to judge me for it, and I was able to breathe a small sigh of relief.
“He approves of what you do?”
I pulled away a fraction, but all she did was chase my touch, so I kept my palm against her thigh, squeezing and kneading the soft muscle. “He created an empire from the ground up. We’re his workers, his soldiers, and his heirs. He would disapprove if we didn’t take on the family business.”
She nodded, almost as if she understood. Her body leaned closer to me, separated by too many inches of space and stopping just shy of touching me. So far she’d kept her hands to herself, content enough to let me lead. Now, she reached for me, pressing her palm against my chest to feel my heart beating a hard, steady rhythm.
“Do you ever just want to run away from it all?” The question came out as a whisper, like she was afraid of saying it at all. Like it was hearsay to even wonder aloud. But I recognized the burning in the words, the need for more.
Saying what I wanted to say would earn me a beating from my papá. The old man wasn’t as lenient as he used to be. Not since mamá died. And my deepest desires were just that; desires and dreams that lived like wisps of air that you couldn’t see or touch. But Ofelia pulled them from me. That desire to share with someone else who felt the same way balanced on the tip of my tongue.
“Yes,” I confessed, my hoarse whisper barely discernible in the dark.
Her eyes sparkled. “Me too.”
I smiled and my hand tightened on her thigh. “Maybe one day we can run away from it all together.”
It was madness, what I was saying, and yet no other words had ever felt so right. They needed to be said, because I needed her to understand that even though it had only been hours, I’d never felt such an uncontrollable madness with anyone other than her. I never felt the twisting in my stomach or the secrets perched on the edge of my tongue ready to slip at any careless moment.
I didn’t do this.
I didn’t drive on hillsides with rich academic princesitas. I didn’t sit and toy with their hair or listen to their secrets. I fucked and I left. It was how it always had to be.
But for the first time in my life, I wanted more. And for the first time in my life I aimed to take it.
Her answering smile was shy. “That would be a dream, wouldn’t it? To run away and never look back.”
I leaned closer, breathing in her sweet scent. She startled at my abrupt proximity. Like she wasn’t quite used to me yet, even with my hands caressing her skin. That was okay. She would be.
“One day, Ofelia Reyes Munoz, one day I am going to take you away to be free.”
When our lips finally touched, it was like the universe opened and the secret to life and death and the cosmos presented itself to me right then and there. I groaned, a desperation gripping me that I’d never known before. Ofelia echoed the sound back at me, our lips and tongues tangling together in a slow dance that kicked up our heartbeats, the pounding sound of both a deafening cry within our confined space.
I grunted, pulling away, but she only followed after. In a lithe movement, she’d hopped over the middle console to straddle my lap. Displaying a confidence she hadn’t before, Ofelia dug her palms onto the leather just above my shoulders for support. With our lips locked tightly together, her chest met my own and I could feel her heart beating against mine. Every inch of her was tight against every inch of me. Her hips ground down against mine and I jerked up to meet her, my dick tight and aching beneath the confines of my jeans.
I tore my mouth away from hers, our foreheads kissing, our breaths taking each other in with slow precision.
“Fuck, preciosa.” The breath expelled from my chest. A fire ignited in my chest, begging to claw its way out. “I need you.”
Our eyes held, a thousand things passing between us in a single instant. We didn’t know one another well enough to gauge every little thing, but it didn’t matter right then because somehow, we both just knew what we wanted and were willing to take it.
My hips lifted, pressing to her center. The fabric of her checkered skirt bunched up at her waist, revealing the lacey cream-colored panties she wore underneath.
My fingers itched to tear them off her body and dig my face into her center and ravage her like a starving man. That would come, I was sure of it. But for now...
My cock throbbed beneath my pants, begging for her attention.
Chocolate hair tumbled over her shoulders, surrounding us in a curtain of privacy. I reached up, flicking the waves over her shoulder to expose the nape of her neck. Her pupils dilated with every movement I made, and her teeth bruised her bottom lip.
“Sácalo,” I ordered.
Her breath hitched. My hips shot up and the moan she gave me in return traveled down the length of my spine. Pleasure gripped me tight, refusing to let go.
“Sácalo,” I repeated. “Take my dick out, princesita.”
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