Universal Language

I was enjoying the food portion of the World Music and Food Festival at my university. For lunch, I ate spicy Filipino pork barbecue; it was delicious, but not especially exotic. I'm adventurous, so for dinner, I tried a Southern Thai dish called gaeng tai pla that combines kaffir leaves - whatever they are - with fermented fish guts and other strange flavors. It was so fiery hot I broke into a sweat; it made calling the barbecue "spicy" a gross exaggeration. I planned to try other food booths tomorrow, like the Mongolian stall that was selling yak burgers.

But so far, the music portion had left me either bored or secretly wincing. The arias from the Chinese opera sounded like screeching bats, and the guy playing the shenai, an Indian double reed instrument, was making the whining drones I would expect from a place that repairs bagpipes.

Then a Cuban salsa group took the stage and their rhythmic music captured me instantly. Some Latino students jumped up to dance. I don't know how to dance salsa, but I got close to the stage to gawk at the beautiful singer, a voluptuous Afro-Cubana wrapped in a tight miniskirt. She looked down at me staring up at her. Our eyes met and she smiled, and began to sing her Spanish lyrics directly to me. I don't speak Spanish, but it felt so sexy listening to her smoky voice that perfectly matched her moves. She would shake her ass, then flash her dark eyes and bright smile - right at me.

I was standing there wishing I had studied Spanish in high school instead of German. The lyrics seemed to be saying, "You like what you see?" (ass shake). "You like what you see?" (ass shake). "I'm so spicy hot, I'll make you sweat! You like what you see?" (ass shake).

Night was falling and stage lights were coming on as the salsa performers finished their act and came down off stage to join the audience. I went to meet the singer at the bottom of the stairs to tell her I totally loved her voice and her dancing, but she seemed to not understand English. I said, "Me gusta muchisimo!" which launched her into speaking Spanish, but I shook my head and said, "No hablo espanol." I had now used up two of the half-dozen Spanish phrases I remembered from a surfing trip down to Mexico, so I had to pantomime for her to join me on my blanket spread on the grass at the edge of the campus area called The Lawn. She followed me and sat down.

Up close, I saw that she was years older than she had looked on stage. I'd thought she was about my age, 20, but she was maybe in her mid-30s. Such a lovely body! I used two more of my Spanish phrases and introduced myself as Gordo and learned her name was Maria. She chuckled at my nickname and pantomimed that I was not fat. Huh? Oh right, I remembered "gordo" means "fat" in Spanish. How do you say in Spanish, "You're so flaming hot, I'm feeling turned on just sitting next to you!"

A group of Korean folk singers and dancers took the stage. Their brilliantly colorful traditional clothing partly made up for the monotonous chant-like music and repetitive dance moves. Not my jam. Maria laid down prone on the blanket, with her chin propped in her hands. Her miniskirt was so short the prone position gave a clear peek of white panties between brown thighs. Oh my god; that's my jam.

The moonless night was velvet black. Strings of small lights surrounded The Lawn. I honestly felt relieved when the Koreans were done, but I clapped good-naturedly with the rest of the audience. The next group was a belly dance ensemble from Egypt. When the music and dancing began, Maria began bouncing and rocking her bubble ass in rhythm with the high-pitched doumbek drums. Her ass was a snake-charmer, and my cock was a cobra. I adjusted my snake inside my Levi's.

I said I'm adventurous. I set my hand high on her left thigh. She stopped moving, but remained prone, facing the stage. She said something in Spanish. I have no idea what she said, but she didn't push away my hand. I used up one more phrase from my short supply. "Relájate. Está bien." (Just relax. It's okay.)

She began rocking her hips again to the belly-dance music.

I waited a couple minutes.

Might as well go for it. I held my breath and slipped my hand under her miniskirt and placed it on the left globe of her firm ass. She froze, but she didn't turn to face me, let alone sit up and slap me. She said something in Spanish. I understood not one word.

"Maria, relájate." I said in my most soothing voice. "Está bien."

She was breathing faster. In a moment, she again began moving her muscular ass to the infectious drumming, and my hand went along for the ride. Now my cock was as hard as teak.

I glanced around. All eyes were on the stage. I slipped my whole hand under the leg hole of her panties and lightly squeezed her left ass cheek, two fingers just grazing her bald pussy.

She spun her head to face me and gave me a lecture in rapid Spanish. I caught one word, "macho." Not sure if she said, "Don't be a macho asshole," or "I adore macho men, they get me wet." Her tone strongly suggested the former, yet her body... Well, she was wet. And she didn't shove my hand away. Or get up and leave.

My hand remained in place, unmoving. She returned to facing the belly dance ensemble. When she began bouncing her ass to the drumming, my fingers bounced over to her pussy and pressed into her slippery hole. She grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand out of her panties, but not before I felt a little gush of lube and heard the beginning note of a moan. Whatever she then told me in Spanish I took to mean, "I love to drive, gringo - but slow your Mustang down."

Got it. Don't exceed the speed limit. I put my hand back on the left globe of her ass, on top of her cotton panties. She resumed her ass dancing to the belly dancing on stage.

When the Egyptian dance troop finished their performance, Maria's dancing stopped. I prayed the next group would not be Tibetan throat-singers. I needed something with a catchy beat.

A drum and dance ensemble from Nigeria hurried up the stairs onto the stage. Four dancers and six drummers. Oh fuck me! I love world music!

When the loud djembe drums fired up, Maria's ass came alive under my hand. The drums popped and boomed with intricate contra-rhythms that wove in and out in melodic threads. Maria's warm ass got caught up in the excitement and twerked under my touch. My face felt flushed, as if I'd just eaten super spicy food.

I slowly slid my hand over so that two fingers rested at the center of her panties, atop the wet spot. She didn't stop twerking to the driving rhumba beat. I began tapping my fingers to the rhythm, right on top of the wetness - tap ta-tap TAP, tap ta-tap TAP! Maria kept dancing and liquid oozed through the cotton. Now I could smell her, and my own heart thumped like a conga and my cock pulsed to the beat.

In my peripheral vision I spied a campus police woman strolling toward our blanket. I yanked my hand away and cringed. But the cop never noticed us. She walked on by to get closer to the stage, bouncing her huge ass to the African drumming.

I returned my hand to where it longed to be and began slowly sliding two fingers up and down the cotton cleft between Maria's pussy lips. In a moment, the center of her panties had gotten so slimed that my fingers glided over the cotton on a film of lube. She said something in Spanish, which I didn't understand, then she let out a moan, which needed no translation.

The drum song ended. Maria rested, so I paused, too. The next song featured a slower but no less compelling rhythm in a three-four time signature. Think of the beat of a waltz played on drums with big booming voices. Maria circled her ass to the revolving beat. She said something in a husky whisper. Who knows what it meant; I heard "Come on baby, light my fire."

Again I slipped my whole hand under her panties and pressed two fingers right into her gooey wet hole. She gasped. I began to finger her in a circular motion, round and round, stretching her pussy wide.

I said, "Te amo (I love you)," which wasn't precisely true; I didn't even know her. But I didn't know how to say, "I love fingering your slimy pussy." She began panting. I added a finger and opened her wider. "Te amo," I repeated, meaning, "Your smell is making me crazy."

She was at the cusp of orgasm when the second song stopped, so I stopped. The crowd clapped and cheered, but I only had one hand free, and as they say in the Far East, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

The third song from the Nigerians was their grand finale, a headfirst plunge into explosive percussion, with a syncopated cowbell dinging away through the mix. Maria laid down her head and began to move her ass in a frenzy, grinding against my hand as I stroked her G-spot. Just as the drums crescendoed to a climax, she came violently, crying in a hoarse whisper, "¡Ay! ¡Ay! Ahh! Ahhhhhhhh!"

The drumming fell off into a quieter, slower pace, and I adjusted my stroking to match the music. Then the percussion built relentlessly to another climax, and Maria's pussy clutched my fingers in fluttering spasms as she came. "Ahhhhhhh! ¡Mierda!"

The African music followed the same pattern again, dipping down into a trough then surging upward to a cresting peak, and Maria rode the wave to another orgasm, "Ahhhhhhh! ¡Mierda! ¡Mierda!"

Twice more, the song repeated the pattern. Drumming and cumming, drumming and cumming. Creamy lube covered my hand.

Finally, the drumming ended. The crowd went wild. I gently eased my fingers from her engorged pussy. She sat up. Strings of sweaty black hair stuck to her face. She said something very softly in Spanish; it sounded pretty.

I used up the last of my Spanish vocabulary. "Gracias, Maria. Gracias, mi amiga. Muchas gracias!" Kind of lame, I know, but I didn't know how to say, "That was so hot! I'd be in heaven if you'd come back to my apartment with me." I wondered how to pantomime it. I was about to give it the old college try when a man I recognized from her salsa group approached.

"Maria," he said, "I've been looking for you." His eyes swept from her to me and back to her. "We need to meet in the hotel lobby at eight in the morning. We leave for the airport at 8:30. You can't be late."

"No worries, Roberto," she said. "I'll meet you in the hotel lobby on time, I promise."

My mouth fell open.

"Bueno." Roberto's eyes went back to me and looked me over. "Well...Enjoy yourself. Good night."

"Tell the others good night for me," she said. "We sounded great tonight."

My mouth hung open until he turned and walked away. "You speak English!"

She gave a guilty laugh. "Many Cubans study it in school." She stepped closer. "They say music is the universal language, but it's not completely true. You didn't care for the Korean folk songs and neither did I." She kissed me. "The universal language is touch." As she said it, she gave my still-hard cock a friendly pat. "Have you got a room where we can... communicate?"