Loving Eyes

"Calfskin is fine leather," said the leatherworker, stroking the side of the bag. "It will not stand up to as much abuse as bullhide because it is not as thick, but if you keep it treated with leather conditioner, your grandchildren will still be using it fifty years from now. You have chosen well, Don Diego."

On his way back to the Azul, he stopped again at the jewelry store. Inquiring of the jeweler and learning he had helenite earrings, they went over his selection together. Jim could not decide which of the five pairs to buy, and on impulse decided to get them all. He proposed a bulk price, the jeweler countered with a substantially higher offer, and they were off to the races over cups of the strong Mexican coffee Jim was becoming used to, brought in on a coffee service by the daughter of the shop, Guadalupe, who was learning the family business. Eventually an equitable price was reached. Each pair was put into its own different leather box, and he returned to the hotel in time for lunch.

Mira joined him at their table, but before he seated her she stretched and groaned, pressing her hands into the small of her back.

"Are you all right, my darling?" Jim asked.

She pressed her side with one hand while motioning for the waitress to bring her a bottle of mescal añejo, something she had not done before at lunch. She poured a healthy measure into the glass and tossed it back, ignoring her own rule on sipping instead of swigging it.

"I was checking the inventory in the kitchen storeroom, standing on a stool to reach the top shelves when I lost my balance and almost pulled the shelf down when I fell. I am afraid I pulled the muscles in my back when I landed twisted up so awkwardly, and I am in pain," she explained.

"Do not eat a heavy lunch, my sweet. When we retire for siesta, if you will permit me to I will try to fix your back."

In the bedroom, at his direction Almira stripped to the buff and laid down on the bed, face up, and grasped the headboard. He took her right leg and lifted it straight up, watching her face for signs of pain. When her eyes tightened and she gave a faint groan, he bent the leg and pressed the heel into the thigh, then crossed the knee over the other leg, holding it there for a slow ten-count. She whimpered a little, and he repeated the exercise before changing legs and repeating it again, working through her soft noises of discomfort. He did the series ten times, doing his best to ignore the signs of pain he was inflicting on his lover to make her feel better.

Jim ordered her to turn over. She flipped face down and he raised her left leg as far as he could before crossing the foot behind her right leg and pressing the leg to the right, repeating it five times. He changed legs and repeated the exercise. Tiny beads of sweat started on her forehead, but she relaxed as he used his thumbs to massage the soles of her feet, finishing by twisting and pulling her toes one at a time.

Jim massaged her legs with slow, deep pressure, working his way from her thighs down to her ankles. His hands left a feeling of satisfaction behind them. Getting onto the bed with her, he started at the lower back and worked his way up, massaging from the spine outwards as he went. Reaching her neck, he used mostly thumbs to ease the knots he found there, working down and out to the shoulder joints, her arms held straight out from her sides. He began to work his way down her back with a circular motion, again working outwards from the spine to her ribs. His fingertips brushed the sides of her breasts and she raised herself slightly, trapping his hands under her tits.

"Mmmm," she purred. "I feel much better now, querido. But you have other areas to massage, don't you?" Her eyes sparkled with anticipation now that her pain was almost gone.

She lifted her body just enough to let him play with her breasts, teasing the nipples and the aureolas. Turning her head, they kissed, their lip-lock immediately turning rugged as their tongues dueled. She twisted onto her back, breaking the kiss and whispering to her lover.

"I want to feel your talented tongue and lips on mi chocho. Chupa mi toto, papi! Chupa mi toto!"

He kissed his way to labia that were already glistening. Better acquainted with his lover's reactions now, knowing what she liked, he set to work to bring her to orgasm. Mira moaned happily as he feasted on her most intimate parts.

Pulling her orchid petals wide, he sipped her feminine juices and kissed her nether lips, driving his tongue into her pussy and swirling it to stir her wetness before he worked his way up to nibble her clitoris and lash her clitoral shaft with his tongue as the whip. Mira eagerly submitted herself to his talented mouth even as she pinched her own nipples with her nails to heighten the sensations her yanqui was giving her.

"Oh yes, my stud! Oh yes! Please, don't stop! Give it me, papi! Give it me! You're so good! I cannot resist you! It is like a god has come to make me spend for him! I want to explode for you! Make me, mi semental! Make me! Oh, so goooood!"

Her hips bucked and rocked under his oral assault as Jim used his skills to bring her to the top of the mountain of sexual ecstasy. Her mind receded as the demands of her body took control, her hands pushing his face into her twat as she built towards a powerful climax under the teeth, tongue, fingers and lips that were controlling her. Together they strove for the peak, her cries urging him on; and at last he pushed a finger into her vagina like an explorer planting a flag to claim her magic mountain as he took her clitoral shaft in his teeth and firmly sucked on it.

"AIIIIIIII, PAPI!"

Her orgasm erupted like a volcano exploding, blowing the top off the mountain and flooding his face with her sweet love-juice as she came, her body shaking like a tree in hurricane winds. She fell back onto the mattress, her eyes rolling back in her head as her mind tried to ride the orgasmic pleasure-waves. She was scarcely aware of his pulling away long enough to rip his clothes off so he could climb onto the bed and mount her.

"AAHHH!"

Mira came again as he took her, sinking all the way into her sopping vagina. Her arms hooked around his shoulders and her legs spread wide as his cock thrust in and out of her willing coño, each driving stroke forcing words from her.

"Sí! Sí! Sí! Sí! Follar mi coño, mi amor! Jódame! Jódame! Hágame gastar para tú gallo! Jódame!"

She locked her mouth to his, her tongue driving into his mouth in counterpoint to the fuckstick driving in and out of her cooze, thrusting herself up at him with the same intensity he thrust into her eager, willing body, each desperately seeking release in the other. Subtle techniques and tricks of making love were forgotten as the two of them wrestled together on the bed, each wanting to feel their partner explode in that moment of transcendent ecstasy when two spirits fuse and for an instant the universe ceases to be.

It was Jim who came first, his penis responding to the squeezing of Mira's coochie that demanded it flood her with his semen. She climaxed a second later, her mind oblivious to anything except the pleasure his use of her body brought her. Like two fusion bombs, their beings burst into globes of incredible brightness that merged into one gigantic sun that consumed them as they spun faster than light, bound to each other by more than cock in cunt.

They came back to find themselves sprawled across Mira's bed, trembling with the weakness that follows so powerful a climax as they'd experienced. Reluctantly withdrawing from each other, she whispered to her lover, "Thank you for so incredible an experience as that, querido. No, do not talk, mi precioso." She laid a gentle finger on his lips. "Just savor it, and know you have given me something most women receive seldom if ever from the men they bed, something they will treasure in memory always.

"Sleep now, my darling lover. You have done both of us a world of good, and deserve your rest. Sleep in my arms, my wonderful stud, and know you are cherished." Her soothing, loving words sent Jim into a light sleep as Mira rested with him, her head on his chest listening to the beating of his heart as she also slipped into slumber.

When they awakened from their well-earned nap, she caressed him and said, "Mi amor, please explain something to me. When you were stretching my legs and working on my back, it felt like torture. I feel so much better now, but at the time it hurt. It made me wonder if you were a student of the Marquis de Sade. Where did you learn how?"

"When we did the Boat With No Propellers Challenge last spring, we chose to build a pump jet engine and a boat big enough to put it in. I wrenched my back trying to drag a big turbopump to the trailer, and I was in agony for the rest of the challenge. Warwick and Badger brought me over to the Kappa Nu house. Sheila, one of their seniors, took her degree in physical therapy and she often helped the trainer of the wrestling team fix up the wrestlers. She's Nora's older sister, as it happens; and she brought Nora in to help work on me.

"They strapped my hands down to the bed with those restraints used in hospitals for violent patients so they could stretch my whole body, work my legs, and twist me around to relieve the spasms and the pain in my back. After they were done I asked them to show me what they did so I could help the guys next time we went into competition, and Sheila had me strap Nora down and practice on her. She seemed to like what I did to her. Muscle strains are an occupational hazard in Junkyard Challenge."

Mira thought about this as she continued to caress him. How could her lover possibly have missed the signals this girl was sending? Was he truly that oblivious?

"That's not the first time Nora helped you. Didn't she get you what you needed to satisfy all those girls when you joined your fraternity? Tell me again about what happened after you did that."

"After Jayne Hardin was told by the Kappa Nus that I had indeed brought each of them to orgasm, Nora brought me back to her room. She cut the dog collar off me with the heavy-duty wire cutter from her tool belt – she's a Junkyard Challenger too. Then she got the house first aid kit, one of the big ones like you find in an office or on a plane, had me stand on the bath mat at the sink, filled it with warm water and washed me from head to foot. She dried me off, put antibiotic ointment on the cuts and gouges on my schwanz from Kali's Teeth, and wrapped it with gauze. She sat me on the edge of the bed and painted the punctures on my shoulders and scalp with an antibiotic skin sealant where the girls had gouged me with their nails when they grabbed me as they came. Finally, she took out a cold pack and had me curl up on her bed with it to ease the throbbing in my prick.

"I would have been happy lying on the rug with a blanket, but she told me, 'After completing a quest like this, the hero deserves to sleep in the comfort of a bed, sir. I'll be here if you want me, on these pillows at the foot of the bed. I've fallen asleep on them before, sir; I'll be fine.' She drew the covers over me and switched off the lights; and then, I'm not sure of this because I was fading out, querida, but I think she kissed my hands."

"She slept on the floor at your feet. And you said she was upset when two of her house sisters came in with breakfast for you?"

"Yes. She acted like they were intruding into her personal space, at least that was what the psychology book said her reaction meant. Warwick hadn't started me reading on human relations then; I did not figure out her reaction until weeks later."

"Have you seen her under other circumstances?"

"Yes. Nora is one of the Scroungers on the Kappa Nu Junkyard Challenge team. We run across each other at the briefings, and out in the yard when we are searching for parts for whatever we are building. The Scroungers generally get to know each other's habits, and we will even tell each other where something that might be needed for a build can be found if it's something we don't need ourselves. Like in the challenge where the goal was to build a car with no driving wheels we did last fall.

"Four frats including the Tri-Sigs accepted the challenge. The Pi Omegas opted for an airboat on wheels, with a puller propeller and a rudder as well as steerable wheels. They called it the Crimson Haybaler, after the old Wacky Races car.

"The Epsilons, the engineering frat, built an electric pusher propeller car with a skirted chassis and four ducted electric fans running off a powerful generator, closer to a hovercraft than a car, though it did have wheels to steer with. It was inspired by Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and worked a lot better than it sounds.

"The Kappa Nus wanted to build a jet-propelled car. They figured a jet would blow away everyone on the speed trial, and if the car were properly balanced it would have enough control in the maneuverability test to be in contention. The yards are salted with special parts for some of the challenges, and the Kappas expected operable jet engines off a small executive jet would be hidden out there somewhere.

"I convinced our team captain to build a pulse-jet engine for our power plant. Because of its simplicity, there is little that can go wrong with it; the hard part is getting the timing for the fuel injection into the combustion chamber right. We needed the whole 24-hour build period to get our pulse-jet to run well, but we got there in the end.

"We needed a couple of different sizes of steel pipe for the combustion chamber and the exhaust; fuel injectors; a fuel pump and fuel piping; an ignition for start-up; screening and rods for the air intake at the front to hold the flaps that slam shut when the fuel explodes and forces the thrust out the exhaust; and of course a light car chassis with working mechanical steering and brakes to mount all this on. As a Scrounger, I've faced worse challenges.

"I wasn't competing with the Omegas or the Epsilons for parts very much, because they were welding their chassis out of aluminum girders and steel pipe in gauges we didn't need. Plus which, they were using salvaged car engines and electric motors to drive their builds. The team I had to watch out for was the Kappa Nus, because they needed a lot of the same things we did. Jayne Hardin, my erstwhile torturer, was the Kappa Nu's lead Scrounger last year, with Nora as one of her seconds. And I'd managed to anger Jayne that day by beating her to some parts she wanted."

"Like what, querido?"

"The biggest thing was a car with a lightweight chassis. The motto of the Tri-Sig team is 'Improvise, Adapt, Overcome, But Don't Reinvent The Wheel.' A car with working brakes and steering would save us hours of improvisation, adaptation, and invention. Our Kappa Nu sisters think the same way, and that caused problems this time.

"I spotted a Volkswagen Thing that looked like a T-Rex had stepped on it, but when all you want is a functional chassis the body doesn't matter. The rule is, the first team that gets its hands on something or puts a towline on it, it's theirs. Jayne saw the Thing the same time I did, but I hooked a towline onto its bumper while she was yelling at Nora to fetch a rope. I told her to get away from my find; I had a line on it, and that made it mine. She protested to the judges that she'd seen it first. Now, if she had grabbed hold of the wreck when she saw it, she might have had a case; but because I had hooked our quad up to it, they ruled in my favor and made her look awfully foolish. Jayne hates being made to look foolish.

"There was another factor in play, too. The rules allow you to capture an opponent's Scroungers and tie them up someplace for up to an hour, after which time one of the judges will cut them loose unless their own team finds them first. We call it 'being thrown in the cooler.' It's why Scroungers usually work in pairs, with a quad driver to ferry our finds back to the workshop.

"After the judges ruled the Thing was ours and Fanti and Master Windu dragged it away so the Builders could get to work on it, I saw an old diesel truck one row over. A diesel engine has a lot of the things you need to build a pulse-jet engine, and the old ones have enough room to get under the hood and work on them. So as not to waste time, I got under the hood and started stripping parts without anyone to watch my back.

"Jayne saw me working and decided to toss me in the cooler to get even for losing the Thing. She slammed the hood down on me. I pretended to be stunned, but when she lifted the hood I came up fast and rammed my channel-locks up into her diaphragm. She puked and went down, out cold. Nora made a half-hearted effort to capture me, but I pinned her pretty quick. I asked her, 'Do I have to cuff you, or will you give me your parole?' She said, 'I'll give you my parole any time, Professor.'

"I used the zip-ties we all carry to cuff Jayne hand and foot, and Nora helped me carry her to an old box truck chassis. I took her radio and moored her to a couple of D-rings in the floor to keep her out of the way. Then I turned to Nora. She didn't resist when I took off her headset, bound her hands together with soft nylon rope from the coil on my belt and tied her hands to the top slat of the tie-downs. Then I ordered her to spread her legs and tied them off to the bottom slat. I took a minute to admire my handiwork; she looked cute and helpless in a pair of tight-fitting jeans with her nipples pushing out against the red T-shirt of the Kappa Nu team, and I could see she was flushed.

"I stepped in and gave her a drink of water from the bota I always carry when I'm in the yard. She motioned me closer with her head, but Jayne woke up and started shouting, so I simply took a moment to stroke Nora's cheek with a finger. Then I left, leaving one door partway open for air, and got back to work. I used my radio to notify the judges I had two Scroungers in the cooler and where I'd left them." He smiled at the memory.

His lover considered what she knew, what she suspected, and what she ought to do. Finally, Mira said, "It sounds to me as if Nora was coming on to you. Has she ever been forward at another time, or made a pass at you?"

"You remember I told you about the Kappa Nus dressing in come-hither outfits and parading me back to the Tri-Sig house?" Mira nodded. "Nora was dressed in a Sexy Little Red Riding Hood outfit: a pair of knee high vinyl boots with high heels; a kicky micro-miniskirt; a vinyl lace-up corset; and a short hooded cloak, all red of course.

"When she knelt in tribute at the end of the ceremony, she folded her cloak back over her shoulders; up to then it had masked her chest. She had folded down the cups of the corset so her breasts were bare, with crinkled, stiff nipples displayed only for my eyes. I wasn't sure then what she was saying to me then ..."

"And now?"

"With what you have taught me, mi dulce amor, I think she was making her interest and availability to me known. I'm not sure, but I think that was the message. You know how hard it is for me to be sure what people's actions mean."

"Yes, I understand that. However, I do have to say that was a message that is very clear. Perhaps you did not understand it then because you were so tired, mi espárrago. Many women would be offended by your not following up on what to me is a plain invitation for you to have her. But as she did not resist you when you ... what did you call it, 'put her in the cooler' and tied her up with rope instead of using plastic cuffs on her months later, I am sure she is still interested in you. Tell me: do you ever see her outside your sport?"