Get REAL Ch. 05: Reciprocal

Cassandra Jean Capra awoke uncharacteristically early on Saturday morning, as the indigo of the night sky was just beginning to lighten. Still half asleep, she remembered her plans for the morning, which, unfortunately, roused her fully. She tried to put her anticipations into a bubble and send them upward to drift far, far away—but failed. So she lay there. Wide, wide awake.

Abandoning hope of getting back to sleep, Cassie catapulted herself out of bed and maniacally flew through her morning Yoga routine. She meditated as best she could under the circumstances, but decided to forgo her speed walk outside, reasoning that briskly vacuuming the house and scrubbing the bathrooms would suffice for meeting her day's aerobic needs. She was, she reminded herself, operating within a tight deadline. She had to be done by 11:00 a.m., including being out of the shower.

Some thirty miles away, Marcos typed the last lines of his verse to Cassie, read it over, deleted a word, then added it back, substituted a gerund for an infinitive, and counted out the meter. He studied it again. Then once more. Something wasn't quite right. Send it, he debated, or wait. Let the unconscious work on it, as he embarked on his morning run, or email it now so she would receive it before eleven. It was good enough, he countered, but then he found himself re-reading it one more time.

Pausing, as the vacuum wand banged into the leg of her living room futon, where, in some respects, this all began, she persuaded herself that this wasn't a new emotion she was feeling—although it wasn't the same passion she had had for her first two husbands, either. Those loves had too soon lost their effervescence, grew flat, vapid. Relationships were supposedly built on mutual trust, on loving, on giving. Receiving, sure, but giving back. Her two husbands were more of the giving over or giving in to their puerile urges, which gave Cassie little choice but to give up on them.

Something seemed special about her friendship with Marcos, however. Or with Marcos and Tara, to be exact. She had known him longer, seven or perhaps eight months now, and Tara only a couple, maybe three, but their mutual connections seemed strong, lasting—although she had to concede that in the midst of physical intimacy, any connection might be rationalized to appear that way.

What made this relationship unusual, she decided, was the triangle of love they were all involved in. Contrary to the commonly voiced adages—three's a crowd, odd one out—their trio was tripod-sturdy. Their artwork was complementary, their subject matter was the human form, and her two new lovers seemed to relish new experiences as much as she did.

"As far as our sexuality, what could be more perfect?" Cassie gestured with outstretched arms to Umber and Sienna, who returned to the room now that the great sucking machine had been switched off.

"Marcos is straight, Tara gay, and I have found a mantra of openness to the world, enabling me to enjoy the love of both sexes equally."

Being the object of both their desires didn't hurt anything either, she admitted to herself, and since she had no desire to get married, and therefore no need to commit to a single person, this solution to her seven-year-long quest for intimacy seemed perfect. She reached down to stroke each of her pets with a glow of satisfaction.

But then a cloud dimmed her sunshine. Could she, Cassie wondered, love a woman independently of their ménage? Or was it the presence of a man which kindled her fire? And because she had forbidden herself to even consider the possibility of becoming involved with a married man—except in the company of their triad—could she harmonize with Marcos as a duet, were the situation to change?

Such troubling queries. To answer them, there would have to be some ground rules, some parameters, and an ultimate barrier she couldn't violate. Could she find those this late in the morning, with Marcos due at eleven?

Serendipitously, Cassie's gaze fell upon the coffee table before her, and the crimson and purple violet cover of the book Tara had given her after their last threesome. With a trifle of guilt, as she hadn't even started it yet, she picked up the paperback and silently read the title: Introduction to Tantra: The Transformation of Desire, by Lama Yeshe. She opened it and methodically turned page after page, scanning the images of Shiva and Shakti, pausing to read captions, and thinking all the while. Like she were drawing a figure, her hand making a line, then another on top of it slightly darker, then another, searching for the truest one, the line that would render the quintessential elbow, wrist or finger, her mind did the same, shaping notions into postulates, vague concepts into plans. And when she had turned her last page, and her study was complete, she jumped up excitedly. She knew what she must do.

"Yes!" she declared. She was positively feeling warmed again.

Marcos finished his jog and showered. As he ate, he leafed through the Observer, scanning the headlines, reading an article until he grew weary of it, and roamed again. A special feature about Muslim traditions caught his attention and compelled his interest for the entire piece. Especially intriguing was the origin of polygamy. It seemed that the holy wars, which hungrily devoured young Islamic warriors, leaving scores of Muslim women unmarried or widowed, had also left their army in need of replenishing. It was therefore ordained that two, three, or more women were to be shared by each man. Interestingly, in this modern age, the ravage of drugs and scourge of HIV had left a similar deficiency of desirable male mates, also making marriage of a man to more than one woman desirable. Because polygamy was against the law in many countries, the Muslims called the second matrimony a "spiritual" marriage.

"Fascinating, and so appropriate," thought Marcos, who, legally married to Maria, had referred to his twenty-year relationship with Randi as their spiritual marriage. And now, three years after her death, he desired that type of bond with Cassie. It seemed only right, for, in his life experience, he had encountered a plethora of good women, and a relative scarcity of good men. He was no Muslim, he acknowledged, but finding, in this news story, affirmation for his convictions gave him a welcomed reassurance.

As planned, he would meet Cassie later that morning, and with Maria away for the weekend, he would let the day unfold, he told himself, in whatever way it was meant to.

Going back to his computer, he read over his poem another time and the missing line revealed itself. He made the changes, reread it, and gleamed with satisfaction:

A Bath She Drew

After painting all day, a bath she drew

in a porcelain tub on claw feet high,

coating bared windows with a steamy dew,

and the crystal of Chardonnay nearby.

Bubbles gurgled, hot froth forming from plume;

through an aroma hanging in thick mist

gleamed red orange flames from around the room:

true luxury for a starving artiste.

Envious of the gown pooled at her feet,

of candlelight falling on pearl-white skin,

fragrance-bearing waters parting to greet

those glorious curves and spaces within,

were he but aqueous lavender heat,

or, better, her waiting satiny sheet.

Then he clicked on "Send."

Cassie peered past the bathroom curtains and down her long driveway, watching the little chipmunk sitting erectly on its haunches beneath a maple, scanning the surroundings for clues to buried food, remaining alert for danger all the while. Spring was here. Crescents of unmelted snow accented the base of each conifer. Tulips—the dozen that Marcos had given her last fall—were reaching upward, buds like little fists, ready to open and surprise her with the colors and shapes hidden within.

She glanced at herself in the mirror, and tossed a burnt orange lock over her left eye, glared back, pouted, then laughed. Creases appeared below her eyes; her freckles seemed to shimmer in the beam of sunlight that slanted in; and, in the criss-cross of her robe, her breasts shook joyfully. Not classically beautiful, like Tara, but she was spirited. Playful. Wild. And wily? Yes, that, too. As evidenced by what she was doing now in delaying her shower.

A tawny flash blurred across the yard. His Toyota was coming up the drive. She undid the flannel tie and slipped out of her covering, hanging it carefully on the hook behind the door. Then she turned on the shower, adjusted the temperature and stepped in, letting the steaming water beat first on her back, then on her chest.

Marcos mounted the two steps to her back door, knocked twice, and entered.

"Buenos dias!" he called out, and listened for her reply before noticing the shower sounds.

Without hesitation, he ascended the stairs, then began deliberating about what to do once he reached the landing. His heart pounded. He would get undressed and go right in. But what was her mood? Did she get to read his morning's verse? Was it too much? Too obviously seductive? She didn't always gush over his poetry, as he wished she would. No, he would just thump on the door and hope.

Her heart racing, Cassie thought she had heard his knock downstairs. Did she hear him call out? Should she holler back? But she wouldn't have done that, if she hadn't seen his car arriving and been listening for him. She put her hands upon her chest, one atop the other, to contain the fluttering. "Be oblivious. Act surprised," she advised herself, and she let the wet heat carom off her.

Rap. Rap. Rap.

"Come in," she blurted out, too hurriedly, she feared. And where was the startled little shriek she had planned?!

"Come in," mouthed Marcos. "Into the bathroom or into her shower?"

She must have loved his poem, he concluded, and opening the door, voiced with but a trace of a quiver, "Be right there!" He undressed as quickly as possible and opened the shower curtain with a flourish.

Cassie smiled broadly, extending her arms, water from her soaked head sheeting down her cheeks and nose, falling in thick plumes onto her breasts. Marcos moved forward to enfold her in his arms, the stream striking his closed eyelids and forehead, warming his shoulders as Cassie warmed him with her embrace. She shut her eyes to enjoy the closeness of the moment, Marcos swaying her back and forth and lifting her gently with his arousal.

He pushed their chests apart to better behold his flower in the rain, not really believing his reality this morning.

"I'm happy to see you, Marcos."

"I'm happy to see you," he could only echo, his creativity deserting him briefly, before adding, "May I wash your hair, Cassie?"

"I'd love that!"

She watched him grab the largest bottle and pour a little too much shampoo into his palm. Then she closed her eyes to enjoy his fingers plowing though her more resistant strands, until all of it was fluffed in lather. Resting her forehead against his chest to dampen the bobbing, she wrapped her arms around him as he kneaded into her scalp, down her neck, and around her ears. She wished this experience could endure for hours.

His "Time to rinse!" broke into her trance, and Marcos maneuvered her under the steamy downpour and slowly massaged the suds from her hair, one bubble at a time, it seemed.

"Will you shave me?" she inquired, raising her arms to reveal the wet curls of vermillion plastered to her underarms.

How he loved to nuzzle and kiss her there, recalled Marcos, and he wondered how it would change her texture. Her smell. Her taste.

"It's my spring ritual," she explained, hoping to counter the wrinkles of puzzlement forming on his forehead.

"I'd be happy to," he smiled, and she felt his erection jerk against her belly.

Soaping a hand, he lathered her, and with the razor, neatly shaved away the matted little flames. He had her rinse, then rubbed his lips along the resulting smoothness.

"That tickles," she giggled and pulled his lips up and into hers, and they kissed a long, long time, her hands and his roaming each other's backs, alternately rotating the other into the hot sheets of her shower. She felt him probing for her, and fantasized about wrapping her legs around and descending upon him, her liquid arousal meeting his solidarity. They would be wet and hot, inside and out.

But the day was so young. There was so much still to do—and this wasn't her envisioned ending....

"Let me wash your hair. All of it," she emphasized, as shampooing his balding head would not have been reciprocal.

She reached down for a different bottle, pushed open the top, and squeezed out a tiny puddle. In doing so, she released a fragrance that he recognized at once.

"So that's what greeted me with every hug, leapt from between my fingers combing your hair, perfumed my beard after a tango."

"Alluvia de la Primavera. It's available only in Spain." She sighed, "and I'm on my last bottle. It's good that I'm going to Altamira again next week, on my way to Lascaux."

As he moaned pleasurably with her fingers digging firmly into his temples, along his beard, down his lateral neck, onto his furry chest, and over his pectorals, he saddened at the reminder of her upcoming month-long absence. It was a regular trip, necessary for her to visit the inspirations for her art—the ancient cave paintings in Europe.

"You're going to miss me, aren't you?" she sympathized as her hands worked their way down his abdomen to his groin and his now partly deflated manhood.

"You are my muse. My inspiration!"

"Your Terpsichore," she laughed, recalling his name for her, from the Greek muse of dance. "But I'll be back with little souvenirs for you and Tara. And we have today, let's remember!"

And with that, he stiffened and exclaimed as her sudsy hands passed all around his testicles, up and down his shaft, and tugged on his pubic hairs, which she knew he loved.

Recognizing the signs of his impending rapture, Cassie abruptly slowed her pace and moved off his trigger zone, briefly washing, instead, his buttocks, before coating his thighs and legs with a layer of the shampoo.

Finished, she arose to study her soap sculpture and all of its beautiful muscular appendages. "Time for your rinse, my Adonis." And she kissed him again while her hands wiped away the continents of foam suspended upon his hairy skin.

They got out and dried, Cassie fluffing her hair with her fingers and shaking her head to loosen adherent locks. Marcos dried her back. She reciprocated.

They dressed, chatting lightheartedly. Cassie was pleased with their morning so far. And now they would plan the rest of the day together, a real luxury compared to the mere couple of hours at a time they typically had, to dine and dance.

They ate a lunch she made for them, and after a brief tour of her garden to see all the little shoots and buds of promise, they drove into downtown. Against the teeth of the Minneapolis skyline, they saw the gargantuan cherry on a spoon in the Walker Art Center sculpture garden. They danced to a Latin group they happened upon at the pointy bandshell halfway around their three-mile circumferential walk ringing Lake Harriet. And they feasted on choyla, tarkari, and saag at a Nepalese restaurant in Dinkytown.

Sitting together in the driveway back at Cassie's, they reflected on their day, how they had strolled, hustled, lolled; chatted and probed; joked and empathized. The sun had warmed them all afternoon and their arms around each other under the cover of dark had kept them from becoming chilly in the evening air. She curled her fingers around his, and with hands clasped across the divide between their seats, they sat silently, basking in those memories.

"Can you come in for awhile?"

"For as little or as long as you like."

"That's right. You're a free man tonight, aren't you?"

Marcos was hoping Cassie would realize that, with Maria away, he could even spend the night with her. Especially as she would be gone in two days and this was the last time he would see her for over a month. A paw of sadness clawed at his stomach.

Inside, Cassie wound a corkscrew into a bottle of Shiraz and pulled out the cork with a dull pop. She poured two glasses nearly to the brim.

"You know if I'm too wasted, I may have to spend the night on your futon!" Marcos gestured with dramatic flare as he led her across the space into her living room.

"I hope I could offer you better than that."

His head did cartwheels with her reply.

Sitting on opposite sides of that very piece of furniture, backs supported by pillows against its wooden arms, their stockinged-feet intertwining, they exchanged stories about their childhoods, their children, where they were going next in their art, Cassie's upcoming trip. While she talked, she rubbed one foot up and down his shin, as the other slid between his two ankles and settled alluringly close to his groin.

They reminisced about how they had met, his posing for her drawing group, the many dinners they had subsequently prepared together, and the interests they shared, especially of art and dance. Cassie kicked at his leg when he recalled their rehearsal with Tara for her drawing group "on this very futon-stage," and she laughed so hard that she sloshed wine down her front, compelling Marcos to sit forward and take her glass. He hugged her tightly; she hugged him back.

The hands of Cassie's antique Seth Thomas mantle clock stretched straight up, but neither saw. The music in the wine, the wood stove's incantations of heat, and the magic of the futon all conspired to close eyelids; to send lips off exploring cheekbones and nose tips, eyebrows and ear lobes; to invite finger pad down arm to elbow, to trace from forearm to palm, circling, circling, then one by one to tickle finger tips with the faintest of touches.

Sensual tokes in their shower and a day-long high from their time spent together made the flow of desire surge. Clumsily, they became unencumbered, but to lovers engrossed, their undressing was seamless. With raw energy, they pawed and rolled back and forth within the confines of the sofa's concavity, his lips upon hers, her tongue inside his mouth, sliding over incisors, sampling the blend of wine with his own inherent deliciousness, the medley of flavors that made up his essential taste tonight.

She became aware of his hands gliding up and down her back, digging his nails in, not roughly, but with just enough friction to alter the initial sensation, varying it for a while, then changing to light little patters of fingertips all over her skin, like spring showers softly percussing the tender blossoms of her crab apple. The heels of his hands, one after the other, flowed freely down the valley of her spine, pooling in the small of her back, before fanning out to smooth over her buttocks, cupping them each tightly, releasing, and then circling them in ever widening arcs, touching her hip bones then dipping below her gluteal masses and up into her crease. She tilted her pelvis into his, against his rigidity, to let him know how much she was enjoying his touch.

Marcos felt the pressure of her pubis onto his shaft, and her breasts compressing softly against his thick chest mat, the radiant warmth and affirmation from this bonfire of desire on top of him. They kissed slowly for a time, trading turns with their tongues to venture along gum lines, between teeth and cheek, beneath inner lip, receiving moans of acknowledgment for finger pad and lingual tip. Then the urgency escalated, Cassie exclaiming into Marcos' mouth as he ran his fingers ever so lightly over her silken cheeks and up her back to the nape of her neck, spearing with his fingers her fragrant flames and stretching them with the most tender of tractions.

Her throaty squeaks, like arpeggios, accented each of her pelvic thrusts, and he reciprocated, rocking rhythmically upward against her, with a beat that made Cassie loosen her thighs and drop them to surround him. They were gasping for breath, nearing the peak, ready to view the panorama of love from the highest point, when Cassie asked Marcos to pause, to hesitate, with his heat between them, poised to enter should she only permit herself to invite him in.