He opens my legs and uses one of his hands to trap me against the back of the couch. I can’t move. With the other hand, he aims his hard penis against my sex and rubs it back and forth, making me wetter and wetter.
“I’m going to fuck you, Jude. You’ve driven me crazy today, and I’m going to fuck you exactly as I’ve been thinking of doing all day long.”
I can barely breathe.
I arch my body to receive him. I feel like a bitch in heat yearning for release. Eric drops his body on top of me. He bites my shoulder, then my ribs, and I twist and turn. I’m drenched, so ready for him. He penetrates me with one explosive stroke.
“I need to hear you scream, now!”
I can’t help it, and a riot of noise escapes from my throat.
He pulls me to him until I’m completely impaled. I’m going to shatter. He pulls out a bit, then drives back in, hitting me with hard, potent thrusts that make me cry out over and over. I feel his testicles crash against me with each movement, and when his finger pulls on my inflamed clit, I explode into a million pieces.
With every lunge, I open more and more so he can make me completely his. We’re fucking without protection, and to feel the sweet ruggedness of his skin feeds my hunger. The harshness of his words and the force of his fucking make me feel bestial.
My sex tightens with each plunge and consumes him. I hear his panting in my ear and the hot slap of our bodies coming together, over and over. He keeps pumping into me while I hit another devastating orgasm.
My body, riven with pleasure, bends and stretches; and after a powerful thrust that embeds me farther into the back of the couch, Eric extracts himself from inside me, lets his head drop on my back, and, following a loud grunt, comes on my ass.
For a few seconds, we both stay like that. Our hearts need to slow down, to return to normal before we can talk.
When Eric straightens up, I do the same.
Dressed only in my shirt, I look over at him; he smiles with satisfaction as he zips up his pants. This is what he likes: hard, demanding sex. I know. My blood is boiling. I’m indignant again. Unable to control myself, I give him a mighty slap across the face.
“Get out of here,” I hiss. “This is my room.”
He doesn’t say a word.
His eyes, all sparkly moments before, are cold now. The Iceman has returned, his worst incarnation. But I can’t keep quiet.
“Who do you think you are to treat me like this?” I yell. “I think . . . I think you’ve made a mistake with me. I’m not your whore—”
“What? What are you saying?”
“You heard me, Eric,” I say, seeing how upset he is. “I’m not your whore. You can’t just come in and fuck me whenever you feel like it. You already have Amanda for that. The marvelous Miss Fisher, who’s willing to do for you whatever your heart desires. When were you going to tell me you were hooking up with her, huh? Were you already planning a trio without consulting me?”
No response.
I can see fury, fire, and bewilderment in his eyes.
I want him to go. I want him to get out of my room before the viper in me resurfaces and ends up saying even more hateful things. But Eric doesn’t move. He simply stares at me until he snaps and walks away. When the door closes, my hand goes to my mouth and I burst into tears.
Ten minutes later, I’m in the shower.
I need to get his smell off my skin.
When I step out, my mind is very clear about one thing. I have to get out of here. I pick up my cell and reserve a return ticket to Madrid. At eleven that night, I’m sitting on a plane and mentally reviewing the note I left on my bed that I’m sure he’ll find and read.
Mr. Zimmerman,
I’ll be back on Sunday evening to continue our work. If you’ve dismissed me, let me know so I can spare myself the return trip.
Regards,
Judith Flores
22
When I wake up in my own bed on Friday, I take a glance at the alarm clock on my nightstand. It’s seven minutes after one. I’ve slept away the morning. Since my sister doesn’t know I’m back, she hasn’t come over, and for just a few seconds, I’m so relieved. I really don’t want to have to explain anything.
As soon as I get up, I look for my cell. Turns out it’s in my bag, on “Silent.” Two missed calls from my sister, two from Fernando, and twelve from Eric. Whoa!
I don’t answer any of them. I don’t want to talk to anybody.
My anger returns, and I decide to clean house. Whenever I’m really mad, housecleaning is my best therapy.
By three in the afternoon, my apartment is upside down. Clothes everywhere, bleach, furniture out of place . . . but I couldn’t care less. I’m the queen of the house. I’m the boss here. Suddenly, I feel an urge to iron. As I sing along with the radio, I put away all the trouble that’s been hammering in my head: Eric. I iron a dress, a skirt, two T-shirts, and as I’m pressing a polo, my eyes catch a glimpse of a red ball on the floor. I immediately think of Curro—my Curro—and my eyes blur with tears. I yelp. I’ve burned my forearm with the iron!
It’s as red as my soccer team’s shirts; I can even make out the iron’s shape and trademark. It hurts like hell! As I hop in pain around the house, I consider putting it under water or smearing toothpaste on it. I’ve always heard about those remedies, but I have no idea if they work. Eventually, I decide to go to the hospital.
At seven o’clock in the evening, I finally get in to see someone.
A charming doctor gently pours something on the burn, then dresses and bandages it. She gives me a script for some painkillers and sends me home.
Still in hellish agony, and with my arm bandaged, I go hunting for a pharmacy that might be open. As is always the case in these circumstances, the nearest one is somewhere in the next galaxy. After I get what I need, I make my way home. I’m still in pain, exhausted, and pissed. But no sooner do I get to the vestibule in my building than I hear someone behind me.
“Don’t ever leave again without letting me know first.”
That voice paralyzes me.
It enrages but also comforts me.
I turn and see the man who’s been driving me out of my mind. He’s very serious. Without knowing why, exactly, I raise my arm.
“I burned myself with the iron,” I say as I show him. My eyes fill with tears. “It really hurts.”
When he sees the bandage on my arm, he loses all his bravado. Iceman exits and Eric comes back. The Eric I like.
“Oh, sweetness, come here.”
I go to him and he hugs me, being careful not to touch my arm. I smell him, and I feel like the most content woman in the world. We stay like that for a few minutes, until I move, and then he brings his mouth to mine and gives me a short, sweet, and tender kiss.
He’s never kissed me quite like that, and my face surely shows my surprise.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I smile to myself.
I give him my keys so he can open the door. He takes my hand, and we go up together in the elevator.
“What’s happened here?” he asks when he opens my apartment door and sees the mess.
“I was cleaning,” I say as I survey the shambles. “When I’m upset, it helps relax me.”
He chuckles, and then I hear the door close behind me. As soon as I put my shoulder bag down on the couch, I forget my pain and turn toward him.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was worried. You left without warning and . . .”
“I left you a note. Let’s not forget, you were in good company.”
Eric looks at me. I can see the tension returning to his jaw.
“I don’t ever want to hear you repeat what you said yesterday, about being my whore. It’s humiliating. Of course you’re not my whore, Jude. For the love of God, you’ve never been and never will be. All right?”
I nod.
“But, Jude,” he continues, “don’t you understand that sex is a game to me, and
you’re my most important piece?”
“Well, you said it: your ‘piece’!”
“What I mean by ‘piece’ . . . what I mean is you’re the most important woman to me right now. Without you, the game loses its value. Goddamn it, I thought I’d made that clear.”
For a few minutes, neither of us says a word. The tension could be cut with a knife.
“Look, Eric, that’s not going to work. Let’s just be friends. I think we can still work together, but . . .”
“Jude, I’ve never lied to you about anything.”
“I know,” I say, agreeing with him. “The problem here is me, not you. It’s that I don’t recognize myself in the game. I’m not a girl you move around like a piece on a game board. I can’t be. I won’t be. I think . . . I think it’s best if we both go back to our lives and . . .”
“I agree,” he says.
His concession throws me off.
I suddenly want to reconsider everything. I don’t want him to agree with me, at least not so quickly. Am I going crazy?
I see the pain and the anger in his eyes, but I try to underscore what I’ve just said and not hug him. My will vanishes whenever I’m near him, and I need to be strong.
My forearm suddenly pinches, and my face twists; I jerk from the pain and stand up.
“Fuck! It hurts!”
His face mirrors my pain, and he gets up too. He doesn’t know what to do as I continue stringing together complaints and profanities.
“How bad is it?”
“Bad, and I need to take something for it, or I swear I’m going to die.”
“Sit down,” he says. “I’m going to call a friend.”
“Who are you going to call?”
“A doctor friend who’ll look at your arm.”
“I already had it looked at at the hospital . . .”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll feel better if Andrés examines it.”
I’m in so much pain that I don’t really want to talk. Twenty minutes later, my bell rings. Eric answers it, and in a minute, there’s a stranger in my home. They greet each other, but the stranger just stares at the state of my apartment.
“Judith was cleaning,” Eric says, and chuckles.
But I’m miserable from the pain. “Listen, if it’s too messy for you, it’s fine by me if you want to clean up and put it in order,” I say. “The broom and mop are at your disposal.”
My bad mood charms them.
Finally, the stranger comes over to me.
“Hi, Judith, I’m Andrés Villa. Let’s see. What happened?”
“I burned myself with the iron, and it hurts like the devil.”
He nods and takes out a pair of scissors.
“Let me see.”
Eric sits beside me.
I feel his protective hand on my back. The doctor carefully cuts my bandage. He checks my injury, then pours some kind of saline solution on it. Temporary relief makes me sigh. He soaks some bandages in the solution, then rewraps my arm.
“It hurts a lot, doesn’t it?”
I nod.
“I’m going to give you something that will help. It’s the quickest thing for pain. These types of injuries, they hurt a lot. But don’t worry; they heal fast.”
He can shoot me up with whatever he wants; I just want this horrible pain to go away.
I watch as he injects me. He looks at me and winks. He must be maybe thirty years old. He’s tall, dark, and has a nice smile. When he’s finished, we all stand. He closes his bag and takes out a card for me.
“Call anytime, for anything at all.”
I check out the card: “Dr. Andrés Villa” and a cell number.
“I’ll do that,” I say.
At that moment, Eric puts his hand on my waist in a way that can only be described as proprietary.
“If she needs you, I’ll call you,” he says, his other hand on his friend’s shoulder.
Andrés is amused. Eric lets me go and walks him to the door. I hear them whispering for a few minutes, but I can’t understand a thing. All that interests me right now is getting rid of this pain.
I sit down on the couch again. The pain’s intensity is decreasing. I see Tomás, Eric’s driver, hand him some bags. Eric looks over at me after the door closes.
“I ordered dinner. Don’t move—I’ll take care of everything.”
Without getting up, I hear Eric rattling around in the kitchen. After a few minutes, he comes back with a tray and a full complement of plates, forks, knives, and glasses, and a bunch of take-out boxes.
“I asked Tomás to get us Chinese. If I remember correctly, you like Chinese food.”
“I love it,” I say.
“Has the pain eased any?”
“Yes.”
My answer seems to grant him some relief.
“Since I didn’t know what you might like, I had Tomás bring a little of everything: rice pudding, Chinese pastries, sweet spring rolls, soy noodles, Chinese salad, beef and bamboo sprouts, pork and mushrooms, noodles with greens, fried crayfish, lemon chicken. For dessert, truffles. I hope there’s something here you like!”
“Mother of God, Eric, there’s enough food here for an army,” I say. “You could have asked Andrés to stay for dinner.”
He shakes his head.
“No.”
“Why not? He seems nice . . .”
“He is. But I wanted to be alone with you. We have to have a serious talk.”
“You rat,” I say with a sigh. “I’m doped up and easy prey.”
He just smiles for an answer.
“Eat.”
I check out all the little boxes and serve myself what looks good. Everything smells delish, and when I put it in my mouth, it’s sublime.
“Where did Tomás get this?”
“Xao-Li, one of the chefs at the Villa Magna, cooked it up.”
I stare at him, incredulous.
“You’re eating authentic Chinese food. Not, I suspect, what you usually eat, which just pretends to be Chinese.”
I nod, amused by what he’s just said. Eric and his ideas about exclusivity.
He’s in a good mood, and I’m glad. Hanging out with him like this, when he’s at ease, is wonderful. When dessert time arrives, Eric brings out some truffles and sets them before me.
He picks up a spoon, splits one of the truffles, and brings half of it to my mouth. I roll my eyes in ecstasy.
“Oh my God! This is delicious!”
Eric grins and feeds me another truffle. I savor it.
“Can I try?”
I nod. He puts the truffle up to my mouth, then comes close with his for a few seconds. With care, he wraps his tongue around the truffle before taking it into his mouth.
“Scrumptious,” he says.
We look at each other, beaming.
I don’t want to be just his friend; I want more. But before I can launch myself at him, he interrupts me.
“Jude, a bit ago you said . . .”
“I know what I said. Forget it.”
Eric looks at me, thinking, and finally, without changing his expression, he says, “Please, Jude, don’t say that again about being my whore. It kills me that you might believe I think like that.”
His fingers touch my lips tenderly.
“Jude . . . you’re special to me, very special.” Again, our eyes meet for a few intense seconds. “You can’t leave my side without an explanation and expect me not to lose my mind with worry. I’d rather you just come to my door and say goodbye than to think you’re there and discover you’re not. Are we in agreement here?”
“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to call you a dickhead, or worse.”
“Well, if it’s necessary, call me a dickhead.”
“Don’t give me any ideas,” I say, joking.
His mouth relaxes.
“Please, don’t ever leave again without telling me first.”
“Fine. Anyway, I was going to go back to finish our work.”
&n
bsp; “That’s not necessary.”
“Why not?”
“Something’s come up.”
“Have you fired me? I haven’t even called you a dickhead yet.”
Eric grins and shoves another truffle into my mouth, to shut me up, I suppose.
“I’ve canceled next week’s meetings. I’ll reschedule them for another time. I’m going back to Germany. There’s something I need to take care of that can’t wait.”
The truffle and the news upset my stomach.
He’s leaving.
“Are you going back with Amanda?” I ask, again unable to keep my mouth shut.
“No, I believe she flew back today. And as far as Amanda is concerned, she’s a work colleague and a friend. That’s all. This morning she told me about her visit to your room and . . .”
“Have you ever spent the night with her?”
“No.”
His answer doesn’t convince me.
“Have you played around with her?”
He leans back on the couch and nods.
“That, yes.”
I copy him and lean back too. But now my mood is very different.
“Did you have a good time?”
“I would have had a better time with you.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’m incredibly curious about you, and you bring me great joy. Right now, you’re the woman I want the most. Don’t doubt it, sweetness.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, Jude.”
I like that, but it irritates me at the same time.
“Among all the women you play with,” I ask, “is there someone special?”
Eric stares at me.
He knows perfectly well what I’m asking. He puts his hand on my thigh.
“No,” he says.
“There’s never been?”
“There was once.”
“And?”
He looks right through me.
“She’s not in my life anymore.”
“Why?”
“Jude . . . I don’t want to talk about that . . . But I do want you to know that only you have managed to get me on a plane, desperately looking for you.”
I don’t know what to say.
After an uncomfortable silence, my cell buzzes. It’s Miriam, my Barcelona friend. I get up and tell her that I’m in Madrid and I’ll call her back. Eric’s just staring at me, barely blinking.