Safe Without You (8 page)

              “Maybe fucking would help, yes?  It would…relax you,” he countered.

              Amber thought to herself that if this conversation continued any longer, she would have mental cramps.  “No, it’s really painful, I’m sorry, I really need to get some rest.”  Her lie was wearing thin on herself.

              “Are you…how do you say, a cock tease?”  Tomás looked at her with his serious teacher’s face.  “You’ve been acting all day like you want me in your pants, but now that I’m hard like a rock, you deny me?”

              “No, I’m not a tease, I’m sorry, I really don’t feel well.”  Then as if to assert the authenticity of her declaration, she kneeled down and spoke to his crotch.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and then her hand glided over his hard penis in an automatic gesture as she stood up. 

              His breath caught, “At least, please, make me…with your hand.”  He pushed his crotch against her as she stood up.  “Please.  I promise, I’ll go quick.  You have me so rhino that it will be fast.  Please.”

              Amber would have laughed if the situation weren’t so awful.  She was caught between a rock and a hard place, quite literally.  If she did as he asked, it would only work to increase his expectations. If she denied him, she might lose her escort to Darien and a chance to see where things might go, but would that really bother her?  Cal kept nagging at the back of her mind. 

              “Oh for god’s sake, Tomás.  Men are such babies.  You can get over a hard-on.”  She undid his pants, deftly sliding her hand around his cock and pulling it out.

              “No, not here…inside,” he pleaded. 

              “Okay, okay,” Amber unlocked the door, with Tomás and his exposed member close behind.  She pushed the door open and there stood Cal, a map spread out over the bed.

              Cal took the scene in blandly, as Tomás scrambled to tuck his dick back into his pants.

              “Nice, Amber.  Fuck him in the bed that I’m paying for.  Couldn’t you take it to his hotel?”

              “You—you weren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow,” Amber said limply.

              “Come Amber,” Tomás grabbed her wrist, “We can go to my hotel.  Let’s get your bag.”

              “No…I don’t know,” she shook free from Tomás’ grasp.  “Tomás go, I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

              Tomás shook his head, “I’m too old for stupid games.  You come with me now and we go to Darien, or you find your own way.”

              Amber was suddenly mindful of her $378.42 and how she was going to manage bus tickets and rooms in the city when she needed them, and food and other incidentals. 

              “What are you doing here Cal?” Amber asked.

              “You mean in my cabana—the one I’m paying for?  My plane arrived early.  Plans have changed.”

              “Are you coming Amber?” Tomás asked again.

              “Stop badgering me!” she yelled at Tomás.  “I need to talk to Cal.”

              “Cock tease,” Tomás muttered, which made Cal burst out laughing.  “Welcome to my world, buddy,” Cal called after him, as Tomás huffed out the door.  He turned back to Amber, “I’m sure you have an explanation, let’s hear it,” Cal said.

              “I was trying to get away from him.  I told him I was on my period, but he begged me for a hand job and…I felt sorry for him because his balls were about to explode.”

              “
Now
you develop compassion.  I guess my dad being held hostage isn’t in the same category as blue balls.”  Cal grabbed the map on the bed and began folding it up.

              Amber’s face burned red with shame and for once, she was speechless. 

              “I’m checking out in the morning,” Cal said, “So if you need a new meal ticket, you better go catch up with Count Chocula.”

              “I don’t want him,” Amber said, her voice cracking.  She sat down on the bed, lifting her eyes up to Cal’s face, “Is your father really a hostage?”

              Cal grabbed the manila envelope out of his messenger bag, and extracted the photo of his father with the two other hostages and handed it to her, “My dad is the one in the middle.”             

              Amber studied the image and could see there was more than a cursory resemblance between Cal and the man in the center of the picture.  “I can’t help, Cal, if I don’t understand what’s going on.  Where’s your plane?”

              “La Palma.”

              “So practically in the National Park.”  He nodded.  “And where are you flying?”

              “Colombia.”

              His one-word answers weren’t really what Amber wanted, but at least they were communicating.  “And why are you flying to Colombia?”

              “I can’t tell you.”

              “Can’t?  Or won’t?” 

              “Can’t.”  Cal rubbed his forehead, “But for some stupid reason, I think I’m going to tell you anyway, against all my better judgment.  If anyone ever finds out you know what I’m doing, I’m going to be in a world of hurt, Amber.  I mean…this is literally a matter of life and death.”

              “Yeah, okay, I get that this is serious for you.”

              “No Amber, it’s serious for a lot of people.  Do you understand?  If people find out I’ve told you what I’m doing, people could
die
.  Not get mad, not get hurt,
die! 
And that includes you!  Are you sure you still want to know?”

              It was clear to Amber now that Cal wasn’t playing, and Cal wasn’t lying or exaggerating.  Cal was one hundred percent
not
joking around.  She weighed his question in her mind; it probably wasn’t too late to salvage things with Tomás if she just wanted someone with which to go backpacking. She could think of worse things than tossing off an attractive man who was trying to be nice to her.  But she couldn’t shake the sense of connection she felt with Cal.  She sucked a breath in, “I got scared Cal, before, I thought you were making all this shit up, but now I believe you.  Tomás is just some guy on vacation, but you—me—us—that’s kismet, right?”

              “If I tell you this, you have to grow up.  No more games, no more guys like Tomás, no more trying to make me jealous.  I’m a little crazy and overprotective because I’ve lost one person in my life—it’s not because I enjoy being controlling.  That’s not who I am—but telling you the truth about what I’m doing is going to make it tougher on both of us.”

              Amber bobbed her head up and down.  “Let’s sleep on it then, make sure that when we’ve both calmed down, we still feel the same way.  I would never want to endanger you or anyone else Cal, but I’m not a person who does well operating in the dark.”

              “Wow, that sounded really…mature.” Cal sat down on the bed next to Amber, “Are you sure you don’t want to go hang out with Bela Lugosi?”

              Amber shook her head, “I can’t quite shake the notion that he’s suddenly going to say, ‘I vant to drink your blood.’”

              “So no hand job for Count Chocula?”

              Amber had to laugh, “No, I’m afraid he’s going to have to drain the dragon himself.”

              Cal looped an arm around Amber’s shoulders and pulled her close.  “You’re tough, you’re smart, you’re beautiful and when you want to be, you’re really quite sweet, you know that, right?”

              “Not always,” Amber said truthfully.  “Sometimes I feel like I don’t fit anywhere.”

              “You don’t have to prove anything to me, okay?  And you don’t have to use your sexiness to get what you want…not with me, at least.”

              Amber playfully bumped Cal with your shoulder, “So you think I’m sexy?”  A little smiled played across her face.

              “Yeah, but I’m not going to tell you that every fifteen minutes.  Know it, own it, and park it—for when we’re alone together.”  He stroked her head gently.  “You said you didn’t know whether I was telling the truth or not?  Well, it’s not particularly easy to trust a hot woman…especially when she’s pulling some other guy’s dick out of his pants.”

              Amber blushed again.  “Point made.”

              “You’re kind of cute when you blush, you know?”  Cal kissed her forehead.  “Now, can we make-up?  I’ve missed you.”

              Amber’s hand was already unbuttoning the top of Cal’s cargo shorts as his hands snaked under her t-shirt, gentle kneading her bare skin as he pulled her to his mouth.  She relaxed and gave herself over to Cal’s touch, letting him direct the proceedings.  As he kissed her, he unfastened her bikini top.  He pulled away slightly so he could pull her shirt over her head, and then pulled the top of her bikini away from her breasts with both hands.  He traced the triangular tan lines that outlined her breasts with one finger.

              “For some reason that really turns me on,” he said.

              “What?” Amber murmured, her hand unzipping his pants.

              “Those pale little triangles—it’s like a target for a drop zone, telling me that’s the spot to hit.”

              “I’m not opposed to the idea.”  Amber freed Cal’s cock from his shorts, “Going commando, I see.”

              “No time for laundry.”  He pushed Amber back on the bed as he grabbed the top of her shorts and yanked them off.  Her bikini bottoms quickly followed.  “Now I can see the southern drop zone too,” he smiled.  He ran a finger up the thin strip of curls than ran between her legs, “I like the fact that you left me a landing strip.”

              “Take your clothes off,” Amber said.  “I need to inspect the equipment.”

              Cal ignored her, his fingers playing between her legs, as he stretched out beside her, taking one of her nipples in his mouth. 

              “Oh god,” Amber breathed out, as Cal gently suckled her.  Finding her wet and ready, Cal slid two fingers inside her as his thumb massaged her clit.  He punctuated his rhythmic stroking with sudden nips of his teeth on her nipple.  She started to writhe against him, and Cal pinned her arms back with his free hand while he ever so slowly increased the pressure and speed of his hand on her pussy.  He alternated using his lips, tongue and teeth on her nipple then, as he felt her close, he suddenly pulled free and bit her opposite nipple—hard.  Amber screamed as she bucked against him, completely overtaken with the pleasure rolling over her. 

              “Holy…” Amber was at a loss for words as she panted.  Cal gently withdrew his fingers, but cupped her little thatch of curls with the palm of his hand as he released her arms.  She rolled over on her side, pulling Cal to spoon around her.  She could feel his hardness against her backside, but she was so shattered she couldn’t even think what to do about it.  She pulled his hand to rest over her beating heart as she continued to suck in breaths.  Cal lay still, savoring the remnants of her pleasure, feeling the little electric pulses that continued to shoot through Amber’s body.

              Finally, Amber found her voice.  “If that’s what it’s like to make up, I want to fight every day.”  She kissed his hand that she clutched to her chest.

              “Contrary to popular notion, fighting is not required for great orgasms.”  Cal kissed the back of her shoulder, “You just have to care about what you’re doing.”

              Amber let go of Cal’s hand and rolled over to face him.  “Then you must care a lot.”

              “I do.”  Cal caressed Amber’s face.

              “Now get those damn shorts off so I can show you that I care just as much as you,” Amber said with a wicked smile.  “I want to see if I can find my target in the jungle, too.”

Journal Reflection 7

‘A matter of life and death.’  That’s one of those expressions you hear all the time: in TV shows and movies, in books, even in songs.  My bike tour boss, the one that used to misquote from The Art of War, used to always say, “don’t bother me with it unless it’s a matter of life and death.”  But the fact is, we never talk about any
real
matter of life and death in those terms.  Real life and death is hardier, scarier, and often a lot more difficult to face.

              My cousin had a baby that was born eight weeks premature.  Now, a neo-natal intensive care unit really is about life and death.  I went to see her there, and there were all those tiny little babies inside the incubators, struggling to stay in this world.  The nurses moved around as if a baby going into cardiac arrest was the most normal thing in the world.  While I was there, a baby, not my cousin’s, had to be resuscitated.  The nurse just shrugged at me after they brought him back,  “Happens all the time,” she said, “But most of them will make it.”

              When I got home that night, I thought the nurse was kind of callous about it.  You know, “What the heck! This baby almost died, but no big deal!”  But I realized that if she was getting all emotional and falling to pieces every time something happened in there, she couldn’t do her job.  If she didn’t do her job really well, more babies would die.  So her seeming lack of emotion was because she cared.  It was because she wanted to save those babies.  Another weird paradox, huh?

              Some people really do have to deal with life and death: doctors, nurses, paramedics, police officers, firefighters, soldiers.  And some people make decisions that can determine life and death but never have to face the messy part of it: presidents, dictators, generals, politicians.  But what about simply
knowing
something that’s important enough that someone could die because of it?  That’s the territory of spies, and criminals, and covert operations.  Knowing those kinds of secrets is why people get put into witness protection…or why they get killed.

              Knowing something like that by accident is one thing, knowing it because you are a participant is another, but voluntarily choosing to know something dangerous seems a little crazy, doesn’t it?  I keep thinking about those nurses in the neo-natal intensive care.  They chose to be there, but they chose to be there because they want to save babies.  What’s a good reason for me to know dangerous secrets?  Do I really believe that by knowing something terrifying that somehow I can save someone?  Or are my motivations selfish?  Am I just trying to create a bond so tight I won’t be abandoned?  What’s a good enough reason to give yourself over to a matter of life and death?  Maybe it’s just about saving your own ass.