Chapter 5
Rocco thought that Conchita would be all over him, in the car.
Instead, she sits up straight on her bucket seat, even using her seat belt.
And says nothing.
"Nothing to say, huh?" Rocco asks.
"No' much, no," she concedes.
"Yo'i uh, you nervous or sumthin'?" Rocco asks.
"Cou.I' be."
And he glances over at her, surprised, before turning his attention back to the night highway, stretching before them like a light grey ribbon in the glare of the headlights.
"Problems?"
"No, no problems. Jus', it's been a long time seence my las' ril date, joo know?"
Rocco says nothing, but he knows only too well.
For a long time, he too has made love sex object to sex object, thing to thing, that is to say, image to image.
But now, he is about to do it, person to person.
And there is a very big difference.
Not he but his image was intimate with a succession of perfect strangers.
And his image was that of a perfect stranger, and this in the literal sense, that is, the image of a stranger who was perfect.
It was as though he made love wearing a mask, a mask of anonymity.
A mask.
The condom of the soul?
In the women's case, that was certainly true, he knew.
His anonymity was what made it all right, so far as she was, they were concerned. And Conchita?
A dancer playing at whore for her sex.
An erotic, some would say obscene dancer, who danced for herself alone, only in public.
And who went out with old men for money, sometimes.
And who was now about to stay in with Rocco, for free.
And who, for all her aggressiveness at the bar, sits here as shy as a blind date.
Where is the common denominator, the consistency here? Rocco asks himself.
And he thinks he knows.
Safety.
Her other partners were safe in the physical sense. She could take any of them in a fair fight. And Rocco?
He is safe because she knows him.
She knows him because she wants to know him, has taken the time and trouble to know him even better, has overcome her natural shyness to risk making a fool of herself in the process.
But now, now that it has worked, she has no reason to continue with her artificial brass.
She has embarrassed, shamed, harassed Rocco and herself as well, to bring him to this point, mostly because she knew no other way.
He is not of her people.
They have no natural association.
Because there is nothing natural about the bar.
It is a scar in the terrain, a thing dropped there, near the airport, with others of its like, a response to an opportunity, a shoddy monument to its own oppurtunism and an understanding-a correct understanding-of certain urges, certain images in the minds of men.
Which it serves them in regular doses, scraping profit from the side dish.
The main course is free, but the side dishes cost more than they should, at this shabby, sham feast ol the flesh, this carnival whose tacky show is always changing but ever the same.
But people are required to put on the show, to manage it, to keep the sad, dingy party going.
And people are people, no matter what shell they construct for themselves.
Enough hours, days, weeks and months together and the humanity is bound to emerge.
So it was with Conchita, who, after all, is young, young and with a hot latin idea of good times.
So yes, hell yes, she wanted Rocco.
Well, not Rocco exactly, but someone very like Rocco, someone who could carry the image, on the one hand and, on the other, have a human side, a vulnerability as well.
So that he could not put on the macho act, that making something out of nothing that makes of grown men such dangerous and immature fools and which Conchita so suspects and fears in the latin lover types.
Who never worked out for her.
Who would punish her for any attempt to penetrate their macho, that is, to imply in any way that they were something different, something less than the tough, hard image they presented.
Because the front, the faade might be false, but the pain they could inflict, the damage they could do for questioning it was all too real.
So that she gave up on them, early in the game, considering herself lucky to escape unscathed from that world of macho men she dared to reject.
And yet-and yet.
She too has her images, her ideal man.
And she too wants, needs those feelings which only men can give her.
But she is unwilling to pay the price, to put up with their stupid bullshit.
So that the rest, well, the rest is history which has yet to be written.
And now is about to be.
To act out her sexual fantasies on the stage, making love to an invisible partner in time to the music, that was, is to shout her innermost thoughts, her private secrets to the world in a tongue nobody but herself can understand.
Because they cannot see the invisible image.
Only she can.
Only she can see him, his muscles gleaming, his shoulders impossibly wide, his cock huge and ready at all times, as he lifts her, turns her, clamps her. onto his lap as they go round and round, oblivious to their ogling audience.
Or, most of the time, in her case, puzzled audience.
But Rocco understands.
The one useful thing he has gained over the years of playing at superstud is the ability to read certain parts of women's minds with reasonable accuracy.
So that Rocco knows what she's up to well enough.
But it doesn't work.
Sex is horizontal, dancing vertical.
Dance is symbol and substitute for the real thing; it is not, never can be, the real thing itself.
The tango wasn't, the lambada isn't.
And Conchita is not about to change that.
So that she will go out there on the little stage, night after night, and her luscious, writhing, tawny body, all gland and lithe, prime flesh, glistening in the harsh spotlight, will project-her own frustration.
And the best of the men and the worst of them will look on and know that, if with a body and face like that, obviously able to do what she can, she cannot find what she is looking for by way of satisfaction, then that is a mystery beyond their physical and emotional powers to solve.
So that they can only look on in puzzled impotence as she writhes her anguished, sweating way through whatever private world in which she is lost.
Thus her success, because who would not behold a body like that in naked gyration?
Thus her failure, because she leaves behind her, hanging in the air, the very unresolved tension and frustration the men brought in with them.
So that they sip and wait for the next act, as though they have somehow just had the beginning of sex, only to be left hanging in the middle.
All this, Rocco sees, Rocco knows.
But he is confident that he can resolve her problem, although at what emotional cost, with what future involvement he is not sure.
But that is for the future, a thing in which Rocco, the man who lives always in the present, does not believe until it arrives.
For now, Rocco is happy, is confident.
He is not excited, cannot force the excitement.
Perhaps, he tells himself, that will come later.
If she is as hot as she imagines herself.
Because it has been a long time for her.
And there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, especially if you wait a long time for the sip.
But, he sighs to himself, we shall see what we shall see.
Naked together, they are.
And Rocco wears his naked face.
And it is his body he occupies, and not that of the superstud from the beach.
And he feels her firm but yielding flesh, feels the superb condition of her (because that dance of hers, however odd, however incomprehensible, is fantastic exercise, no question).
And he feels her responsiveness.
Because he has but to touch her breast and she closes her eyes (they all, all close their eyes; he has never understood that) and issues a shuddering moan of incipient arousal.
Nor is she faking it.
Because that nipple is fully erect, rubbery, the gland beneath it like a ripe grapefruit in its firmness, before ever he covers her nipple with his mouth.
"Ayee!"
And he almost draws back in surprise.
But he quickly realizes that it is only her passion, her excitement at the real thing, at last, her anticipation which is causing her to go crazy, to express by other means that which she reaches for on the stage.
Yes, she is hot, hot, hot.
He continues to knead and fondle her solid breasts, as he slides down the lithe but voluptuous body, biting her gently as he does so, apparently driving her crazy with this, so responsive, so reactive is she.
Her back arches, her legs fly into the air, high and wide, as he seals his mouth to her wire-haired bush.
And now, as he eats her, he finds that he must actually press his forearms against the backs of her thighs to anchor her, so excited is she.
And in fact-he had not counted on this.
As he realizes that, incredible as it may seem, the fact is that she is sky-rocketing.
Yes, she is going right through the roof.
No way, he thinks. No way is he going to catch up with that.
Best to stay calm, to play the tongue mechanic and simply take her all the way, taking the edge off.
So that she can calm down.
So that she can regain her perspective.
Because Rocco can see that here is so much pent-up frustration being released, so much long-delayed pleasure being unleashed, summoned, that there is no relating to her feelings and no stopping her.
So he doesn't.
He'll do her this favor.
Because he is here as Rocco, as somebody she knows, is wearing his naked face, rather than the invisible mask of the superstud.
He has nothing to prove here, at the moment.
Right now, the only critical needs are obviously hers.
Right now, the only thing that is required is that this particular Hispanic sky rocket arc gracefully into the dark heavens, there to burst into a thousand points of light, as somebody once said, no doubt in a different context.
Conchita is writhing, rocking and rolling from side to side, Rocco's triceps and biceps actually having to flex in order to hold her steady with her forearms so that he can maintain full contact with her clit and cunt, as he alternately strums her joy buzzer with the tip of his tongue and then, turning his head to one side, glides the side of it against the engorged bud as he tongue-fucks her hot, drooling pussy.
Until-
She is coming.
She is coming and coming.
"Alyalyai!" she shouts, one hand clutching her straight, parted hair, then both, her chin in the air, head dug back into the pillow, her face a grimace of ultimate pain or pleasure (but Rocco knows which), white teeth gnashed together and exposed.
As the powerful contractions of her cunt milk his ever-working tongue of the ultimate pleasure, the pleasure beyond pleasure, and she is utterly transported to realms she has obviously not visited for far, far too long.
And only very slowly does she return to earth.
And relax.
And open her eyes, as he feels the tension leave her body.
He pulls his face back from her crotch.
And lies beside her, feeling the heat still radiating from her body, smelling the faint musk of her excitement, lingering in the air-conditioned atmosphere as it cools the sexual sweat on her now completely relaxed frame.
Suddenly, she opens the eyes which she closed again, as soon as he was off her.
And cranes her head up, looking down.
"Hey, wass theece!
"Joo don' ged essited?"
"Who had time, remember?"
"Oh, hey, leesen! I gonna take goo' care of joo, right away, okay?
"I jos' take a chower an' be rl' back."
And she is suddenly a bundle of energy, as she bounces up and strides quickly into the bathroom on her dancer's legs, walking on the balls of her feet, firm ass cheeks winking at him as she retreats.
Come to think of it, she's right, he thinks.
Because his dick is long and thick, but completely flaccid.
It never twitched during that whole episode. Interesting.
But Rocco is not disturbed. He lies there, thinking, this one doesn't count anyway.
Callous but true.
Because, even now, his thoughts are of Destiny. Who could well prove to be a disappointment. Who could in fact be much less sexy in bed than the redoubtable, the sexually formidable Conchita. But, there it is.
He is a man with a fixation, an ultimate goal, and this is but a step on the path. It doesn't count.
Conchita emerges from the bathroom.
And comes at once to the bed.
And dives at once, right onto his prick.
No socializing, right down to business, she goes.
Why?
Because she is embarrassed at losing it so fast before?
Or because she too has a hidden agenda, a list of priorities? Or both?
She sucks his cock, sucks it with a fair amount of skill, but without the enthusiasm he would have expected from such a bombshell.
So that he doesn't respond all that quickly.
So that she looks up at him, puzzled, challenged.
But his face is expressionless, gives no clue.
She shifts her position, crouching now between his legs.
. And redoubles her efforts. But he does not respond.
He came home with her, brought her to his home, he knowing her, she knowing him, so that they might experience sex, person to person.
Instead, she used him, used his tongue to get off on.
The heat of pent-up passion, he thought, so okay.
But she did not join him in the bed upon her return; rather, she attacked him.
And he did not bring her here to be attacked.
He did not bring her here because he was possessed of an urgent, overwhelming hunger for her body or for sex itself.
And Rocco sees now that this is not working out.
He wanted to go person to person.
But, he discovers that she desires no such relationship, no such ... friendship.
In fact, she is, quite literally, hot for his body.
As opposed to being hot for him.
She knows him, is therefore safe with him, but that is the sole purpose of her knowing him.
Not for human companionship, not for conversation, not even in between rounds, but so that she could milk him of that which he appears to have, that is, an active virility, to be used in service to her sexuality.
And Rocco realizes, with a chill, that he has painted himself into a corner.
All that garbage he ascribed to her, about her wanting his vulnerability, his human weaknesses, his less than impressive position, his thoughts and hopes and dreams to be exchanged with hers in the quiet afterglow of fantastic, person to person sex-that was all in his head.
All that stuff about her rejecting latino macho men was true enough, as far as it went.
But what she wants is a macho man who is as he is because he is the genuine article.
Not somebody who looks strong, but somebody who is.
Not somebody who puts up a superstud front, but somebody who is.
That, that! is what she is after.
And something dies inside Rocco.
Somewhere deep within him, a door closes, and he is on the outside of it, now and forever.
We are what we pretend to be, he read somewhere.
And the rest of the quotation? Therefore, we should be careful what we pretend to be.
And Rocco was not careful.
Rocco made no effort, no attempt to differentiate between what he pretended to be and what he actually was, was and is.
For better or worse, he is the superstud, now and forever.
There's no turning back.
He can see his error well enough, knows his mistake; but it is too late to correct it.
He lives in the present, always.
And real people don't do that.
They have a past and a future, not only as fact, but as a part of their thoughts.
Only the archetype, immortal and unchanging, lives outside of time, lives in a perpetual present.
Even this thing with Conchita, then Destiny.
Rocco does not see that as advancing into the future.
Rather, he sees time as a conveyor belt, like a bottling plant process, where a series of bottles, each containing a present, a "now" comes to him as he, he! remains fixed in place.
He does not rise to the occasion; the occasion advances to meet him.
So no wonder it isn't working.
Person to person isn't working here, because he is no longer a person but an idea, an image.
Others are real human beings, even as he once was, he supposes, many many "nows" ago.
But gradually, his humanity faded.
So that here, now, there is only one real person, and it isn't him.
Conchita is alone with an idea made flesh, with an image become real.
And Rocco has turned that image off, so that he might be human once more.
But it's too late.
Rocco is the image or he is nothing.
And not even her knowing his name, his occupation, his personality can change that.
He is a soldier too long in the trenches.
For too long has he faced the enemy, for too long has he had to wear the uniform, to think and act the soldier.
Use it or lose it, the old saying goes.
And Rocco has lost his humanity, somewhere along the line.
The man he might have been, for better or for worse, whithered inside him, dessicated, turned to powder and blew away.
Rocco closes his eyes.
And there is not enough human being left within him to pray for the dead.
He is a robot of living flesh, a zombie, his power that of the image he projects, a power the outside world assigns him, keeps on assigning him.
The condo of steel and glass, its furnishings exquisite and impersonal, of muted blues and greys and synthetic materials, forever new, pristine in their spotlessness, this is home base for a certain image, a certain lifestyle.
He is the superstud, with his large convertible, his featureless condo, his hairy chest and muscular frame, his sunglasses and large wardrobe.
What you see is what you get.
Even now, he feels the power surging within himself.
No doubt, Conchita is thinking that, at last, her cocksucking is having its effect. Not so.
The power he draws from the very air, from this world and its values, from the image it has assigned him.
Yes, oh yes, the warmth is flowing into his cock now, bringing it to pulsating life as it flows into him, as the world charges him, as he switches himself on.
This, this! is what he was meant to be.
And now, Conchita is having difficulty.
His cock is too big, the head too swollen, the shaft too thick and long for her mouth.
She was beginning to have her doubts, beginning to think him impotent.
But now, she sees how very wrong she was.
The man is a monster!
Well, not the man, perhaps, but his cock is, for sure.
And yes, this, this! is the true macho man.
Because here is fact, here is truth, here is the prong you just don't argue with.
Huge cock, big balls, big, muscled body, this is the one she has been looking for.
She knew it!
She knew that she had but to pick him up and this is the way he would be! He is just as she imagined him.
Well, not imagined, exactly, but saw, saw him as in fact he is.
And now, he pushes her head back, gently but firmly.
And now, he positions her in the bed.
She raises and spreads her legs.
And that monster of his is in and in and into her, stretching and filling her cunt as it has never been stretched, never been filled before.
Yes, he is exactly, exactly, exactly the man she thought he'd be.
And now, he is fucking her in long, powerful strokes.
Taking his time, he is, in no hurry at all. Mister Technique, Mister Control, he is. A regular fucking machine, he is, she is certain. As he accelerates slowly, a steam engine leaving the station.
In and out, in and out of her hot, juicy cunt he pistons.
As he activates millions of nerve endings within her, each sending out a message of lascivious pleasure, each joining with all the others within her, a mounting chorus of raw sexuality.
And Rocco?
He feels it as well.
Because this is a most sentient robot, its sensors quite acute.
And very, very responsive, very cognizant of exactly where she is on the scale of her mounting sexual arousal.