3 Crushes and a Wedding - Ch. 01

"It's been a while," she smiled while adjusting herself so she was facing me more than the sea.

"You can say that," I shifted toward her too. "Twenty years, give or take."

"That much?!"

"Sí."

"Wow. You looked so familiar when I first saw you early tonight, but I couldn't put my finger on it. You've grown up so much."

"That's kind of what happens in twenty years," I smiled.

"I..." we both started at the same time. We laughed, paused, and then she gestured for me to speak.

"Valentina," her name, pronounced the Spanish way, glided like silk over my tongue. "I'm so happy I get to talk to you again. There are so many things I want to say, but I have no idea how to start." I chuckled nervously.

"Are you OK?" She whispered, and I innately understood she was talking about my life in general, and not this particular moment in time.

"Yes, now. I wasn't for a long time. It took me a while after you, plus a few other botched one-sided love-slash-admiration stories, and nearly a decade of confusion and heartache, but I finally accepted myself, and my bisexuality."

She raised one eyebrow. Maybe she wasn't expecting me to go there and say it out loud without preamble, maybe she'd thought what I felt for her was a childish phase and not real, or maybe she had assumed I was only attracted to women and the bisexuality aspect confused her.

"When I wrote you those silly love poems..."

"They weren't silly," she quickly interrupted me. I shook my head. "Ellen," my first name coming from her felt like a cold shower, and I remembered why I'd asked everyone to stop using it and start calling me Zoe instead -- I couldn't bear hearing it from anyone else after she was gone from my life. "You were a poet expressing her emotions and finding her voice. Nothing about that was silly."

"I was a kid."

She grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

"All the more reasons to respect what you did. You were what, eleven, twelve? And you knew what you wanted and went for it. You didn't hide your sentiments or ignore them like most kids do. You let yourself feel everything, the passion and the heartbreak. That's brave. And you wrote me the most beautiful love letters," she beamed, "things my husband of twelve years never said and never will say to me." She snickered jokingly.

She hadn't changed. Her eloquence and confidence were just as mesmerizing. I smiled back reluctantly.

"I keep thinking they were immature and perhaps over-romanticized. I wonder how ridiculous they sounded to you."

She was the one shaking her head now. "Ridiculous?! No! I treasured every word you wrote, I was always so excited to get a new letter. You started off with simple words and rhymes, but your style evolved so quickly and I was proud of you. It still surprises me that I could be the inspiration behind those beautiful words. I was touched and honored. Still am whenever I stumble on one and read it."

"You still have them?" I was taken aback. I had kept copies of every letter and poem I sent her, but one day, in the midst of my teenage identity crisis, I threw them in the garbage bin in our home, and accompanied my mom to dump them in the garbage collector outside, just to make sure I had entirely gotten them out of my life. I hadn't counted on her keeping them and reading them again, after all these years.

"Of course! You think I'd throw them away? I've kept a lot of cute admiration gifts I've received over the years," her eyes were lost in the distance for a few seconds then refocused on me, "but those are the best. There are so many gems in there," she briefly paused to think, "I especially like the one that starts with, La luna brillante y majestuosa, se inclina delante de ti, respetuosa. My favorite."

"Oh! I still remember that specific line! I thought it was genius for months after writing it." I beamed and tapped her thigh happily.

"It still is. It's magical. You should celebrate that past, Ellen, not be ashamed of it."

She put her hand over mine and squeezed it, forcing more contact with her thigh. A shiver went down my spine. Was she flirting with me or was I misreading the signs?

"Thank you." She tried to stop me but I wasn't having it. "Not just for what you're saying right now, which is amazing to hear, but thank you for being in my life. For the influence you had on me. I started writing because of you and I love literature and poetry because of you. I also started discovering myself -- what I liked, who I was, who I wanted to be -- thanks to you."

"It was all you. I didn't do much." She lowered her eyes. Did I manage to make her blush? That would be a first.

"You were there, and that's all that matters."

She smiled and raised her eyes to meet mine, causing a wave of simultaneous warmth and cold to spread through me. Not the first time that'd happened under her gaze. She picked up my hand, the one that was on her thigh, and started absentmindedly caressing it.

"So you're an engineer now?"

"Yes, mechanical. I have my own little company. We get hired to solve lots of problems, by businesses and regular people. What about you? Still teaching?"

"Sí. Español, mi primera passion."

Her Spanish still made my heart flutter. I reminded myself that we were different people now and that I couldn't let myself feel anything for her. But dammit, she was making that very difficult. From the suggestive cleavage seen through her bright yellow top to the way she was massaging my hand, the gorgeous olive tone of her skin, the hints of her lush perfume punctuating every breath I took, and the wind playing with her hair and skirt, everything about her was sensual in an overwhelming way.

Without even thinking, I found my other hand reaching out to her hair and brushing a strand away from her face.

"I was fascinated by your hair," I said with a deep tone, my hand still entangled in it.

"I know," she whispered back. "I think there are two poems about it."

"There should've been more."

Our eyes met for a few seconds and I felt an invisible pull toward her. Time slowed down and a hazy, dreamy aura enveloped me. No, us. She must've felt it too because her caresses on my hand became featherlight touches. My lips trembled, dreaming of kissing her, even if once, even if briefly. My finger slowly traveled down to her lips and brushed them lightly. They shivered underneath my touch and I was thrilled. To have caused this kind of reaction in Valentina was a momentous achievement.

"Did I ever write about your lips?" I asked, while I traced their contour slowly.

"Not explicitly," she squeezed out, under the spell of the moment.

I shook my head. "Shame. I must correct this oversight, enseguida."

My finger played with her lower lip, pulling it down, and letting it bounce back up. Her nails dug into my hand. Was this really happening?

I lowered my gaze. "There are other parts I'm sure I was too prude to write about." My eyes devoured her chest in a not-so-subtle manner.

I hadn't ever imagined I'd be this forward with her, this brazen, but in that moment, I wasn't calculating or thinking. We had stepped into another eerie dimension, where actions didn't have consequences, where truths could be rightfully admitted, and where eyes could feast on heaving chests without any pretense.

"Oh? I don't know which ones," she answered cheekily.

I raised my eyes and found my finger already on her jawline. I traced it then slowly went down to her neck. She trembled more visibly. I walked it over the outline of a vein and reached her shoulder.

"The ones I've always wanted to kiss."

A second finger joined the first one and languidly descended on her chest, over the fabric. They stopped an inch away from her poking nipple. When I saw that bump under her top, my heart nearly beat out of my chest. I found it hard to believe that I was eliciting that physical reaction in Valentina and that, for once, she might want me like I wanted her.

"Please," the word barely snuck past her lips.

My fingers craved, oh how they craved, to move that one inch and squeeze it. But my integrity prevailed. I raised my eyes again and found her flushed face. This was already farther than I'd ever hoped to get with her, and farther than I should've allowed myself to get to.

"I shouldn't."

I started walking my fingers up and heard a whimper escape her. I reached her chin and held it up to force her to look at me.

"I'll write about you tonight."

"I'll cum for you tonight." Reality hit her and she slapped her hands on her thighs, breaking the magic of the moment. "Did I just say that out loud?" I nodded, laughing, and she joined me. The unbearable tension of the past minutes had to fizzle in some way.

The laughter slowly subsided. "So you still write?" she asked.

"Yes, side gig. I have a few self-published poetry books on Amazon." The moment was gone, but we both knew we had flirted with the limit, the very limit of limits.

"Spanish?"

"No, English. My Spanish poetry was only meant for a special someone." I winked and she blushed again.

"I should get back," she squeezed my hand once more. I felt the indecision in her voice, the awkwardness in her look, and the tension in her body language.

She raised herself as gracefully as when she sat down, while I fumbled to my feet.

"Hug?"

"Of course." She erased the distance between us and immediately wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me. I couldn't stop the warmth from spreading between our mashed chests and my lower abdomen, or her perfume from overloading my senses and inebriating me.

She rested her chin on my shoulder and relaxed her grip on me. If I could just bottle this moment and keep it forever...

"I'm honored to have been your muse." She turned her face toward my neck and let her lips graze my skin. I shivered down to my core. She nuzzled her face in the hollow of my neck, her lips sensually close to my skin, her breath tickling every cell and fiber of me.

The magical moment was back, more powerful, more uninhibited. With this close a contact, there was no integrity, and no stopping our instincts and desires.

Slowly, agonizingly, sensually, she turned her face so our lips were less than an inch apart. Her warm exhale weaved through my skin as I stared, transfixed by her lips, the same lips I had dreamt about for years, the lips I'd kissed a thousand times in my wildest fantasies, the lips I had brushed with my finger just a few minutes ago. They were about to touch me again, in a new, uncharted way.

She slowly wet those plump lips and I stifled my urge to lunge and suck on her tongue before it retreated back into her mouth. I waited until she was done because I wanted her to make the first move. In my own egotistical way, I needed this to be the moment where Valentina kissed me.

The second her lips touched mine, uncontrolled euphoria flowed into my heart. Every cell of me that wasn't touching her dissipated, and the rest became concentrated in my lips, mouth, and tongue. I was nothing but those nerve endings, nothing but that little bit of saliva we were sharing, nothing but the faint whimpers simultaneously escaping our mouths.

I felt her tongue on my lips and opened up to let it slip in and play with mine. They danced with each other until I took the upper hand and sucked on hers. My poor brain and heart couldn't comprehend what was happening. This was Valentina, my Valentina, the Valentina I had pined after for years and fantasized about for decades, and she was now melting in my arms, moaning against my mouth, biting my lips. This was her wavy chestnut hair in my hands, her voluminous chest rubbing against me, her plump lips getting suckled by mine.

If only I could go back in time and tell my eleven year old self.

For two minutes or three, we languorously enjoyed this union of our bodies, the magical sound of slick saliva sprinkled on top of our deep moans. She kept her arms around my waist, never venturing anywhere else, but slowly caressing and squeezing me. I forced myself to behave appropriately, even if my fingers were itching to explore more of her.

The magic had to end though and when she eventually took her lips away, I inhaled deeply, trying to keep as much of her scent in me, holding on to the few molecules of air that had been shared between us.

For a brief moment in time, Valentina had belonged to me, and that was more than anything I'd wished for.

"For your inspiration," she softly said, caressing my face.

"I'll write about you tonight," I repeated the words I'd said a few minutes earlier and smiled naughtily, reminding her of her previous answer.

She blushed and let go of our hug. "I'll be thinking of you too," she winked. She may not have reiterated her answer aloud, but we both knew it was insinuated.

"I'm counting on that!" I grazed my hand against hers one last time.

She threw me one long look and turned to walk back to the hotel. I stared, mesmerized by the sway of her hips and hair. I couldn't believe that this femme fatale body had been in my arms a few seconds earlier or that I, human and flawed I, had made it shiver.

That was the kind of body that commands a room when it enters, the kind that makes eyes turn and hearts skip a beat, the kind you want to respectfully adore and dirtily abuse. The same kind of unforgettable body you keep tucked away in your memories and bring up during lonely nights, when you need a powerful fantasy to keep you company. And for a few minutes, that body had been mine.

She swiveled once more and blew me a kiss, now back to her normal seductress character. I pretended to catch it and brought it to my heart. She smiled, turned back, and continued walking.