Authors: H. Ward
“I see. Yeah, okay.” He shrugged, “I don’t think we need a lot of money to go backpacking, and I can pay when we need a room. I’d have to pay for me anyway, yes?” He made it all sound perfectly reasonable, Amber thought, like she wouldn’t be a freeloader, and then he added, “Hungarians—we’re a little old-fashioned maybe, the man always expects to pay if he invites.”
Something about that seemed a little like high-class prostitution, Amber thought. Although she knew it wasn’t meant that way, something about the way Tomás said it made her cringe. She tried to dismiss it as oversensitivity to her lack of financial resources and her unwillingness to try to tap her parents for funds. She’d have to go home eventually, she knew, just not yet.
“And there’s something else.” She drew in a deep breath, and let the words rush out, “Cal isn’t my brother.”
“Not your brother?” Tomás seemed puzzled. “Who is he to you then?”
“He’s…just a guy I met here in Panama. No one special, not a boyfriend or anything, just a guy I’ve been hanging out with for a few days.”
“So his bad mood…that was because of me, yes?”
“Yes.” Amber sighed, “That was wrong of me to put both of you in that position.”
“So…do you want to be with him, or do you want to go with me to Darien?” Tomás rubbed his forehead, “I’m a little too old for guessing games. We are not in high school here.”
He gave her a look that Amber knew must be his stern teacher look he reserved for unruly students. “How old are you Amber?”
“Twenty-one.”
He puffed out a breath. “I have ten years on you.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You are very beautiful and you seem like very good company too, but I’m not interested in this becoming…complicated.” He tapped on the side of his coffee cup with a nervous index finger.
“It’s not going to get complicated. I promise.”
“I’ll have to leave tomorrow morning to go to Panama City to see Denes off at the airport. From there I will go to Darien. So…you’re coming with me?”
Amber bit her lip, as she thought about Cal, thought about how they were together and how he felt inside her, and she thought about Cal’s dad prisoner somewhere in the jungle…if it was true. There was so much he wouldn’t tell her, she just didn’t know the truth of what he
had
told her.
She looked at Tomás’ serious grey eyes and reached up and ran the back of her fingers against his artfully trimmed beard stubble. “Yes, I’m coming with you.”
A small smile played across Tomás’ lips and he reached up and held her chin as he leaned in to give her a kiss. His lips were so soft, and her hand involuntarily pushed into his thick, dark hair. His mouth gathered hers with a greedy motion, his tongue finding its way inside, and in an instant, it was a kiss of passion, a kiss that was asking for more to follow.
Amber pulled back, a little breathless, “We’re in the middle of a coffee-bar. I don’t think people want to see that while they’re having breakfast.”
“Maybe, Tomás said, “But I know that I want to see much more.”
They spent the better part of the day at the beach. Tomás had a book that he was drawn in by, some kind of espionage thriller, and Amber found herself alternately napping in the sun, and feeling a bit bored. They played in the water some and chatted about normal things like their families, and where they had traveled, but there was something lacking that Amber couldn’t quite put her finger on. She felt relieved when Denes came to join them; he was shyer than Tomás, but he was also more playful. Amber began to wonder if the distance she was feeling with Tomás was simply the result of their age difference. But every time she began to seriously question her decision to go with him to Darien, he would smile at her or touch her or speak to her in a way that made her feel somehow womanly and worthy. It was clear he desired her, so perhaps his book was just a defense, she thought, a way to distract himself until he could have her, a way to not appear so eager that he would scare her off. Or maybe he was so confident in what was going to happen between them, that he felt no need to rush. Then, it occurred to Amber that perhaps this was how normal, adult couples behaved. Perhaps every minute of every interaction wasn’t always about getting or not getting it on.
Early that evening when they swung by the brothers’ inn, a message was waiting for them. The airline had called to notify them that Denes’ flight had been cancelled the next evening, and he’d been rescheduled for a day later. The clerk asked if they’d like to extend their stay an additional night, and Denes pleaded with his brother in Hungarian.
Tomás turned to Amber, “He says, ‘why should we go stay in the city when we can spend another day at the beach?’ I’m inclined to agree with him. Do you mind delaying our departure to Darien by a day?”
Amber shook her head, “No, of course not, Denes should make the most of his vacation.”
Tomás laughed and whispered in Amber’s ear, “I think he is hoping to get lucky with a girl he met today…and he’s not the only one with plans for tonight.”
Butterflies beat in Amber’s stomach as Tomás’ words tickled her ear, a mix of pleasurable anticipation and some sort of anxiety. She tried to sort out the contradictory feelings, but she could not. During the middle of dinner it hit her, though: she had never slept with two different men back to back. She admitted that, given her age, she had had more sexual partners that most of her peers, but there was always a decent interval in between. She was a serial monogamist, and she didn’t like the idea of bedding two men at virtually the same time. A period of celibacy, a change of location, these things helped her to feel less like a slut, and more like a woman who easily attracted interesting and attractive men.
When Amber and Tomás left the restaurant, Denes was sitting at the bar, chatting up the woman who had caught his fancy. She was quite a bit older than Denes, and while she was pretty enough, Amber thought the woman was trying too hard to look and act younger than her age.
“Denes found a cougar, huh?” Amber said as they walked down the little street.
“Cougar?” Tomás gave her a baffled look, “Isn’t that some kind of lion?”
“Yes, it’s an expression we use in the states, it means an older woman who tries to pick up younger men. They’re…on the prowl, like a cat.”
“You think there is something wrong in that?” Tomás raised an eyebrow, as if such a thought might be provincial.
“No, not particularly, you just see it less than…”
Tomás interrupted her, “Men who are older than the woman they are with?”
“Yes, exactly,” Amber nodded.
“So is there some kind of animal to which you compare those men?” Tomás asked. Amber thought for a moment, “Sometimes they’re called rhinos.”
“Rhinos? Like rhinoceros? Why that?”
Amber scratched at her nose, trying not to laugh, because she didn’t want to offend Tomás. “Because they’re horny.”
Tomás barked a laugh, “Do you think I am this…rhino?”
Amber stammered, trying to think how she should respond. Tomás laughed again, “I do not mind to be your rhino,” and then he kissed her. “In fact, I think I am very rhino right now.”
“I think you mean horny,” Amber corrected him with a smile. And then she felt Tomás’ hand cup her butt cheek. She pushed back from him, “Uh-uh, I don’t get frisky in the middle of the street. It’ll cause me problems if I have to walk this way again. No one is going to try to pinch
your
ass or cop a feel.”
“Cop a feel? Are not cops policemen? I do not understand.”
Amber sighed; explaining every slang expression she used was going to get old, “Cop means ‘to grab,’ ‘cop a feel’ means to grab a woman’s breast or…lady parts.”
“Then I want to cop a feel of you,” he flashed a jokingly lascivious smile, and Amber couldn’t help but be charmed.
Consciously or unconsciously they were drifting toward the bungalow, and Amber knew when they got there she would have a decision to make. She knew that Tomás would expect intimacy, but her mind kept flashing on moments with Cal, especially their lovemaking on the beach. She stopped. In her mind she thought of it as lovemaking—not as fucking or screwing or having sex or a roll in the hay. Did calling it that in her head make it so? Had what they done really been making love?
Amber wanted to delay the decision of what to do with Tomás for a little while longer, and she saw the perfect opportunity.
“Look,” she said, pulling at Tomás’ sleeve, “Gelato. I could really go for an ice cream.”
Tomás’ hand swirled over her ass, and then he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, as they walked into the little shop. “Okay, what flavor would you like? But it has to be a cone.” He licked his lips, “I think I would enjoy watching you eat that.”
“Strawberry,” she said.
“Okay, strawberry then.”
“You’re not having any?” Amber asked.
“No,’ he said, “I am too much rhino,” and Amber laughed.
They sat at a little outdoor table and Amber offered Tomás a lick. He took a bite and nodded in approval, “Very good, but I’d rather watch you.”
Amber’s tongue danced in a sensuous swirl as she slowly ate the ice cream. She slipped one foot out of her flip-flop and snaked her foot under the table to rest in Tomás’ crotch. He gasped in surprise as her nimble toes set to exploring his manhood, which was aroused and swollen. She licked her cone and nudged at his naughty bits in a kind of synchrony, and she could see by the look on Tomás’ face he was afraid that he might come in his pants. He pushed his chair back to escape the dexterous attentions of Amber’s foot.
“You don’t play fair,” Tomás said, pressing his sensual lips together under heavy lidded eyes. “But you get points for the surprise attack. I can see that you are a master of guerilla warfare.” The corners of his mouth twitched in a smile. “But I’m ready to expand the battleground.”
“Is that how you see it? As a battle?” Amber asked.
“No matter how thrilling, it’s still a struggle, yes?” He tilted his head, looking at her though narrowed eyes. “Or do you prefer another metaphor? I could also say it is like playing a musical instrument or cooking a perfect dish, yes?”
“Perhaps,” Amber said, “But I think most people do see it as a kind of conflict.”
“Then what are we waiting for? I’m more than ready for you to declare war.” He meant it as a joke, but Amber couldn’t find the humor in it.
Journal Reflection 6
In Ancient China, there was this general named Sun Tzu. He wrote a famous book called “The Art of War” that’s about military strategy. My dad had a copy of it in his library, and for a while it was a thing in business management, and one of my bicycle tour bosses used to always unknowingly misquote from it to hilarious effect. The Colonel gave me a copy of it when I graduated from high school and said it was a good book for anyone to read and reflect on; he said it had a lot to say about how to approach all kinds of relationships and issues in life.
One quote that has always stuck with me is this: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” That sounds very wise, very simple, and very hard all at the same time, don’t you think? Sun Tzu also said, “Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.” As Shakespeare would have said, there’s the rub. You have to know yourself first,
and
know your enemy—which means that you have to know
who
—or maybe
what—
is your enemy. That’s harder than it sounds. Sometimes fear is the enemy, or jealousy, or longing, and sometimes it’s plain old poor judgment. Rarely is it, I think, a real person.
As to strategy, that means making choices, and I think what Sun Tzu is saying is that sometimes it has more to do with choosing what
not
to do more than deciding what
to
do. People talk about the battle of the sexes, and someone once said it’s the only war ‘in which both sides regularly sleep with the enemy.” Maybe that’s so, but I’m not convinced. I know I’ve been guilty of it, but I don’t like trying to strategize relationships. I never thought that tactics could win a heart. I keep thinking that being with the right person will be easy, that they won’t feel like the enemy, and it won’t require significant amounts of strategic thinking on my part. Ever since I met Cal, I keep thinking, that finding a soul mate maybe has something to do with kismet. The hard part is figuring out whether that’s something I even want.
Chapter 6
“I—I can’t tonight,” Amber said, gently pushing Tomás away from her.
“You mean, you won’t,” Tomás said, looking disappointed.
“No, I—I can’t,” Amber repeated.
“I have a condom if that is what you are worried about,” Tomás offered.
“It’s that time…” Amber’s voice trailed off.
“What time?” Tomás asked blankly, “I don’t understand.”
Amber sighed, “I’m menstruating.”
“Oh,” Tomás laughed a little, “Really, that bothers you? It’s not a problem for me.”
“It’s that I…have the cramps. I don’t feel so good.” Amber pleaded.