Revenge of the Black Virgin (12 page)

He kissed her everywhere, constantly
muttering softly in Spanish as he coaxed her body into flame. At
the same time his hypnotic words further lulled her mind into
oblivion. She was melting into him, willing to do whatever he
wanted.

Except with Brenda.

Dimly Jo realized that Danny was playing to
his audience. She could feel him looking at Brenda as he worked her
body, slipping her breasts out of her bra and lovingly caressing
them as if they were a prize Brenda might covet.

“She’s very beautiful, isn’t she?” He spoke
as if Jo was an object.

Jo heard Brenda shift in her chair before she
spoke in a quiet voice.

“She is.”

“But you are a beautiful woman, too.”

Brenda snorted, but said nothing.

Danny lovingly licked one nipple, then the
other before turning to Brenda and saying, “Why don’t you come
closer so I can see how beautiful you are?”

“No. I’m happy right where I am,” Brenda
said.

“With my camera,” she added under her
breath.

But Jo heard her. Her eyes shot open and she
saw Brenda had balanced her camera on a mini tripod and was
clumsily trying to adjust the angle.

“Bren!” she called out in alarm, trying to
raise herself on one elbow. “What the hell are you doing taking
pictures. Put that thing away, you perv.”

Brenda kept her voice light. “Just foolin’
around, hon. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

Normally Jo would have been upset at being
photographed having sex. But these weren’t normal circumstances.
She was drunk. And horny. And damned if she wasn’t going to have a
little fun after all the sadness that had been crippling her over
the past weeks.

And besides, Danny was removing her soaked
thong and tickling her soft pubic hair with the tips of his
fingers. She just had to open her legs a little more. Just had to
experience that exquisite sensation a little more fully…

“Mmmph.”

“That’s right. Just relax and enjoy it,” he
murmured as he bent down to kiss her most sensitive spots. She
arched her back, spread her legs and closed her eyes against
whatever it was Brenda was planning to do.

“Oh God. You. Are. So. Good. At. This.” She
grabbed his hair and pulled.

Her breathing grew ragged and her toes curled
as Danny used his expert tongue to make her forget all about
everything in the world except her hot little pussy.

“Fuck!” She called out as she came in a
series of ricocheting spasms. She pulled his head up to her mouth
and kissed him deeply, loving the salty taste of her sex.

Gasping for air, she looked into Danny’s dark
eyes and said, “This man has the most talented tongue you’ll ever
meet, Bren.”

Then she shot a glance at her friend, who was
sitting very still in her chair.

“I think you shouldn’t pass up this sweet
opportunity.”

“You think?” Brenda’s voice was rough, like a
man’s.

“Oh yeah,” Jo said as she reached down for
Danny’s cock. “I think we can work out something mutually
beneficial,” she mumbled as she lowered her mouth to take him.

The next thing Jo knew, there were three warm
naked bodies on the bed. She felt hands on her skin, but wasn’t
sure whose. She was playing Danny’s cock with her tongue and teeth,
rubbing his balls with one hand and grasping the base of his cock
with the other.

If the hands fondling her breasts were his,
or Brenda’s, Jo couldn’t tell. And after a few moments she no
longer cared. And when Danny came with a hot gush into her mouth,
she felt soft fingertips playing at her clit and allowed herself to
be carried away.

Chapter Eleven

Although Luc was certain that Hilda’s marital
status was both none of his business and of no importance,
something had changed between them. That night in bed, their last
in Marrakech, he didn’t seem quite so keen on exploring her body.
Maybe it was the heat, he thought.

She sensed his reluctance. “Does it bother
you that I’m married?” she asked matter-of-factly.

“
Non.
Not at all.”

“But
something’s
bothering you,” she
said, sitting up in bed. She stretched her long body and then stood
up and walked over to the open French doors overlooking a courtyard
full of date palms. She was completely naked, and anyone looking up
into their room would see her. But, if anything, she invited
voyeurs. Luc had never met such an exhibitionist.

Maybe she was right. Something
was
bothering him. “Why do you travel without your husband?” he
asked.

And fuck strangers,
he wanted to
add.

Suddenly, he felt a little sad for her. And
for himself.

She shrugged, still gazing out over the
fronds. “We’re different people, Claus and I. He does his thing,
and I do mine.”

“Is there anything you do together?”

She turned to look at him, a flicker of
annoyance passing over her face.

“Of course. We live together. We share our
lives. Our secrets. That’s more than a lot of couples do, isn’t
it?”

“Maybe,” Luc said, as if to himself. She
could be right, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t what he wanted from
a woman. For him it had to be everything, or nothing at all.

She shivered a little, despite the heat in
the room, and turned back to the view. He looked at her long,
slender torso, her hips as narrow as a boy’s, her round little
buttocks, and thought about how far away he was from where he
wanted to be.

With Joanna, swimming naked in the sea.
For the rest of our lives
…

The next morning they moved on to Fez, which
had always been Luc’s favorite Moroccan city. They drove through
the Rif Mountains, enjoying landscapes of orange and olive groves
and vineyards.

Luc was feeling cramped and uncomfortable
from spending so many days in the saddle. He missed his swims, so
in Fez they checked into a tourist hotel with a large swimming
pool. After a day of exploring the medina—half a million people
squeezed into less than two hundred and fifty acres—they swam laps,
then hung out by the pool until darkness fell. Then they’d wander
the hot, crowded streets looking for food, after which Hilda would
again hole up in an Internet cafe and Luc would go back to the
hotel to sit in the bar beside the pool.

It wasn’t a good sign, he knew, to start
drinking every night before bed. But the novelty of Hilda was gone,
and he felt the pain of loneliness creeping back. He fooled himself
into thinking that vodka and fresh Moroccan orange juice would
anaesthetize him.

They still tried to fuck each other silly
before falling into a restless sleep, but Luc knew that Hilda was
wrestling with at least as many demons as he was. He began to treat
her with more kindness, and by the time they packed up their few
belongings to head back to Europe he was beginning to think of her
almost as a sister.

After their three nights in Fez they realized
they were done—both with seeking out novelty and with each other.
Luc turned his bike towards Tangier, and they crossed the Strait
together back into Spain. Hilda offered to leave him in Algeciras,
but he knew she was headed home, too, and offered to take her as
far as Madrid or Toulouse, where she could catch a flight. She said
he could drop her in Madrid, where there was a friend she wanted to
see.

Neither Hilda nor Luc had been to the
Hilltowns of Andalucia, so they plotted a route through Seville.
After one day and one night in that beautiful city, they veered a
little bit east to Ronda. On the morning they arrived, hot and
dusty, they hoped to find some breakfast first, a room second, then
tour the neighboring towns. They didn’t have much to say to each
other, but had somehow worked out a mutual respect and
companionship that Luc hoped would take them through to the end of
their journey together.

After driving around Ronda’s almost-deserted
streets looking for a restaurant open on a Sunday, he finally
spotted something and roared up a cobblestoned alley, oblivious to
the angry stares of the diners enjoying their meals outside on the
patio.

Normally a considerate man, he wasn’t
particularly bothered about interrupting other people’s tranquil
morning with the sound of his bike. He was too hungry, not waiting
for Hilda as he pushed through the restaurant doors.

* * * *

Jo awoke with a pounding head and a dry
mouth. She was instantly aware that she wasn’t alone, and as some
of the details of the night before crowded into her dozy brain, she
cringed. She was afraid to open her eyes to see who was sharing her
bed. She rolled over and took a peek, then let out the breath she’d
been holding.

Danny! Thank God. Where’s Bren?

Last night would probably change everything,
she realized as she rolled over to fumble for her robe. How could
she and Brenda just carry on like they always had? Nothing like
this had ever happened before, and she wasn’t sure how to handle
it.

After showering, she came out of the bathroom
to find Brenda already washed and dressed and seemingly hard at
work at her computer. Danny was nowhere to be seen.

“Uh, good morning,” she said tentatively,
rubbing moisturizer onto her face.

Brenda looked up and flashed her a genuinely
sweet smile. “Good morning, princess. And how are we feeling?”

“Like shit, mostly,” Jo said, running her
thick tongue around the inside of her mouth. She’d brushed her
teeth until her gums bled but her mouth still tasted of alcohol. “I
think I need to eat.”

“I sent our boy home to get cleaned up. Then
we can all go out.” Brenda was typing furiously as she spoke. “I
wanted to try that place down by the bull ring, okay? Maybe we can
sit outside.”

“Sure. I’ll get dressed. Then I’ll have to
dry my hair.”

“You take all the time you want, sweetheart,”
Brenda said without breaking stride.

Princess? Sweetheart? Oh shit!

But the odd thing was that Brenda’s words
sounded completely natural to Jo. She went back into her room,
wondering why she didn’t feel more awkward in front of her friend.
Was she becoming a lesbian?

While she worked the hairdryer Jo tried to
piece together the events of the night before.

Did I let Brenda kiss me? Not my mouth,
surely. But she must have kissed me everywhere else. Somebody did,
while Danny was fucking me.

She didn’t know if she felt mortification or
an odd kind of relief. Brenda had lusted after her for years, she
knew, and what they did last night had given her the opportunity to
fulfill some of her fantasies.

Maybe it was inevitable. I have to repay her
somehow for all she’s done for me.

The thought began to creep Jo out.

But this is the one and only time!

But then she thought about the evening ahead.
It would be Danny’s last day of employment. Wouldn’t he want to end
it with a bang, so to speak?

And then there’s tomorrow. We aren’t flying
out until the day after, so if he wants to stick around to play I
won’t object.

But does it have to be a threesome from now
on?

Jo didn’t know how she felt about that. Some
food would help her make up her mind, she thought.

Through the sound of the hairdryer, she heard
Danny’s sharp knock at the door and soon found herself squinting
outside in the cool morning sunlight. Quiet now, the three of them
walked over the Old Bridge towards the bull ring and found a seat
on the cobblestoned walkway in front of the only restaurant open
for business.

Neither Brenda nor Danny seemed to have much
to say. Jo suspected they felt at least a little hung over
themselves. When their food arrived, they all fell onto their eggs
and toast as if they hadn’t eaten for days.

Once he’d cleaned his plate, Danny unfolded
the map and began to plot their route back to Seville. He wanted to
make some stops, he explained, so he could get some good shots of
the hill towns from a distance.

“Fine. Okay,” Brenda said, stirring cream
into her third cup of coffee. “What time do you want to leave?”

But Jo didn’t hear his answer. A large
motorcycle had thundered into the narrow alley, drowning out his
words.

What a jerk! You can’t bring a motorcycle in
here!

S
cowling, she watched the driver park
across the street in front of a closed gift shop. His passenger, a
lithe woman with yellow braids sticking out the back of her dusty
helmet, slithered off the back and began unbuckling her jacket. The
driver secured the bike and took off his helmet. As she watched him
shake out his dark hair, Jo was pierced by a pain so sharp she
almost cried out.

She couldn’t breathe.

The tall, broad-shouldered man unzipped his
leather jacket, took the woman’s helmet from her and attached both
it and his own to the bike. He looked up the street to his left,
down in the other direction, then began to cross it. The woman
followed. They walked towards the restaurant. Towards Jo, Brenda
and Danny.

Jo thought she would pass out.

It was Luc.

He didn’t see her, and as soon as he’d pushed
through the door, Jo stumbled to her feet and was gone, mumbling
some sort of excuses as she fled.

Tears streaming, she literally ran back to
her room and crawled under the covers.

Her working vacation was over.

When Jo arrived home in Seattle she was as
low as she’d ever been in her life. She couldn’t even look at
Brenda. A combination of embarrassment and anger made her want
to put as much distance as she could between them. Then the cold
she’d caught on the plane home settled in her lungs. Too sick to go
into the office, she lay in bed for days, torturing herself by
replaying the moment she spied Luc getting off on his motorbike and
walking right past her through the swinging door of the
restaurant.