Love, in English by Karina Halle
His tongue lapped and teased at my nipples as one hand squeezed and kneaded my breasts, the other hand back behind my neck, holding me in place. I didn’t know it was possible for me to almost come from nipple stimulation, but I was gasping and moaning until his hand went down to my clit and his lips came up to mine. Our kiss built with the pace of his thrusts, slow at first, then faster, wetter, frenzied.
When I was almost pushed over the edge, my hands gripping his ass so tight, driving him in deeper, my heels digging into the sweaty small of his back, he groaned into my mouth and pulled away until he was staring at me. There was a heady kind of madness in their depth, like the lust was driving him insane.
“In Spain, we both fuck and make love at the same time,” he grunted. “You need to look at me, Vera. You need to stay connected to me, stay with me.”
That was something else new to me. I didn’t make a lot of eye contact during sex. It made it too intimate, too…meaningful. I never wanted any of that—until now.
I swallowed, finding my breath, and let him stare right into my eyes. After a while though, I started really staring back at him. I returned the intimacy he was giving me, looking deeper and deeper until I thought I saw the universe, our universe, being created. I was so turned on and in so deep that I could have been on drugs.
The image of our lovemaking burned into my brain. The blue blue sky behind his head, his dark hair sticking to the sweat on his forehead, the golden grass laid out at our sides, my inked skin beneath his rich bronze, the sunshine washing us in its heat.
I’ll never forget this, I told myself. Never.
And that’s when it started to hit me. The combination of the mounting orgasm, the beautiful pleasure that Mateo was gifting me, the intensity and intimacy of our locked gaze. All of it began to smash into my heart, smash into my soul, letting my feelings for him flow out. I felt flooded with love, big, burning, bright love, filled to the brim and ready to burst out of me, to erode those walls that I’d put up and ensure they’d never go back up again.
Seconds later, I came and came hard. My orgasm ripped through me, shockwaves and tremors and ripples that satiated every crevice of my body. I cried his name in release, my voice drifting into the air. The flood took over and tears began to fall out of my eyes as they rolled back, staring at the sky, at the day moon that was hanging in the still blue.
“Estrella,” Mateo whispered huskily as he kept pounding me, driving himself to completion. “My Estrella.”
I recovered enough to tilt my head and look at him as he came. His eyes, too, were wet and shiny, a look of shock and wonder on his handsome face until his lips curled in a groan, his face contorted with the agony of pleasure, his eyes squeezed shut to keep all the senses in. He cried out, low and primal. His body slowed the push and pull into me and I held him tighter between my legs.
Eventually, he collapsed onto his elbows, his sweaty chest pressing against mine, his fingers nestled in the hair at my temples. His thumbs caressed my cheekbones, wiping away the tears I didn’t know were still there. Our eyes were fixed to one another’s, addicted to the view of seeing each other so clearly.
He smiled softly and let out a small laugh of disbelief. He ran a finger all over my face, tracing my features as if he was memorizing me for a sculpture. He stopped at my lips and then kissed them, passion still burning between us.
“Now that is a real siesta,” he said quietly, as if we weren’t all alone in that field.
I giggled and grinned up at him and wrapped my arms around his back, feeling the smoothness of his skin, the strength of his muscles, the heat of the sun. “I think I prefer this siesta a bit more.”
A cloud moved past the sun and then it was bright again.
His smile turned sad and he sighed. “I can’t let you leave, Vera.”
All of a sudden his weight felt like the weight of the world, of our world, was on me. “I don’t think we can lie here forever. I have a session with Frog—I mean, Juan Carlos.”
He brushed his fingers down my cheek, so softly they felt like butterfly wings. “I can’t let you leave Spain. I can’t…I can’t let you leave me.” He took in a deep breath and swallowed thickly, his lips pressed hard together.
My heart felt like it was being crushed. “I wish I could stay…”
“Then stay,” he said. “Find a way.”
I gave him a quizzical look. “That is impossible.”
“You keep saying we are impossible,” he said. “But you don’t have enough faith. You have faith in the stars, but not in us.”
“But we are impossible. You’re…goddamn it, I don’t even want to say it anymore.”
“I’m married, I know this. But—”
“No,” I cried out softly, my hands curling into fists. “I don’t even want to talk about it. It is killing me, Mateo. I can’t even entertain the idea because nothing will come of it. I can’t stay here. I have no money. I’m not allowed to stay in your country for as long as I want. I have to go home. You have to go back to your family. To your daughter. To your wife. To your universe.”
He frowned, confused. “I told you I was creating a new one. And I want you in it. To be the center.”
There was so much conviction in his eyes, so much belief in his own words, that it sliced me thin like paper cuts.
“What do you propose we do?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice cracking with desperation. “I don’t. But…you could stay and then we could figure something out.”
“Mateo,” I said slowly, feeling so scared and hopeless. I didn’t want to leave him but I couldn’t imagine being his mistress either. How did everything get even more complicated than it was before? Hadn’t Mateo said that the good relationships were uncomplicated? We were certainly fucked in that aspect, too.
But Mateo was passion. He was now full of the life we both sought after all these years.
He placed his forehead against mine, nose against nose, and closed his eyes. “You bring light to my life. When you leave, there will only be a black hole inside of me. You’ll take my heart with you.” His breath deepened and he looked into my eyes. “Vera, I am in love with you.”
Now I felt like I was drifting in space. I couldn’t do anything but float on his words.
He brushed my hair off my face. “I love you.” He then kissed my forehead, long and warm and sweet. I wanted to overdose on this moment as my chest grew wings.
But I couldn’t. I found my breath again, my voice. “You can’t,” I croaked. “You don’t know me.”
He smiled. “I know you.”
“There hasn’t been enough time.”
“I don’t care about time,” he said confidently. “When I know something, I know it. Now I know what love is. And I love you. And I cannot imagine going back to the life I had before, because that was no life at all. That was just existing. That was just chasing down the next day so I could feel it pass under me.” He placed his large hand over my heart. “You made me stop chasing the days. You made me hold onto them.”
“And now we both have to let it go,” I told him with as much conviction as I could muster, even though I was breaking my own heart for saying so.
His expression was pained and I was overwhelmed by how unfair this was. Why couldn’t he have been single? Why couldn’t I have been older, or he younger, or why couldn’t I have met him in another point in time? It could have been so damn good.
It was so damn good.
I closed my eyes and felt the tears coming again.
“Hush,” he said softly. “Don’t cry or I will cry.”
I tried not to. I tried to hold it in. But a month’s worth of second-guessing and anguish had built up. The floodwaters had risen again. I began to bawl. Mateo rolled off of me and then wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his chest. His kissed my head then rested his chin on top of it so I was free to sob into his neck and chest.
He held me there, never saying anything, just letting me cry. We l
It was hard to leave that field. It was hard to put my clothes back on and get ready to move on with the day because to move on with the day meant to move on to the next day and the next, until I was gone. Now, I was just like Mateo, holding on to each one, so afraid to let go.
But we had to. We both knew we had to.
He grabbed my hand, and together we walked away from the field, back to the road, and up to the resort. A small part of me thought maybe what had happened back there didn’t have to be it, that we would hold on to the day, to each other, a little longer. But as soon as we saw everyone else, he dropped my hand.
We were back to being separate. Our feelings back to being hidden.
Now we were a secret.
And we were running out of time.
Chapter Sixteen
The rest of the day went by as usual even though it felt as if my whole life had changed. I coasted through the afternoon sessions, not listening, not seeing. I kept replaying that image in my head, over and over again, the one of us on the grass together, him on top of me, the impossibly blue sky behind him. If I imagined hard enough, I could still feel the heat between my legs, the feeling of him being inside me. It had felt right to have him in me, to have his body and skin in my hands like we were molded from the same clay.
Just before dinner he found me again, out on the lawn where I was sitting cross-legged in a daze and staring at nothing, trying to process all the emotions that had eluded me all these years.
Without saying anything, he held out his hand and lifted me to my feet. His hand around mine wasn’t enough anymore. I had been given all of him, free for the taking, and nothing less would do. But as much as I wanted to kiss him, hold him, take his clothes off and ride him, I couldn’t. Not now, not here. If the field was one universe for us, this was another.
“I thought perhaps you would like to have dinner with me,” he said with a smile. His eyes were shining bright, happy, and I wondered if he was putting on his best face or if he was coming to terms with the futility of us and just making the best of the time we had left.
I wanted to do the same but it involved pulling my heart out of the gutter.
“I don’t think I can imagine dinner without you,” I told him.
His eyes softened a bit, the corners of his lips falling. He nodded and dropped my hand, and then put his at the small of my back, guiding me toward the hall.
Now it really seemed that the seating allocations were gone. There were all Anglos at some tables and all Spaniards at another. Jerry was pouring himself a huge glass of wine with Wayne, not seeming to care at all.
As usual, Claudia was the seat saver and she waved us over to her and Ricardo.
When we first sat down, I was certain she was going to take one look at my face, one look at us, and deduce that we had sex. I felt it had to be obvious, like I was wearing a shirt that said, “I Fucked Mateo Casalles” and his said, “I Love Vera’s Vag.” But she didn’t. Claudia herself seemed very chipper and hadn’t even touched her wine yet.
“You’re in a good mood,” I noted, “considering we all have to say goodbye soon.”
“You are such a buzzkill,” she said.
Mateo’s brows quirked up as he poured me a glass of wine, always the gentleman. “Buzzkill? Like being happy or like a bee?”
I grinned at him. “Like someone is killing all your happy.”
He made a tsking sound. “Vera, that is terrible. Don’t be a buzzzzkill.”
“It is okay,” Claudia said. “Though true I will miss all of you terribly. I do not want to even think about it so let’s not think about it, okay?”
“Agreed,” I said.
She and Ricardo exchanged a gleeful look. “Ricardo,” she said slowly, staring at him with stars in her eyes before she looked back to us, “is getting his job to be transferred to Madrid.”
“Bye bye, Valencia,” he said with the widest smile.
“But Valencia is beautiful,” Mateo said.
“Yes, but Claudia is in Madrid,” was Ricardo’s answer. “It’s time for a change anyway and my lease is almost up. I think I will enjoy Madrid just fine.”
“Madrid is very nice, too,” Mateo conceded, almost quietly to himself.
Talk about a buzzkill. I know that Claudia’s good news was a joyous thing and I really, truly was happy for her. But the fact that they were able to be together, move for each other, just like that…it fucking stung. I could sense that Mateo felt the same way. He put his hand on my thigh and gave it a soft squeeze, all while smiling for the happy couple.
“That’s amazing news,” I managed to say, trying to match Mateo’s praise. “So happy for you guys.”
I never was a very good liar. Claudia could tell something was up and kept giving me the eye for the rest of the meal. When we were done, we all had to disperse to go meet with our presentation groups, but she pulled me aside and tried to get it out of me. I told her I was just sad in general and to leave it at that. I knew she thought I wasn’t telling the truth, but she was a good enough friend that she didn’t try and force it out of me.
The presentations were made by the Spaniards. My group consisted of me, Tyler (ugh), Jorge, and Eduardo, with me and Tyler only helping the others with their presentations that they’d have to give to everyone. Though they were encouraged to give presentations that had something to do with their job, they really had free reign to do anything, and Eduardo took advantage of that, trying to model his after the Cosmo sex quiz we did together.
His was called, “What kind of Las Palabras Spaniard are you?” and his presentation was pretty much going through the quiz and explaining to the audience how it worked. There was the “Sex Pest,” and he proudly said he fell into that category, the “Noisy Know-It-All,” the “Secretly Fluent One,” the “Butt Kisser,” the “Drunk Animal,” the “Caffeinated Crazy,” the “Anglo Challenged,” and the “Celebrity,” which I assumed was someone like Mateo. When I did the quiz, I got “Sex Pest,” too. Wish I could say it had been rigged.
Because each Spaniard was doing a four to five minute presentation, that meant we were held hostage in the rec room for nearly two hours. As much as I loved my Spanish friends, some of them were so damn boring that by the end I was falling asleep in my chair.
That was until I saw the second to last presentation: Mateo’s. I hadn’t really talked to him about it, you know, because of the sex happening and all that, so I had no idea what his was all about.
Lo and behold, I was shocked to pieces when he wiped the whiteboard on the wall clean and started pointing to people in the audience and asking them to name a constellation. Beatriz named Virgo, and he drew the exact stars for Virgo, including the lines connecting them. Angel named the Big Dipper and Mateo drew that. Ed told him to draw Orion, which was more complicated than you would think, and Mateo somehow drew it perfectly down to the arms that no one pays much attention to. As he drew, he told us about the stories behind each one of them, the actual myths behind their being. When he got to Leo, he started off by repeating my Lambert the Sheepish Lion story, before he chuckled to himself and quickly told the right one.
When he was all done, he put the marker down and faced us all, hands behind his back.
“For as long as man has been around, he has felt governed by the stars,” he said in a rich, teacher-like voice, making deep eye contact with everyone like a pro. “But I do not believe this to be true. The stars may place us in each other’s paths—I dare say that everyone here has been a victim of some sort of celestial fate. Perhaps we were all fated to meet, to be here with each other, but it is up to us to decide to shine or not. The stars are not unreachable. They are not untouchable. And they do not control us. I just took the concept of stars and made them my own.” He swung his arm, gesturing to the star-studded wall. “I just creat
I was so stunned by what he had done, the knowledge he must have soaked up, the practice he would have had, that it took me a moment to notice that he had walked off the stage and everyone else had started clapping.
I snapped out of it. I stood up and started clapping really loud, trying to encourage more applause. I was met with a few curious stares. I guess people weren’t as moved as I was by the whole thing, but it didn’t matter. And as I saw Mateo take his seat a few rows ahead of me, I could have sworn his face had gone red, adorably embarrassed.
When it was all over and the last presentation was done, I pulled him aside, so close to reaching up and pulling his head down into a kiss. Somehow, I managed to refrain by digging my fingers into his arm.
“That was amazing,” I gushed, conscious of everyone walking past us, probably heading right to the bar.
He gave me a satisfied smile. “I am glad you thought so.”
“Where did you learn all of those?”
“I found a National Geographic in the stacks of magazines in the lobby,” he said. “I guess I wanted to impress you. Again. In a less painful way this time.”
I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. “Well, you did impress me. Both times.”
And hours ago, in the field, when you gave me the best sex of my life, I thought. I would have told him that if it wasn’t for Wayne who was hanging around in the background.
I looked over at Wayne and he gave me a sheepish smile. “So sorry to interrupt. Mateo! I thought perhaps we could finish what we started earlier.” He glanced at me. “Boring business stuff. You don’t mind, Vera?”
Of course, I fucking minded. The day was finally over and I had a million things I wanted to say and do to Mateo while I still had the chance to do them.
I could see Mateo was worried from the faint lines on his forehead, trying to figure out a way to either tell Wayne yes or tell Wayne no.