Chapter 19
All the tight repressions of the night before, as Bruce lay beside her, sleeping, were gone. The early morning lovemaking, so spontaneous, so startlingly different, had wiped out the tensions of the night before, the fears that perhaps Bruce hadn't really cared.
She wasn't certain what it was she wanted him to care about, really. Herself? Her body? The sex she could give him? It didn't matter now. She had had her share of lovemaking and the precious moments afterward, of being just young and gay and naked together.
Elsie was absorbed in plans for the Acapulco stop, and Anna had lists-things to do, things she was supposed to see, people for whom she had to buy presents. Jennifer had nothing. She was free. She had no one to buy presents for, she knew Bruce would show her the places she should see, and perhaps they would find time, somewhere in that busy schedule, to make love.
The air on deck was warm and odorous, with a faint, underlying odor of kerosene that seems to be an integral part of every Mexican scene.
There were other odors, too, the almost overpowering odor of flowers, sunwarmed and fragrant. And people. And burros. And frying foods.
From the deck her eyes tried to sort out the kaleidoscopic bits of the scene, the bright colors moving and shifting. And the shouts and noises.
She was in no hurry. As she had told herself, she had no lists. Life could meet a tempo here. She had an idea it was not always as frenetic as when a cruise ship came in. No, it would be peaceful, perhaps even somnolent. That would be when she'd really like to know Acapulco. Or any part of Mexico.
She had an idea-perfectly valid-that Acapulco in its glitter and magnificent hotels was not typical of Mexico, any more than the Tijuana of mud huts and beggars was typical.
She was having a love affair with Mexico. It was love at first sight-the kind that grows, that matures into something that is a lifelong treasure.
Mexico can do that to you-or leave you cold, unappreciative. But that's you. That's not Mexico. For there is enchantment there. Jennifer could feel it seep into her, even at the distance of the boat from the land. And she returned it full measure.
She stared up at the cliffs and the huge hotels. She wouldn't want that. But to the South lay houses, small, private homes that seemed to have an enchantment of their own.
She understood now why Bruce made his home here. Even though economy might be part of the answer, he was in love with Mexico, too. He the experienced, the sophisticate, and she the neophyte-both in love with Mexico.
The enchantment grew as Bruce led her across the crowded docks, swinging her single, carefully packed bag. The noise and bustle closed around her. The smells came up, biting and sharp. And she could tell, simply from the way that Bruce sniffed at that air, that this was his love, this land his home.
He climbed behind the wheel of his convertible after settling her and her bag, and became a different person. He leaned over the side of the car and, in fluent Spanish, told a burro driver what his ancestors were like when they still lived in trees. He cursed and slammed his way out of traffic in such a state of fury that Jennifer feared for his blood pressure. Or hers.
And as they started to follow the winding coastal road she looked at him and saw he was completely relaxed, hands slack on the wheel, lips smiling. It was all a colossal bluff, a pretense of rage that fooled no one, except perhaps greenhorn tourists like herself. It was just part of the pattern of life he had accepted and loved. As she was learning to love it, to look, with regret, on the brief time she would have here and the return home.
Already, although she didn't know it, she was developing a homesickness for Mexico, a common affliction for those who are simpatico.
When they reached an isolated cove with a surprisingly clean, attractive beach, he stopped the car. Jennifer looked at him wonderingly, and he leaned to her with a gentle smile on his lips. "I can't wait," he said tersely. "I've got to have you again-now."
Obediently, she followed him out of the car. Roughly, almost brutally, he forced her to her back on the sand and began to tear at her clothes. It was all she could do to keep him from ripping them from her body. She manage somehow to keep him from doing any real damage, but within moments he was in his shorts and she in brief bra and panties. Hungrily he rained kisses upon her, such savage kisses that she became frightened. She had never seen him like this before. Would he rape her like an animal and then kill her, now that there were no prying eyes to see and no one to rescue her from him?
Then they were totally nude, and he was on top of her, his prick in her cunt. He rammed it in and out fiercely, seemingly without any regard for her pleasure or even comfort. And it hurt- hurt even more than it had when he had taken her virginity!
Within seconds, it was over, and he had rolled away from her. "I'm sorry," he said as he began dressing. "I got carried away that time. It won't happen again."
"It's all right," Jennifer told him, somewhat shakily, as she too began dressing. She remained somewhat bewildered, but she realized there were many sides to his character she hadn't seen yet. She had a lot to learn about him-and suddenly she wanted achingly to know everything there was to know.
Bruce tooled the car up on the heights and stopped for a view of the harbor and the big white ship they had left so recently. He didn't say anything; he just sat back and let Jennifer absorb the sights, the faint, faraway sounds, the drifting odors, now cleaner and smelling of bougainvillea and some honey-sweet odor she couldn't identify.
He started the car and drove on, on a road that wound southward along the bluff where houses clung precariously above the sea or climbed the wall of hill behind. She knew he was taking her to see his home. And she braced herself for meeting Judy.
It was a charming little house-well, not so little, she could see as they swung through the adobe wall and stopped before wrought iron gates. An elderly, bent Mexican in very white -well, they looked like pajamas to Jennifer- opened the gates, grinning at Bruce, showing enormous crooked teeth.
"That is Pepi. Sometimes he is Josephina's uncle, sometimes her father, sometimes a cousin. He doesn't always remember. But he remembers when the ship is coming. And prods Josephina into a frenzy of cooking. We will have suave burritos and awegatos and guacamole so smooth you could use it for face cream, so hot you could start a fire with it."
It was all there in his voice, his love affair with Mexico. This was his true love, not the boat, not even Jennifer or Jennifer's body.
And here was Judy. Here he kept his truly precious possessions.
Josephina, broad in black bombazine, with a startling white apron, waddled down a side walk, waving and moving with surprising speed for so much bulk. And a flash of red and yellow whipped around her and headed straight for the car, letting out a shriek that probably frightened birds for blocks around. Unless, of course, they were accustomed to it by now.
Bruce was out of the car and waiting for the impact, braced for the final hurtling attack as Judy launched herself and landed in his arms. She was babbling wildly in Spanish at him until she saw, over his shoulder, Jennifer still sitting in the car.
Her small button-bright face froze. Her mouth closed and she ducked her head. "Good evening, senora." And she wriggled out of her father's arms, giving him one slow, hurt look, that said, plain as language-Spanish or English-you have brought another woman into this house where I am the only one.
And then she was smiling a little-girl smile and bobbing a very sketchy curtsy. "Josephina has guacamole with tacos and mangoes and awegatos with mayonnaise. And suave burritos and can I have a dime on my next week's allowance? Josephine won't advance me a cent."
Bruce frowned at this important information. "Are you sure this is not your two weeks' off allowance? It seems tome..."
Judy grinned, impish and very small girlish. "All right, if you're going to get technical. Ak-shully its three weeks' off allowance, but that was because... I don't remember the why of because, but I had a very, very good excuse. Oh, yes. I took Josephina's second son's three little boys to see the circus. And we had crackerjacks and chewing gum and gellados. And I wasn't sick a bit."
"But Josephina's second son's three little boys were?"
"Only Manuelo and only a little bit. In the back of the burro cart but it's all cleaned up. Pepi helped."
Bruce hugged his daughter and surveyed Josephina, round-faced, with just a suggestion of a mustache. She was looking quite solemn until suddenly she smiled and then her face turned into a broad and beaming jack-o'-lantern. "Is no problem. Plenty guacamole, plenty melon, plenty awegato. We got trees of awegatos." Josephina turned her head to explain to Jennifer. "And mango. You come in, you eat."
And Josephina waddled off. Judy stayed to watch Jennifer get out of the car, considering her outfit with all the fierce judgment of a French couturiere, and nodded approval. The Italian yellow, gray and black print had won another feminine heart.
Judy walked between them up to the house, cool under the trees in spite of tropic heat, informing them that Monsteroso, the cat, was not, as she had first suspected, a boy cat, because she had just had six kittens under the piazza. And Cochina, the black hen, had laid six eggs and wanted to hatch them, so that she pecked at anyone who came near her nest. And the burro had eaten a peck of Josephina's cherished romaine. And...
The recital went on, even in the large, dark and cool dining room while Josephina served the guacamole-which was as hot as promised and a delight on tiny pieces of toast, washed down with a cool lemonade.
Bruce looked at his small daughter, looking even smaller in the huge Spanish grandee chair. "Don't you ever run down? And how you manage to say so much and still stuff yourself, I'll never know."
Jennifer winked at Judy. "It's a secret we women have. It's the only way to get it all in. Men talk so much."
Judy nodded approval of this. "And I'm not stuffed. Well, not yet, because there's dessert. A flan." And Judy looked at her father with large, wistful eyes. "Besides, I have to talk a lot and awful fast to get it all in before you're gone again."
Bruce laid down his fork and studied the child. "I do treat you pretty badly, don't I? But suppose-now, just suppose-I said this was the last trip. That we would settle down, all together. With only occasional trips. Regular business trips like lots of fathers have to make..."
He was about halfway through before Judy leapt from her chair to swing wildly around one of the grandee chairs and hurtle into his lap, upsetting a bottle of olive oil and a cruet of vinegar. "We'll all be together! All of us. Forever 'n ever, amen! Like you've been promising." Her hug threatened to break his neck, and Bruce unwrapped himself with difficulty. "I said- just suppose. Now, it might not happen. Maybe not this time, but very soon now. Very soon. I'll know later today. After I take Miss Lorn back to her hotel."
"Oh..." Judy's "Oh" was quite expressive and rather drawn out. It said she had thought Jennifer's introduction was as a new member of the family-and the taking her back to her hotel was the signal that all bets were off. For which she, Judy, was just as happy.
Jennifer had enjoyed the visit-regretting briefly that it was just a visit. This was the life she'd love to live, in the place she'd love to live it. But she enjoyed the ride down through the town with Bruce, his contentment with the life, even his rough and ready swearing at other drivers. And she enjoyed most of all his kiss at the door of her room.
"I have to go now. To see about the prospects of staying on in Mexico. But I'll be back." He looked at his watch. "At four. Just remember, in Acapulco, life starts late and keeps on through most of the night. So don't rush things. Rest now and relax."
She returned his kiss, a little warmer than she meant to, simply because she wanted to thank him for all he had shown her, in living, in the glimpse of the life he led, in the brief view of the happiness within his family.
She didn't exactly follow his instructions. The lure of shops, of people on the streets, of sounds, smells, colors got to her-and she went out under the arcades, jostling, being jostled, occasionally seeing a fellow passenger from the cruise, but mostly just moving through the magic of a new, strange place.
She was back well before four, discovering, in the air-conditioned cool of her room, that she was really hot and sticky. Which called for a shower.
It was while she was in the shower that Bruce came. The first she knew of it was when his hand, holding a large soapy sponge, ran down her spine. She whirled then, outraged, and saw his face, a smile carrying away any tiredness that lingered. He nodded. "Yup. It's settled. I'm not even going back on the cruise ship. But I am going to help you with that shower. A lonesome skinny-dip is hardly more than getting wet..."
And he was out of his white linen suit and in beside her. Jennifer agreed that a lonesome skinny-dip was simply a bath, a method of getting clean, while a double skinny-dip had certain potentials.
And Bruce was building those potentials as he massaged her back and slid his soapy hands over her breasts. He inspected her derriere and decided she was recovering, and then held her close, his body pressed against hers, his arms tight around her, letting the water run off their bodies, carrying away soap and inhibitions.
Jennifer returned the pressure of his body, thrusting her mouth up to meet his in a long, impassioned kiss. It stretched her breasts, tightened her whole stomach, so that she felt his body as never before, and realized that his penis was sliding between her legs, already stiffened. She wiggled her feet and spread her legs so that his penis could reach to her pussy, swallowing the excitement of this new form of lovemaking, this sex in a shower.
His hands caressed her breasts, pushing them tight against his flesh from each side and moving his body in a slow rhythm that teased her nipples, swelled her breasts. His hand slid around her, cupping her buttocks, and pulling her up, so that the bulb of his penis teased at the entrance to her vulva.
One hand slid down, seemed to come from behind to tease at her clitoris, and then she could feel the leaves of her vulva opening, knowing that the soft, pink cavern was ready for his penis.
The bulb slid in and her vulva closed over it, hungrily, almost mouthing it. She couldn't get enough of it. She worked with her pelvis to force it in deeper and felt Bruce give an extra thrust, but that drove it only partway up inside her.
Bruce's hands were locked behind her buttocks and she half sat in them, swinging her legs up to wrap them around his waist. And his priapus stabbed way up her, so that Jennifer gasped and then settled down to ride on that magnificent shaft.
And she was riding. Out of the shower, riding in Bruce's arms, her pelvis tilted up against his penis, and it was moving-both in and out and seemingly with a sort of rotary motion as he walked.
She rode backward, her arms around him, her breasts barely touching his chest as she rode in the basket of his arms.
Very gently he lowered her to the bed, her legs still up around his waist, and knelt beside the bed, so that his shaft was still in her. Now it moved far more freely. And his hands, instead of being imprisoned by her buttocks, were free to roam over her breasts, tightening the breath within her, making her stomach constrict with excitement, while his penis drove with increasing tempo far up her vulva, her tunnel.
He bent over her, kissing the amber-pink nipples, running his tongue over and around her breasts until Jennifer clawed at his shoulders, pushing his head down tight on her breasts, moaning with the ecstasy of his bulb and shaft far up her tunnel, writhing with the exquisite pleasure of the agony.
She tossed her shoulders, moaning, writhing as he rammed his penis far up her. She could feel his balls slamming into her from time to time as the rhythm increased. And the climax was coming, the glorious moment of sexual release. She felt it within herself and in the pulsing of the great vein of his penis, in the swelling and pulsing of his bulb.
Climax came. Together they moaned, cramming their bodies together in ecstasy, trying to reach farther than ever up her tunnel. And then the explosion. Her juices flooded her-and his bombarded her body, far up her tunnel, beating a new pulse within her.
She collapsed, lying on the bed, her legs still over the side, where they had stretched her stomach muscles for increasing the intensity of this moment. And Bruce sagged above her, supporting his weight on his hands as his penis slid slowly out of her pussy, both quivering.
Bruce dropped his head, just touching one breast with his lips, and Jennifer shivered with happiness. This had been real sex, deep and satisfying. She shivered again and his body dropped a fraction, to give her warmth, except that she didn't shiver from cold but from the high excitement of her own emotions.
Oh, she had come a long way from the girl who had looked at her body, really seeing it for the first time, only a week or so ago. She hadn't known of sex, much less felt it at that time- and now she had experienced sex in a variety of ways she hadn't even imagined existed. And all wonderful, all exciting, all promising delights and fulfilling them.
She reached up and pulled Brace's face close to hers, kissing him gently. "That's for nothing... And this..." She pulled his head down, crashing his mouth on hers, reaching for his tongue with hers and mouthing moans... "That was for teaching me the wonders of sex. The way it can be beautiful and exciting-and free, unfettered.
"We have been free, haven't we? No strings..."
Brace raised his head, looking down at her. "No strings. Except, perhaps, heartstrings."
"Bruce, don't." She put two fingers over his lips. "It's been wonderful. You have opened a new world for me. You have given me moments to treasure. And it's over. This was the last- and the best, I think. You won't be going back on the ship. I will. I think I'll find a deck chair and sit among happy memories."
"But, darling, you must have known-I wanted this to be for always. I couldn't just play like this..."
"Bruce, Brace.... Are you equating sex with marriage... and our kind of sex, as wonderful as it has been, as compromising me?"
Bruce scrambled up, the first awkward movement she'd seen him make. "But damn it! I'm not worried about compromising you. Or me." He grinned at her. "Maybe I can accuse you of compromising me. It works both ways, you know. We went into this together-very happily together. And, as you say, it has been wonderful. But it doesn't have to come to an end simply because a cruise ship is pulling out tomorrow."
Jennifer sighed. "Of course, darling, it has to end. That was built-in. It was to be a delightful shipboard flirtation. That's what I went on this cruise to find. And I found the best. But it's over. I go back on the boat, you stay here, loving this place as you do."
Bruce glared at her. "Jennifer, you've got to listen to me. I have some rights in this romance, this beautiful music we make together."
"Bruce, please. Please. You have a home here, a family-and a very attractive family in Judy. I can't stay on, playing tourist, waiting for those spare moments you can give me from your life here. It would spoil it all. Can't you see that?
"For a gay, swinging singles cruise, a surreptitious sex affair is all right-it's what they have cruises like this for. But surreptitious sex doesn't fit into a real life."
"God damn it, wench, haven't you been listening? I'm staying on in Mexico because I have the biggest job to come down the pike. The people I'll be working for plan to transform Baja into a new Riviera, a gorgeous gold-plated playground for the filthy rich, for the not so rich, for anyone who can come there. And I'll be part of it, telling the world of each new development, persuading the world that here is not a better mousetrap-but the best mousetrap. The most pleasure, the most glitter and the most real, downright fun.
"I know it's all there, because I happen to love Mexico. All of it. Even the dirt and funny smells, because these are part of the country, these make it uniquely Mexico.
"And I thought you fell in love with it. I seemed to feel it in you, see it in your eyes. I seemed to sense that you were having your own personal love affair with Mexico. And until that happened, I didn't dare ask you to stay. You might have stayed to please me, but that wouldn't work, either. It's only when you love this country that you want to be here-forever. To live in it, to live with it.... Good God, I'm sounding like the brochures I write. But I think you know what I mean."
"Bruce, are you saying-marriage?"
Bruce ground one fist into his palm. "What the hell do you think I've been talking about? Look..." His eyes widened and he stared at Jennifer. He suddenly threw back his head, laughing. "Good lord, I didn't, did I? And the first rule of a good promotion man is to get the salient point across. Of course I meant marriage. I've meant it from the beginning. But you had to fall in love with Mexico-and I think you did-or it wouldn't work."
"Oh, I did, Bruce, I did. I fell in love with a whole country in half a minute. And I've hated the idea of going back. Just hold me, Bruce, hold me tight. Not to make love to me, but to let me feel a bit of reality in this whirling, crazy world I'm in.
"Of course I'll stay. If Judy will tolerate me --and I think she will."
"Oh, she will. She's already asked when you're coming back-and how long you'll stay, just happening to mention along the way that she's only a little girl and needs somebody to help her run that big house and wouldn't it be nice if... Oh, yes, Judy will welcome you. There will have to be adjustments. Judy isn't always as angelic as she tried to make herself seem... But the main thing is-I love you!"
"Oh, Bruce! You great big boob of a promotion man! Don't you know you're supposed to get the salient point across early in the campaign?"
Bruce reared back and stared at her. "What did I muff this time?"
"That's the first time you've said, 'I love you.' And a girl..."
"But damn it, you knew... No, I guess you didn't. So I'm a schnook. A regular schlemiel. I love you, Jennifer darling, and I'll go on saying it for the rest of my life. If I don't, just hand me one of my brochures and mention a salient point." He glanced down at his bare stomach in surprise and then looked at Jennifer. "Do you know, I'm hungry!"
Jennifer nodded slowly, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. That phrase sounded awfully married-a long time married. And happy with it. She was determined that was the way it would be. She started up to get dressed, already considering her wardrobe in relation to Judy. Would she like the smoky gray? Or would she feel it was a little drab, a little colorless? She started to ask Bruce, watching him struggle with his trousers, and decided he wouldn't understand such female subtleties.
And went on loving him.