Slow Hand (23 page)

“Is a rain forest the same as a jungle?” I wondered. “I mean people are always talking about the
rain forest
now, whatever happened to jungles?”

Deyan considered the question. “I think you need wild animals to be a jungle. A tiger at least, maybe a few gorillas.”

“I’d like to see one.”

“Which?” He smiled. “Tiger or gorilla?”

“All of them.”

“I’ll take you if you like,” he promptly offered. I made a mental note of thanks to all those teen advice columnists who were always telling me to find out his interests. Although I actually had always wanted to see a jungle.

“Are you staying on the boat?” he asked casually. “Do you have to watch it or something?”

“I was going to, but I don’t have to.” A mosquito bit my knee, and I pulled the cloth up to scratch it. Why didn’t I think of that before! Now I could enjoy the velvet of his knee against mine. “It’s locked up.” I felt a twitch in my groin. I could feel my wetness soaking through the sarong.

“I’m having a few friends over to the house for a barby if you’d like to come out.” It was an easy invitation with none of the bumbling I was used to from younger men. “I could bring you back if you need to,” he continued. “But there’s lots of extra room to sleep if you want. And we could go up to the forest tomorrow. It’s best to go in the early morning before it gets too hot.”

It was already too hot as far as I was concerned. Wild animals aside—it was
jungle
drums I was feeling now.

Deyan drove with his legs apart. Everything about him seemed completely relaxed, but I knew it was a coiled repose. We turned onto the highway to Macon’s beach. Deyan settled in the seat and stretched his head back, told me of an octopus
he had found near Fitzroy Island that week. During the tourist season he picked up extra cash by leading nature trips for the resorts.

“They change colors so fast, you know. When everybody starts crowding in to look, it gets very excited and goes from pink to dark red, a brownish red.” As I listened I wondered what colors we would be if our skin reacted to emotion like an octopus.

The beach house was a cool retreat; a small frame house right by the breakwater thickly shaded by ancient mango trees. Inside the house was sparse and clean with shabby comfortable furniture and lots of plants. There were stacks of books, mostly on plants and bugs, and underwater color photos on the walls.

“That’s a clownfish,” Deyan answered my thought as he came up behind me and handed me a glass of wine. “They live in those anemones.”

“It looks like it would feel nice,” I mused aloud as I looked at the wavy arms of the anemone.

“Only to the clownfish,” he explained. “Everything else gets stung.” As I took the glass I noticed a large branching scar on the inside of his elbow. Instinctively I reached to touch it.

“It’s a jellyfish sting,” Deyan said.

“Nasty.” My hand lingered on his arm, drew back slowly, my fingers hungry for the touch. The hair on his arm was silky and fine. As I reached his palm he caught my hand and pulled me toward him. We kissed suddenly and deeply, and I could feel the bulge in his shorts pressed against my easily accessible sex. I think he knew there was nothing under the thin cloth. I ran my hand up under his shirt, drinking in the feel of him. That skin, soft as a butterfly’s breath, smooth as port and twice as intoxicating; I could drown in this skin. I would gladly die tomorrow if my shroud would be so soft and warm.

I bent a little and began to kiss whatever skin I could reach. I ran my tongue around the little indentation where the collarbones meet. I felt his hands exploring my body, one finger exploring the rolled waistband of the sarong. Then a car turned into the driveway, and two guys appeared on the front porch with a case of beer and the party was under way.

The night turned into a swirl of people and music, cold margaritas and hot coals. Our eyes would meet, or he would come to me as I sat talking with his friends and put a casual hand on my back for a moment. We touched at the sink, or passing in the crowded doorway, accidental but prolonged. There were other women there with obvious interest in Deyan, but I didn’t care, except that I wanted to touch him so badly. I was after his skin, not his fidelity. I was nineteen, loose in a new hemisphere, breathing the tropical night.

Soon the party would be over, soon they would all leave, and we could slip into the little bedroom, with its soft cotton sheets and louvered windows open to the sea But at 1:00 A.M. everyone was still going strong, and I was about to collapse. I had been up since four that morning and had had plenty of margaritas. Somewhere around two, I fell asleep on a comfortable saggy couch on the back porch.

I dreamed I was diving under the water through a forest of soft anemones. I felt soft caresses. I opened my eyes and found Deyan stroking my arm.

“Do you still want to go?” he whispered, his hand still resting on my arm. I was wide awake at once. I could see a faint band of red over the sea where the sun was about to rise. We crept over other sleeping bodies, out the back door to his truck. By the time we got to the forest the sun was just starting to break through the canopy, but already the ground was steaming with heat. We walked for an hour, stopping often so Deyan could show me something. I felt delirious. So much texture! The fat-leaved plants, the mossy tree trunks, smooth shelf fungi, even the air felt unique, damp but sort of sparkly.

The trail was narrow and became more and more overgrown the higher we climbed. Suddenly my leg began to sting. I thought it was an insect bite and scratched it. A few more steps, and the pain spread and grew more intense. It was an odd terrible sting that hurt worse than it looked like it ought to. The skin turned splotchy red, and Deyan bent to look.

“You hit a stinging tree,” he explained. “It must have been tiny, I’ve been looking out for them.” It was a crazifying sting, a fierce irrational pain that made me want to stamp and cry. “It’s
like a stinging nettle,” he went on. “But about a hundred times worse. Plus it will last a long time and hurt every time you get it wet.”

“Great,” I tried to be noble.

“There’s another plant that will help if I can find it,” he said. “Wait here.”

As he rustled in the bushes I stayed on the narrow path, still amazed at the amount of pain from the sting. I could see him in the woods, his body bronzed and shiny against the sharp rays of morning sun. He was silent and engrossed with the search, moving unafraid in the thick underbrush. I was still a little shy of these woods; besides stinging trees there were deadly spiders and poisonous serpents.

But Deyan was at home here. He searched farther in. His bare shoulders glowed in the filtered light, and suddenly I had to touch him. I picked my way to his side, and rested my hand on his bare back. I felt new blood surging through my body. I stroked him lightly, with some fascinated fear, as a child might stroke a beautiful snake for the first time. He was bending to look at a plant that grew by a fallen tree. There was a huge wild frangipani bush between us, and
as
he turned to show me the plant his body stirred the branches.

They were still wet with dew, and the odor burst up like a cloud. Suddenly we were in a wave of perfume. “Oh, smell…,” I cried and forgot the pain of the sting as the fragrance rushed in a cloud around us.

“Ummmm …” He closed his eyes and drank the scent. I also liked Deyan because he didn’t talk much in the forest. He stepped around the bush and showed me the plant so I might recognize it again if I ever needed it.

“Nothing really cures the sting,” he informed me as he pulled the leaves off and began to crush them in the palm of his hand. “But this will help a little.”

He squatted down and began to rub the juice on my leg. The friction made it hurt worse at first, and I bent toward the frangipani for distraction, running my hands through the blooms. The dewy blossoms cooled my skin as the juice began to work. It was cool and tingly. Deyan’s hands were warm, the
palms calloused, the only interruption in that velvet skin.

Glancing down I saw his thigh muscles strong and steady as he squatted on the jungle floor, the skin brown and shiny with sweat. Our eyes met for a second, and then Deyan leaned forward and licked the back of my knee.

I shifted my feet a little, spreading my legs. The sting was on one ankle but his hands caressed both, then began to rub higher. I shivered as the sap cooled the inside of my thighs. Deyan stood slowly, sliding his hands up along my legs.

He leaned against me slightly and kissed the side of my neck. Then he caught me with one hand around the waist and began to play the other around the inside of my leg. My knees felt suddenly weak, and I stumbled a half-step into the frangipani bush. Overbloomed petals shook loose and stuck to my skin. I felt Deyan’s hand firm on my hip, and he steadied me. I felt the lightest touch then as he reached smooth fingers up between me and began to stroke the sensitive skin there.

Deyan bent his knees slightly so I felt his thighs firm against my own, and rubbed himself like a cat against me from behind. I could feel him, aroused and hard, rubbing slowly against my ass.

We stood there in the heavy silence, rubbing luxuriously like bears. The sun grew hotter, and the thick forest was gray with haze. Deyan ran his hands up inside my wet garment. I leaned into him, reaching my arms over my head to touch the soft skin on the back of his neck.

Moleskin, silk, marble, honey, wind in the palm trees, cello concertos; I stroked his skin. I felt him peel off his shorts, then felt his legs pressing between my own, easing them farther apart, as he pushed me toward the fallen tree.

The trunk was covered with moss, soft against my breasts, almost tickling, until he pushed me harder down against the tree, the weight of his chest pinning me. The frangipani bush was half crushed beneath me.

The light cloth fell away, and I was naked in the rain forest. Deyan ran his hands down my body, digging his fingers into my ribs, pushing me almost harshly in the moss.

I felt his hard curved cock against my swollen sex, the tip probing up and down, ready but still teasing. I was going crazy, not wanting it to ever stop but hungry to feel him inside me.

He leaned back, slipped one hand around the front of my waist, down between my naked belly and the mossy tree trunk and found my hot wet pussy. He probed between the swollen lips, caressed the most sensitive spot between two fingers. I pushed off the tree trunk, crazed with the stimulation but not wanting to climax this way. His hands were great, but I liked to feel a hard cock deep inside—that full, steely pressure.

I tried to turn but he stopped me. He held his hand there, cupped around my sex but barely touching, leaving me on the very edge of orgasm. Then suddenly he turned me around, boosting me and leaning me back so I lay across the huge trunk. I was startled by his strength, and by this new roughness. He moved closer, and I could feel his cock huge and hard against me, like a mahogany log, sliding down the juicy slope. My ache spread like thunder across the plains.

My body began to tremble. I felt the blunt weight of his teeth against my neck, then finally, the tip of his cock slowly probing, slipping just an inch inside me. I groaned and raised up higher to swallow him deeper, but he held back, teasing. It seemed like forever, Deyan sliding, probing, just barely entering, as he continued to play with my clit until I couldn’t hold back. Then suddenly I felt his legs tense, and he slammed in all the way. He thrust so deep, so fast, that marvelous curved rod churning into me, his hands pressing down on my arms, pinning me to the tree as he began to thrust. I felt a convulsive orgasm sweep through my body.

I was so wet I could hear him moving, and with every stroke another quiver stabbed through me. He came seconds after I did. Deyan’s sounds were small, a catch far down in his throat, a small note on the breath, animal noises. I could feel each pulse as he came inside me.

We slipped together to the forest floor, drowning in the new scents—the smell of the moss and the jungle and our own juices, the ashy smells of sex clinging low around us, pressed
down by the rising heat. He wrapped both arms around my waist, catching the frangipani branches, pressing the twigs into my skin.

The silence of morning had vanished, and the forest was full of soft twittering bird noise. Deyan pulled me gently off the tree trunk and brushed the moss and broken leaf bits from my skin. I thought he might speak and so kissed him. His bronzed body was covered with the pale petals, and I brushed them away, just wanting to touch that skin.

“Let me go—,” I whispered. “—I have to feel you.”

He looked puzzled, but leaned back and let me feel him. It was an intoxicating greedy touch, as I felt every inch of skin on his body, carefully, completely. We sat there until we had strength enough to walk, then slowly, we started back down the trail.

My season at sea passed too quickly. Cyclone season came, and the boats were put to harbor. What I remember of the water is the silken ripples over the coral, the warm straight rain of a passing storm. What I remember of the boat is the feel of the sailcloth and ropes, the sun-warmed deck, the smooth varnished helm. And what I remember between voyages are the nights with Deyan.

I was drunk on his skin. Lying next to him I grew dense with desire, reeling with the fascination of touch as if it were a new sense, an accidental gift from the gods, a momentary secret that would be snatched away when they discovered it missing.

We made love in the wooden house, with ripe mangoes falling on the roof and Deyan’s small black cat walking soft-pawed across our bodies, as we lay exhausted in the dark, sweaty, but still touching.

Touching somewhere, even just fingertips, with the waves washing over the breakwater just outside and the night wind blowing in cool off the sea. Moonlight bounced off the water, slipped between the louvers, and sparkled on his skin.

It was a suspended, flooded feeling; like morning in the jungle as the sun first penetrates the canopy and steams away the night. On the forest floor, in that pocket of heat, everything
seems halted, swollen, and ready to burst. Fat-leaved plants give off their must, and the ferns tremble. The rising heat has a noise—a huge soft invisible noise.