Ashs fire, p.4
Ash's fire, page 4
“Are you asking me to stop?” Sam asked.
“No, oh, no,” Jordan said. She searched her husband’s face for clues, found none. “Not that easy, Sam Cohen. I’m not gonna be the bitch who told you to stop. You’ll end up blaming me for breaking our pact.”
“What about doing something new? A new interest?” he asked.
“You get to have an affair and you’re telling me to go weave macramé?” Jordan asked, her voice turning shrill.
“Okay, you’re right.”
“When will it be my turn to play?” she said, her voice breaking. “Maybe I should get myself a lover, too. I want excitement, too. Before I’m too wrinkled and transparent.”
“You will always be attractive, you know that,” Sam said.
“No, I don’t,” she said, shaking her head so hard that a little whiskey spilled on her still bleeding cut, soaking the tissue, stinging her hand. Jordan threw the tissue on the floor.
Sam handed her another.
“You have character, you’re fun, you’re interesting. You simply have to move the target, look at older men.”
“I don’t want to,” Jordan exclaimed. “How come you get to have sex with someone ten years younger with legs up to her chin and I have to bed geriatric specimens? How is that fair?”
“The world isn’t fair,” Sam said. “You know that.”
“You like it. Admit it. You got yourself a tight little bouncy ball. Is she better than me? Does she have more stamina? Flexibility? Does she swing from the chandelier?”
“Jordan, honey,” Sam put his hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t,” she said, angrily, pushed away his hand. “You don’t get to touch me.”
Sam just looked at her.
“Okay, so I guess I’m jealous,” Jordan said. “And what if you fell in love with her?” Angry tears filled her eyes, not before she saw his pain. Sam was hurting, too, for hurting her.
“That will never happen,” Sam said. “I’ll walk away first.”
“You can’t promise me that,” Jordan challenged. She felt weak and ashamed of feeling weak.
“You are a powerful, independent and whole woman, not a clingy little thing.”
“When you sleep around I don’t feel powerful and independent,” Jordan said. She used her tissue for her nose, threw it on the floor, and reached her hand for yet another.
“She’s not better than you, honey,” Sam said quietly. “She’s just not you.”
“I know,” Jordan said. “I know that.”
“You have no idea how grateful I am to you for accepting my need. I have no idea how other people might see this.”
“They’ll think I’m a complete idiot.”
“Well, I think you have tremendous self-confidence to do this,” he said. “Let’s clean the kitchen now, and go to bed.”
“No,” Jordan said. “My mess, my cleaning.”
She stood, collected her tissues, dragged the garbage can from the kitchen, then picked up the larger shards with her bare hands. She swept the floor, still pressing more tissues to her palm. Sam took off his trousers and mopped while she cleared the intact dishes.
Then she went upstairs and took a Sam-length shower. Not caring about the national water shortage or the heating bill, she stood under the hot stream, and let it wash away her stinging pain and frustration. Jordan watched her blood drip, dilute, and swirl into the drain.
When she stepped out of the shower, Sam was waiting for her with a fluffy towel and Band-Aids.
Chapter 8
Thursday, June 28
Jordan woke up the next morning with a headful of inky thoughts. Revengeful thoughts. She thought about the pianist with the cloud of black hair. Ari Ash. What a romantic name. At her office, Google surprised her. Ash had a successful career as a pianist, composer and conductor. The reviews extolled Maestro Ash as ‘a classical pianist of the old school’, but also as a ‘clear voice of his generation’. Strange, in his plain tee and easy manner, he seemed like a regular guy. Jordan kept reading. After emigrating from Israel over twenty years ago, Maestro Ash settled in New York with his wife and two children. Currently, he was contracted by the New York Philharmonic for an original composition. Wow, Jordan stared at the screen. The guy was a major celebrity in the classical music world. Successful and gorgeous.
Jordan hunted down his email address. Then, she let her fingers hover above her keyboard. Should she or shouldn’t she. When was the last time you did something for the very first time?
The endlessly curious Jordan took a leap. She emailed him, asking if he’d like to meet for a drink.
He replied a few hours later. “I’ll be in Israel until next Monday. Would you like to come meet me at my hotel tomorrow night? We can have a drink at the bar.”
He’s curious, Jordan thought, her heart bouncing in her chest. Go. It’s not retaliation, it’s just a drink.
The next morning, she woke up in an empty bed. This is your fault, Sam Cohen.
Late that night, Jordan drove back into the city, to the same hotel where she met him. Sam was at work, and Shira was sound asleep, unsuspecting of her mother’s wandering. What if she woke up? Jordan thought, and then convinced herself that thirteen was old enough to stay alone for a couple of hours. And her phone would be nearby.
Coldly, deliberately, Jordan tossed out all thoughts of home from her mind. This is the reckless me, like I used to be before I married, the me I liked.
Flutters in her stomach, Jordan walked in. Ari was sitting by the bar, a coke in front of him. He stood when he saw her, and that smile she remembered, the one that made the sun shine indoors, spread across his face. Oh my god he’s so beautiful.
“I see the hotel bar has run out of alcohol,” she said.
A playful glint appeared in his eyes. “Sadly, nothing but coke,” he agreed.
“Any other ideas?”
“There’s always the mini bar,” he said, his eyes asking the question.
Jordan swallowed. Then she nodded once.
She followed Ari into the quiet elevator that felt like a fish tank, surreal, all sounds muffled, lights shimmering. She had never offered herself to a complete stranger. Not without some small measure of introduction. Even when she was younger and wilder, she needed some verbal foreplay, a human connection prior to the taking off of clothes. But tonight, she brazenly, stubbornly, kept her mouth shut.
When he flung the room door open, she put one foot in front of the other and marched in. Ari let the door close softly behind her.
When he turned toward her, Jordan smashed against him. Her entire body hit his, and he absorbed the impact. Her mouth reached for his. His arms wrapped around her, and his mouth took hers.
He tasted of coke fresh out of the bottle, cool and sweet. His lips softened her, played happily, expertly on her mouth and she melted into him. Her calculated plan for revenge turned into desire. Ari kissed her sweetly, slowly, accurately, in all manners of excellent kisses and Jordan’s fire ignited. She let herself kiss back. She stood for many minutes, kissing Ari with complete abandon, not thinking of anything, completely in that moment, that kiss. Her eyes closed, she stepped out of herself to connect with another man, pressed into the full mass of his body, feeling his newness. Her hands dove into his hair.
When she opened her eyes and pulled her head back to look at him, she met that smile again, a radiant, confident smile. Here I am, ready to play. She smiled back, knowing her face spoke of the flames burning inside her.
“Hi,” he said, and she didn’t utter a word. “Come.” He led her into the room that, like many Tel Aviv beach hotels, showcased the Mediterranean Sea. From the middle of the blandly elegant room, Jordan looked through the glass doors that spanned the entire west wall. The doors were left open and the sea beyond the tiny balcony sparkled as if the night stars were stirred into the water. The summer air rested, fat with humidity. Jordan searched his face, her intent so clear that his luscious mouth curved up again. He stood still, at ease, dissolving her awkwardness in this awkward situation.
It wasn’t her conscious decision to show herself so openly, it just happened. With one swift motion, looking into his eyes, she pulled her plain, white tee above her head, and let it drop to the carpeted floor. She faced him in her lace bra, clear, defiant. There was no coyness in her, not a shred of feigned modesty. Just a glorious, unabashed hunger. Jordan felt utterly liberated.
She pounced.
Ari caught her, lifted her in the air and held her in his arms. Her legs in the wide, summer skirt wrapped easily around his hips and he bent his head toward her mouth. Ari kissed her again, deeply, his lips and his tongue creating a new and exciting world inside her mouth. Ari kissed perfectly. The language of his mouth was eloquent, compelling, a language that filled her with intoxicating joy.
She held onto him as he walked, her arms wrapped around his neck, her mouth joyful, her head swimming. Jordan kissed like she hadn’t kissed in many years, as if she was a teenager who had just discovered kissing. Her entire body glowed in his arms.
When he put her down and pulled her to him, she felt his hard manhood pressed against her belly. A moan escaped her mouth. Ari laid her on the bed, and swiftly, unceremoniously, took off the rest of her clothes.
Exhilarated, wearing nothing but her hunger, Jordan watched him examine her. It didn’t matter that her large breasts succumbed to gravity, resting lightly to her sides. The two inches that she pinched on her belly didn’t bother her. She stepped across the fine lines around her eyes and her neck. She felt desired.
“You are so beautiful,” he said thoughtfully, his eyes scanning her body.
Jordan smiled, saying nothing at all. She knew she was going to do foolish things, crazy things.
Ari knelt on the edge of the bed beside her. She lay under his towering giant figure. His curls floated around his head and fell to below his shoulders, shimmering in black. His arms rose above his head as he pulled off his own tee. His broad and lithe form was pure male. His olive skin shone warmly in the sand-yellow light. Long, well-defined muscles traversed his stomach and chest and arms. He had the topography of a man who worked his body. Black hair spread across his broad chest and his nipples, gathered to a narrow lane that shot down past his belly button, disappearing into his pants. Black ink showed itself under his arm, left of his heart, almost hidden. Three slightly flattened circles stacked vertically. A musical chord.
Ari watched her rapture.
He unbuttoned his pants, let them slide off his narrow hips, and after them, his fitted boxers. Jordan’s breath caught in her throat. He knelt back on the edge of the bed, tucking his hair behind his ears with both hands. Jordan was riveted. His manhood towered over her, immense, sculpted and perfectly proportioned, a glorious obelisk of virility. Jordan reached for his erection and it felt hot, steely, smooth. A sigh escaped her.
Ari leaned forward, put his hands around her waist and pulled her bottom towards his towering erection. Her legs lifted up to rest on his shoulders. He fixed his eyes on hers. With one, smooth thrust he penetrated her. Jordan sucked in her breath. She was ready, had been ready for years without knowing it. When Ari’s manhood ran fast and deep into her, Jordan yielded, drawing him in, with all the muscles in her body.
He pushed into her, fast and strong and fluid, building rhythm, holding onto her waist, conquering her, her butt in the air, tightening his grip. Jordan’s legs shook as her core muscles contracted then released then contracted again, yelling their joy. His pace quickened and her pleasure turned into pleasurable pain. Ari’s manhood rammed inside her, harder and harder, beating against her cervix, full of life. As he reached deep into her, time elasticized, contracting when he pushed in, expanding when he pulled out. Ari’s hands wrapped around her waist, his manhood deep inside her. Her mind emptied of thoughts. She rode with him, and as she adjusted to his rhythm, sensations transformed into exquisite pleasure that shot through her entire body. Jordan’s vision tunneled and she saw nothing but Ari’s penetrating, hungry eyes. Her body joined his, surrendered to his heat. Ari’s hands aimed her tender parts against his bone as he pulled her in fast, then out slowly. Jordan was pulled into a dance of liquefying heat, a fast river of desire hurrying to spill into the sea.
And then, without warning, he lifted Jordan from the bed and into his arms. She folded in two with her legs still resting on his shoulders. Holding her in his arms, he stepped off the bed and stood, still inside her. She couldn’t see the bed or the floor or the sea behind him. Suspended in midair, locked into his powerful arms, she held on, her arms around his neck, impaled on his erection, high above the floor, flying on pleasure. She saw nothing but his eyes, holding onto hers, stronger than his hands. He bent to kiss her again.
Ari’s kisses evolved. His lips caressed, then nipped, and he bit her. His sweet taste elated her. He kissed her deeply, innocently, while he made hard love to her, a disorienting choreography. She wanted to hang onto his mouth forever, impaled on his erection deep inside her, climbing as high as her throat. Ari waltzed right into her soul. He pushed harder and faster, his tongue swirling, her body in the air, he rammed into her and she welcomed each thrust, each swirl, her head spinning, her body alive. She felt him convulse, and he came, hard, holding onto her so tightly that her bones ached.
He stood for a minute, and then, gently, put her down, back on the bed, and let her rest.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” Jordan answered.
“I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said somberly, ceremoniously.
“Me, too,” she said.
“Thirsty?”
Jordan nodded and he went to the little fridge. Jordan had just made love to a complete stranger, and she felt happy. She stared at his muscular, high behind, crowning his long legs. Perfection, she admired. She never saw a more pleasing behind on a man. When he turned around with bottles of mineral water he caught her staring and laughed.
Jordan drank as he lay down next to her. Two tall corner lamps washed her body in pale, yellow light. None of his things were strewn about, a man tidy in his personal habits. Even his suitcase was out of sight, as were shoes, jackets, and everything else tourists casually left on horizontal surfaces.
Ari’s touch was measured, thoughtful, as he caressed her. His fingers sent tingling sensations through her. He caressed her with deep concentration, slowly, methodically, taking his time with each part, observing with his eyes as he explored with his hands. He put firm, smooth, pressure on her thighs, travelled across her stomach, climbed to visit each one of her breasts. His hands moved slowly, then fast, then swooped all over her. Jordan closed her eyes, conscious of nothing but his touch. After a while she couldn’t pinpoint where he touched and where he had yet to touch. He had magically sprung four hands and forty-four fingers, as long and strong and nimble as forest ferns. She felt swallowed by his hands, her skin consumed by a fire that he lit in her, and was slowly stoking. When she opened her eyes, his face was shadowed, his long curls shone, silhouetted against the white ceiling. He was new and unknown and formidable.
Every once in a while, he bent to kiss her and caress her face tenderly. And again, he whispered in her ear, “You are so beautiful.”
On a hot, summer night, Jordan lay naked and relaxed on a new bed. She couldn’t stop looking at him looking at her, admiring her body, touching her, kissing her shoulder, then her nipple, then her stomach. I am me, the thought slowly surfaced. He is drawn to me just the way I am.
When Jordan reached her hands to touch him, Ari lifted them with one hand and pinned both her wrists together above her head. She surrendered to his touch and its many colors and rhythms and moods. She accepted her role as landscape for his excursion.
His caresses turned voracious. Hands grabbed her breast and squeezed, then cupped tenderly. He collected her stomach in one hand, squeezed it in his large palm, then released and licked it like a cat. He bit portions of her thighs, then brushed them with his lips. Her flesh was assaulted, then soothed, pressed then released. Jordan felt every single skin cell come alive under his hands and his lips and his teeth. His kisses fluttered like butterfly wings and then turned into carnivorous bites, leaving red marks. She paid precise attention to his touch, listened to the incredibly rich and intricate music he created on her body. Her hands pinned, unmoving, her inclination to speak nonexistent, she listened with everything in her as Ari introduced her to a new world.
When his demanding bites came closer and closer to her feminine parts, pinching mouthfuls of her flesh, Jordan shivered and her muscles tightened. Ari pinned her thighs with one arm as his fingers came closer and closer. Swiftly, his pianist’s long and strong middle finger pushed into her, deeply. Jordan gasped. Unimaginably aroused, her eyes closed, she buried her hands deep in his thick mane. His locks were soft, and silky, and thick, and they curled around her fingers as if she dipped them in a vat of thick cream. Her thighs pinned down by his arm, his mouth and hands playing music on her clit, Jordan crackled. He blew cool air on her, and she sighed. Slowly, he flicked his tongue on her, and she shivered. He nibbled her, and drew whirling, dancing circles, quickening, drawing her into another realm. Long tongues of fire danced a frenzied dance inside her. Jordan felt disoriented as his rhythm changed, again and again, building pressure, until she couldn‘t tell what he was doing. She was all sensation, fierce, mounting.
Jordan climbed and climbed, her body was carried into a wave of pleasure so engulfing that she felt lifted off the bed. When the wave reached the level summoned by most tsunamis, Jordan crested, and she convulsed, exploded into a sky-full of flares shooting inside her, reaching all corners, releasing cries of ecstasy.
As her breath quietened, she opened her eyes again.
Ari sprang up from the bed and walked to the little fridge, again, exhibiting his gorgeous behind.
“You have the most beautiful butt I’ve ever seen,” she said, not embarrassed at all.
