Heat Wave Read online

  “I do declare, Sir, that this must absolutely be the hottest of days,” she said, smiling, back of a hand to her forehead in a mock swoon. Gail wore clothes, but when she was free of them she was more alive than anyone I’d ever known. It was too hot for anything: eating, sleeping, walking, working—anything. Everything was slick with sweat; even things that didn’t sweat had a salty patina of sympathy.

  Gail shone. Her wet body reflected the high sun, tiny reflections of it danced all over her. She was a voluptuous girl, with strong thighs, big breasts, a gentle belly, an ass like a pair of velvet pillows; and all of her glimmered with water from the sprinkler, glowed with sweat.

  Watching me watch her, she smiled—making her dimples dance, her cheeks blush—and patted the grass next to her.

  It was too hot to do anything, but I still took my clothes off and lay down next to her. It was even too hot to talk, each breath burning our throats, so we didn’t. I just looked at her, and she looked at me, taking the sunglasses off and flipping them up onto the back porch. It was like I’d never really seen her before. The gentle rise of her belly, the way her breasts moved as she breathed, the color and texture of her nipples, the tangle of brown hair between her thighs, the way she pursed her mouth as she licked her lips, the feathers of her eyebrows, the perfect peach of her ass. I was excited, but it was too hot to get hard; we hovered there, lifted up by the so-hot air, suspended above arousal.

  Even though my body couldn’t respond, my mind did. My eyes touched her, relishing her details, and the complete work of her they formed. We couldn’t touch, couldn’t talk, but we still made love. In the scalding gap between the sprinkler’s warm rainfall, I watched her sweat mirror the sun. Sparkles played along the sides of her plump breasts, gleaming on her strong thighs, shining on the curve of her neck. Then, when the water splattered down on us, I was hypnotized by the way the drops outlined her form, the way they raced down her breasts to hang under them. Watery jewels winked in her cunt’s curly patch, forming a pool below, until there was too much and it trickled away.

  We watched each other for hours, until the angry sun finally dropped below the peak of her roof. It never got cold, but it did cool enough for movement. My hand on her so-hot thigh, the water of the sprinkler, the water of her sweat making her almost frictionless, and her hand to my face. Her fingers were so hot I expected them to burn, but they didn’t. Slowly, as the air cooled, we moved more. She rolled onto her back, spreading her legs, and I laid my hand on that curl of wet hairs.

  Carefully, as if it was our first time, I explored. Our sweat never evaporated, and the sprinkler doused us—a liquid metronome—so it was a fluid evening time, a slippery dream night. She was wetter than I’d ever felt her, slick and hot beneath her tangle of brown hairs. Her clit was hard, a bead easy to find even in the falling night.

  We stayed like that: the moisture of the sprinkler, the slickness of our sweat, the wetness of her cunt, enrapturing, hypnotizing me. I never found out if she came or not—the day was too hot for that—but I don’t think it mattered to either of us. It was something other than just sex, it was something precious and sincere. A memory that to me, especially now, means Gail the way she was, the feeling of her soul, her spirit: primal, fluid, hot, and pure.

  Thinking of her, thinking of that time, it was easy to summon her up again and imagine her sitting next to me as I drove away from the waters of the Bay, looking for a place to get a drink.

  “If that doesn’t scream, then I must be deaf,” I heard her say, nodding toward the first neon-lit place I saw: The Watering Hole. I laughed, and pulled in between two sickly palm trees. It was her kind of place, comforting in its ordinariness, a place where they might not know your name but would still treat you like a friend in need of a drink. The cinder-block walls were built without even a concession to windows, the heavy swinging doors were reinforced with battered steel, a bright neon Bud sign buzzed angrily in a dirty Plexiglas box. The inside formed itself out of inviting dank as I blinked away the daylight: long bar, smoked mirrors, turgid fans, a jukebox gleaming and sparkling like some treasure from the cave of Ali Baba, and a chaotic solar system of tiny round tables with battered chairs for moons.

  The bartender was a big redhead with a ready smile. He flashed it at me as I sat on a stool. “Whatcha have?” he said, as he absently wiped at the bar top.

  Gail had joined me, making a comedic hop up onto her own rickety stool and turning “Vamp” up to full: “Whatever you got, big boy,” she would have said, a Mae West rumble to her already throaty purr. Would have…if she weren’t in a box in my car.

  “JB and coke,” I said, smiling weakly at him.

  “You got it. Gold and brown coming right up.”

  I could tell he wanted to talk, wanted to play the role of the bartender, but I didn’t want to tell my story. It was too big; too raw to bring out—at least there—so I kept it locked up in my throat, somewhere close and personal, between a sob and a scream.

  Instead of looking at him, I became fascinated with the bar’s pattern of dark, dark wood. He got the picture, because a glass of ice and booze slid calmly into my view, no questions asked, no conversation started.

  Sipping, I glanced up. I made her appear again, dressed in that special, simple cotton dress. She toasted me, winking, and the ache reached up and squeezed my heart. Pushing aside tears with the back of my hand, I looked up at the cash register. I breathed in slowly and deeply, trying to become fascinated by anything except my memories and the big hole in me she’d left behind. Business cards and matchbooks, souvenirs from travelers and regulars, a “You don’t have to be crazy to work here but it helps” sign yellowing and curled with age, a smattering of Polaroids: Red with someone who could be Jack Nicholson, Red with someone who might be Mickey Rourke, Red standing next to a woman in a simple, blue cotton dress, her smile bright in the gloom of the bar—someone I recognized immediately: Gail.

  A picture of Gail and Red, smiling, standing together, taken right here—in a bar near the waters of Biscayne Bay.

  Sitting in the dark gloom of the bar, I shook with pain and fury. My imagination surged against my will, filling me with images: Red kissing her, his thin lips matching her lush, full ones. His hands dropped from her strong shoulders, down her arms, then to the small of her back. As the kiss intensified, as she moaned into his pressing mouth, he reached down and took hold of her ass and pulled her closer, tighter. She responded by grinding herself against him, trying to reach his cock through their clothing.

  Then their clothing was gone and she was taking him into her mouth, swallowing him deeper and deeper with energetic thrusts, slamming back into him as he thrust into her, both of them spitting and hissing encouragements.

  The bar was stifling, hot. I was baking, burning inside. All I could do was sit and stare at him, at the picture, and—in my mind—at the two of them on that too-hot day, that special day. I could see them, clear in my mind, as they lay together on the grass, the beads of sweat and water from the sprinkler trickling down their sides. I watched as the water painted them with reflections, flowed down their sides, pooled in their navels, splashed over their faces, washing everything away.

  We never talked about it, not really, but…I thought we understood that what Gail and I had was special, magical, precious: not something common, not something easily given away. More than sex, even more than languid summer afternoons full of sweat and water.

  Anger battled with grief. My drink was long gone, just a thin mixture of water, syrup, and booze remained in the bottom of the glass; but I couldn’t bring myself to ask—him—to get me another. So I just held it, willing it to shatter in my tight grip, send glass flying everywhere, and into my hand. Maybe the pain would bring me out of it, blast the pain in my mind away with sliced skin and spilled blood.

  But it held, and I held it. White knuckles and thick glass. I imagined her, sitting on a bar stool, holding his hand and laughing, sharing something much more intimate than anything we
’d ever had. Biscayne Bay. I’d traveled hundreds of miles, spent so much time, just to find out that I’d never known her at all. The sex wasn’t all of it—or most of it—hundreds of miles and days just to find out I wasn’t worth telling the truth to: she’d been here before, been here before and been with him.

  I finished the sickening remains of my drink and got up to go. As I walked, unsteady with booze and rage, I hoped he’d say something, anything, just to give me an excuse. To do what, I didn’t know. Maybe punch him; smash the place up, cry or scream—but nothing happened, he didn’t say a word. Silence followed me toward the door. I’d go out, drive to the Bay, dump her ashes in, and leave, hopefully putting her somewhere where she couldn’t haunt me again.

  Then she did.

  I turned, my hand on the cool metal door, and looked back. Red was doing something behind the bar; something involving the sharp clicks of half-empty bottles. It wasn’t right—I didn’t know how, but it didn’t feel right. There was something else, something hidden here—something about Gail, about Red, about the Bay.

  I couldn’t just bury her. Gail was worth too much to just throw her into that dark Miami water. I couldn’t just get on the plane tomorrow and leave a Gail-shaped hole in me.

  So I went back to the bar, ordered another drink, and then pointed to the photo above the cash register. “Tell me about her,” I said

  Deep night. Reality mirroring postcard: the distant chimes of guy lines and aluminum masts, constellations of warning lights, bubbling tides trapped by breakwaters, waves slapping against boat hulls. Gail was a water woman and it was simply appropriate that she be returned there. Ashes to ashes, water to water.

  The sea was dark and frightening. Looking more like oil than water, each surge made it seem deeper, heavier. I parked next to a slipway, the traction grooves in the cement making it look like a deck of cards sliding into a pool of crude. I left my shoes and socks in the car, rolling my pants legs up to my thighs. Walking down, chips of concrete became tiny flashes of pain underfoot. I was grateful when I got low enough for the sea to wash over them.

  The water was cold, surprising for Miami. A low shiver raced up my body from my numb toes, feet, and legs, but I kept walking. Moving helped, and my circulation vigorously pushed sluggish blood around, slowly warming me. By the time the water was lapping at my stomach, I felt like I could have left my clothes on the shore and swam out to one of the distant, sleeping sailboats.

  The sea reminded me so much of her. Even cold, I could see her on that hot day—gleaming with perspiration and sparkling drops from the sprinkler: a slick naiad, a sprite of fountains, waterfalls, and spring rain. Yes: mercurial, fluid in her interests, slippery to define—how could I ever have thought I’d known her? I thought I knew where she’d flowed, what lives she’d splashed against.

  Biscayne Bay. I’d asked Red to join me, to help me mix her with the sea. He’d just shaken his head, slowly: “You do it. She was a dream; I’d rather not wake up yet.” Poetic for a man who poured booze for a living—no wonder she’d talked to him, listened to him, held his hand, touched him, made love to him.

  We’d been special, Gail and I; they’d been special, Gail and Red. She’d been in town one day. She met Red, a lonely, sad man who’d just lost his wife in a boating accident. They talked; they spent a night of reassurance, love, and hope together.

  I’m glad she’d asked me, with that postcard, that little note, to come here, to the Bay—trying to explain what had happened between her and Red, hoping I’d understand.

  The Bay lapped at me, the wake of some distant ship leaving the harbor. The cold sea started to sneak my heat away, mix me with its dark water. I thought about saying something, but in the end all I did was open the box and slowly spill Gail’s ashes into the water of Biscayne Bay: gone, but never, ever forgotten—by me, or by Red, and somehow that was more than all right.

  Bikini

  SIMONE HARLOW

  “Get a bikini.”

  Julia Landon scribbled her signature on the last contract. She eyed her secretary, Mavis. “I don’t have the bikini butt yet.” She put the black fountain pen down.

  Mavis huffed. “Chicken shit.”

  “I’ll repeat this conversation in my head when I’m deciding on bonuses next month.” Julia batted her eyelashes.

  “You love me too much.”

  No one kept her on track like Mavis. “But I’m fickle.”

  “Witness me shaking in my Jimmy Choos.” Mavis lifted her foot. “The ones you bought me for my birthday. You’ve lost sixty-five pounds, you’re getting an all-expense-paid seminar in Aruba, where no one knows a former big girl.”

  “I have twenty pounds to go—besides, who wants to shop in weather like this?” San Francisco was in the middle of a cold summer, and she wanted warm wool and cashmere, not an itty-bitty bathing suit. A week in Aruba and she might thaw.

  “You’re six feet tall. Where are you packing it, Honey, in your left pinkie toe?”

  Julia picked up the pen and pointed it at Mavis. “You have officially earned your bonus.”

  “Go to Renee’s. Shop the whole morning.”

  Julia rolled her eyes. “I’m meeting the new marketing guy at three. We need to bond for the trip.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll charm him, and if that doesn’t work I’ll poison his hot chocolate.”

  A day shopping would be nice. “Sounds tempting, but...”

  Mavis checked her watch. “Take a long lunch. Call it vice presidential privilege.”

  Julia tapped the pen against her lips. “You are evil.”

  “What are underlings for?”

  Mavis was right, but she loathed having to buy anything that would expose her vampire-white skin, fleshy bod, or the fact that she was crying out for a bikini wax. Still, she’d need something to wear besides wool and cashmere. “I’ll do it.”

  “Good.” Mavis left, with a devilish smile.

  Inside, the plush dressing room looked more like a whorehouse boudoir, with the black swan-back chaise and gilt mirror, than a respectable bathing-suit store. Julia examined her reflection, then backed up until the back of her knees bumped the chaise. Maybe if she pushed her long black hair behind her ears, she’d look thinner. Nope, didn’t work. The thighs still rubbed together. Swimsuits never could lie to a girl.

  Her breasts we’re barely concealed by the fire-engine-red triangles. A tuft of black pubic hair stuck out from the triangle covering her mound.

  “Come out, Hon, I wanna get a look at you.”

  Her body wasn’t ready for a bikini. “I don’t like it.”

  “Let me see.”

  Julia huffed. What did she have to lose? She marched out of the dressing room. She stopped dead. A tall blond man stood outside the cubicles.

  He smiled, taking off his steel-rimmed glasses. “Lovely.”

  Julia flushed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a compliment from a man. “Ah, thanks. Where’s Renee?” Her hands crept up to cover her breasts.

  “Don’t cover yourself.”

  Something about his silky-smooth voice compelled her to obey. Besides, she liked the way his blue eyes flattered her. And he was oh so yummy. He reminded her that she hadn’t had much of a love life lately. Tall and tanned, with razor-sharp cheekbones that only came from years of good breeding.… She wouldn’t mind jumping back on the sex bicycle with him. Letting her eyes roam down his broad shoulders and trim waist, a sudden jolt of desire hit her. He was already sporting a nice bulge in his black trousers. A flutter of hunger raged in her stomach, cascading all the way down to her vagina. She’d been on ice way too long. The ravenous glint in his blue eyes made her feel good. So good, in fact, she almost forgot about her quest for the black one-piece. Almost. The suit was on a clothing rack right behind him. As she walked past him she could smell the sexual heat leaping off his body. Given half the chance, she’d like to wallow in his spicy scent for a few hours.

  “Excuse me.” She slanted a glance
at him as she passed.

  Their nearly matching shoulders touched. Black silk wool brushed her shoulder. Very nice, she thought.

  “My pleasure.”

  Now that’s where he was wrong—fucking him would have been her pleasure. At the circular rack she found the black tank suit in her size and took the hanger from the rack. Julia passed by him again. She could swear she saw disappointment in his eyes. But he didn’t have to put his ass on a beach in a week.

  Alone in the dressing room, Julia took one more lingering gaze at herself in the red bikini. Ten more pounds from now, maybe she’d have the guts to wear it outside this shop. Julia heard the front-door bell ring. Good. Studly man had left. She was getting out of this suit and taking the black one-piece. She reached behind herself to unfasten the hook when the dressing-room door opened. Julia whirled around to find her admirer standing there with a wicked smile on his oh-soseductive lips.

  “This room is occupied.”

  The corner of his mouth tilted up. “I know.” He closed the door behind him. His eyes roamed up her body. “I want to see every inch of you.”

  She giggled. “Who are you?”

  “Does it matter?” He stared at her, his eyes filled with desire. “Your breasts are so beautiful.” He leaned in close and began to suck her nipples through the silky material of her swimsuit. He pushed her back against the cool mirror. Julia’s inner muscles contracted, and her bikini bottoms got wet. She could feel his cock straining to escape. Oh, this is very nice, she thought, as she placed her fingers over his straining hard-on. He sank his teeth in her nipple. Julia arched her back. She wanted that cock in her mouth.

  Getting her hands between them, she shoved him back until she’d backed him up to the chaise. Pushing him down, she made quick work of his zipper, exposing his plum-headed cock. What a beautiful sight! She reached out and touched its smooth head. His cock jerked and a small glistening drop of pre-cum appeared. Julia leaned forward and licked it.