A HINT OF LIME

Vierra Lai

The first time Lucie saw him was at the main counter, as the last of her friends hugged her goodbye and thrust a small bag of condoms into her hands with an exaggerated wink (“You know, just in case…”). The sound of suitcase wheels on uneven slate had turned him toward her. She felt a jolt to her system when she caught his gaze. His eyes were dark brown and lively. He had a round face and high cheekbones. Lucie thought she caught the hint of a smile, but a second later the man had turned back to the counter to grab his room key from the desk manager. From behind, she saw dark hair and a tan neck partially obscured by his scarf. He stood with his shoulders thrown back, a casually balanced position that Lucie’s ballet instructor would praise for its alignment.

Lucie tended to round her shoulders and contract her limbs to compensate for their length and sharpness. She was all angles and technical accuracy where there should have been flow. She had calves that flexed as she moved and arms that tensed with each of her efforts. The trouble with Lucie was that she only knew how to express desire through her body language and clothes, but never her words. Words made her feel desperate. She feared telling others exactly what she wanted because she thought it would ruin the spontaneity of the moment. She wanted as close to the real thing as she could get, and she believed to reveal her fantasies was to ruin them.

Lucie had been traveling with some childhood friends for the past two weeks, and she felt worn out by the amount of movement around Peru they’d been doing. If they weren’t exploring the city, they were out drinking or dancing or calling each other awake for a 6:00 A.M. bus to another site. Lucie had borne it all with a strained smile, trailing after her friends and posing for an obligatory photo at each stop of the trip until the group split at Lima, leaving Lucie behind in the hostel while they took the bus to Huancayo.

Lucie had told her friends that she couldn’t go with them to Huancayo because her head spun when she imagined crossing the high overpass by train. Her friends had laughed at her fear of altitude sickness (“You were fine in Cusco…”), but they accepted her excuses. In reality, Lucie had wanted to break away from the group for a while; it was nice to vacation with old friends, but she needed alone time to regain her energy.

She saw the man from the counter again when she headed toward her room. It was the last room on the first floor, through a hallway past the main counter. He was holding the key to his room in his hand, and she could make out the number fourteen on the tag hanging from it. On her way to her room, she passed a shared kitchen with two small fridges and a table in the corner on which someone had left an empty grocery bag. Sunlight drifted in through a window in the kitchen, and it highlighted peeling yellow paint on the walls. Lucie could hear the faint sound of traffic outside, but it was mostly quiet inside the hostel. She stopped at the room next to his and reached in her pocket to take out her own room key, which had the number twelve on its accompanying tag.

“Hello, it looks like we’re neighbors,” he said when he saw her unlocking the door next to his. His voice was deep. It was not the voice she expected to come from a lean body; it seemed to come from somewhere much lower and vaster. It swept over her, latching onto her skin like the succulent tendrils of a climbing plant. He introduced himself as Kai. He had spent the past four months touring Latin America, and now he was taking a break in Lima before heading off again. She told him that she was staying in Lima while her friends went to Huancayo. She told him she had grown tired of incessant conversation, and she was coming to hate sightseeing as well.

“There’s more to travel than just talking about or seeing things,” he said. He asked her what she had been eating, but she could not remember the names. She could remember texture and smell, but the right words failed her. She felt her heart beating faster at the way he kept his eyes on her face when she spoke. She liked the way his eyes glinted with a perceptiveness that made her feel like he really saw her. It was the look of someone who had not yet decided if he wanted her or not. He seemed amused by the way her words ran together sometimes.

Lucie wanted Kai to keep talking so she could imagine each syllable waterfalling off his tongue and cascading over her body. She wanted his voice to submerge her like waves over sand. Her own voice seemed to break against the silence harshly, and she felt relieved when he excused himself to unpack, though they made plans to meet again in the common kitchen after he had a chance to settle in. Solo travel rarely meant traveling alone, he explained. He had traveled through Peru by joining other strangers headed in the same direction or making new plans altogether.

Kai was different from the kind of guy Lucie typically felt attracted to; the last guy who’d approached her in a dingy Brooklyn dive bar had noticed the way she preened, sticking her chest out when she danced and hooking men with her eyes. He soon steered her toward the exit, and she’d silently followed him out. But the Brooklyn guy had been all sharp edges like her, and they had never figured out how to align their bodies together.

Kai was already in the common kitchen when she entered. His clothes were simple, a white shirt and dark jeans. She spotted his black peacoat hanging on a hook in the kitchen. He had thin slices of fish soaking in a bowl while he leaned against the counter where several limes were cut open and ready. She eyed the bowl. Bits of onion and smears of avocado green were left on a second cutting board next to him. The raw white flesh looked tender.

“See anything you like?” asked Kai’s low voice. He smelled of rich fruits and patchouli, the scents cutting through the smell of rotting vegetables and old wallpaper.

“Oh, no, I never eat raw fish unless it’s sushi,” said Lucie.

“I didn’t offer you any,” said Kai, raising one of his eyebrows.

Lucie felt her cheeks heat up. She narrowed her eyes when he laughed.

“I was just kidding. I made enough ceviche to share.”

Lucie’s expression didn’t change.

“No, really. I’m fine. Like I said, I don’t usually eat raw fish— food poisoning and all that,” she replied.

“That’s a shame, because I have a family recipe for a Japanese-style ceviche that’s unbeatable around here. Besides, the fish has been soaking in lime juice for half an hour now. It’s perfectly safe to eat.” He took out a pair of chopsticks and picked up one of the pieces of fish floating in the bowl.

“See?” he said as he tilted back his head. Lucie’s lips parted, mimicking Kai’s mouth as he dangled the dripping piece of meat over and then into his mouth. She heard small wet sounds coming from his mouth, and her own went dry. She crossed her arms over her chest as a shiver went through her.

“Even with the lime juice, it doesn’t taste clean to me. Besides, I still have leftovers from last night,” she replied. She walked over to the fridge and opened the door. The smells from the fridge mixed with a faint minty smell coming from somewhere behind her. She grimaced and pulled out her leftovers from the night before: thick meaty strips mixed in with darkened heads of broccoli, oily and limp. Now they were standing next to each other.

“How long are you staying?” she asked, taking another step closer to him. There was a faint hint of vanilla under the patchouli. It was sweetly masculine. She thought of soft skin and strong hands.

“As long as I want, though I’d much rather travel the world and experience everything it has to offer me,” he said.

“Though right now, I’d like to stay so I can go out dancing with you,” he added, just as the timer on the microwave sounded. He smiled, and Lucie felt a secret thrill jump through her body.

That night, they walked to the mall complex by the ocean. The club was in the level below the shops. In line, Lucie hunched her shoulders so that her jacket collar rose up around her face. Under her jacket she was wearing her thinnest silk shirt and her tightest pair of jeans. It might have been July when Lucie left, but her backless tops and yoga shorts did her no good in Lima’s chilly winter, and she couldn’t rely on an accidental slip to reveal her desire to Kai. She shivered against the cold and the wind blowing against her face; when it stopped occasionally, she felt the heat from her body rise up against her jaw, and when Kai put the other half of his scarf around her neck, she felt the warmth from his body on her neck too.

After a while, they pushed their way into the club. There was a crowd of people in the middle. Most people moved their bodies in a mix of club dance and salsa. A few men spun their partners out before catching them like fish in their hands. Lucie stepped with Kai into the crowd. Unlike her previous experiences with men, there was no quiet escalation with Kai. He held her at arm’s length at first like he would for any kind of traditional salsa dance. Each time Lucie stepped forward, Kai stepped back. He smiled as he did so, as though he knew exactly what he was doing.

“Why don’t you just ask for what you want?” he asked her. She didn’t reply, only turned around and pulled harder on his hands so he was forced to take a step closer toward her. She leaned against him so her back fell flush against his chest, soft curves meeting hard ridges and arms reaching up behind his neck. He laughed again and kissed the back of her neck. It gave Lucie goose bumps. She felt the familiar buzz of attraction rise within her and felt herself grow impatient.

In the taxi, Kai rested his hand on her knee as they sat next to each other. The rumbling of the taxi created a pleasant vibration under her seat. She focused on the feeling of Kai’s thumb rubbing cool circles against her hot skin, the way her heart pounded in her chest and the way another beat pulsed somewhere lower within her.

In the hostel, they paused at the entrance to Lucie’s room.

“Do you want to come in?” she asked, twirling a lock of hair with her finger.

“Do you want me to?” he asked.

She batted her eyes at him, coy. “I don’t know.”

He smiled. His hand snaked around her neck, and he dragged his thumb against her jawline. She smiled in anticipation, and her head fell like a petal peeling back from the bulb.

“Let me know when you figure it out,” he whispered in her ear. She opened her eyes, bewildered and unsettled. The edges of his lips quirked up in a half smile like he was waiting for her to say the punch line. She opened her mouth, but closed it before the words betrayed her true feelings.

“Okay, good night then,” he said and turned to go into his room, leaving her alone at her door. The light under his door remained on, but Lucie couldn’t bring herself to knock. She entered her room, alone and body buzzing. She lay down on the thin sheets on her bed, the original flowered pattern faded in the center from the laundered imprints of hostel patrons before her. She thought about how many people had slept in this room before her, moving from one hostel to another, and she thought about the man she had just spent the evening with lying on the same faded, flowered bedsheets in the room next door.

She thought of dancing against him and the way he’d put his hands on her hips. Her hands trembled as they reached down and unbuttoned her jeans. They were tight against her skin, so tight that as she pushed them down her lacy black panties slipped past her hips as well. She pinched the sides of her clit, rolling it between her thumb and forefinger as she tensed again and again so that the bud trapped between her fingers moved up and down, swelling and growing firmer under her hold. Angry pink splotches blossomed in her chest like a Rorschach inkblot. They traveled toward her neck and down her arms.

“Please, please,” she begged over and over again. For a moment, she feared that she had been too loud. Her body tensed with worry. In that tense, she felt something else play within her so that she trusted her body more than her fear. It started out as a humming as an invisible string from her hips to the ceiling pulled her hips up in the final roll. Her toes pointed. The soles of her feet, which lifted slowly off the bed, were tinged with red like she had dipped them in hot water.

She quickly wiped her fingers on a towel nearby so that the only evidence she had left was what looked like the white foam from raw honey coating her fingers. She fished a few condoms out of her suitcase, shoving them into her back pocket. Then she zipped up her jeans, got up and walked outside, where she knocked on Kai’s door. When the door opened, she reached up and pulled Kai to her. His hands reached around her instinctively as he grabbed her to regain his balance. They stumbled into his bedroom as her mouth sought his and pressed hard. His lips were so soft. Her tongue traced his bottom lip, and he parted his mouth more.

“I want you,” she said, the words not a question or a request, but a statement of her desires whose residue glistened faintly on her fingertips.

“I know,” he said. The hand on the small of her back moved powerfully up her back, pushing her body toward him as he leaned down for another kiss. His hands ran down the sides of her arms, and when they reached her hands, he lifted them to his mouth where he took each fingertip gently between his teeth and rested them against his tongue like an anchor in the sea.

She let his mouth lead her toward his bed. When she climbed on, she leaned against the pillows as he climbed on top of her. She lifted up the edge of her sweater as she pushed her chest forward. Her nipples pebbled in the cool air as he helped her pull her sweater off completely and toss it to the side. He kissed the soft underside of her breasts, first the right one, then the left. Her moans began harsh against the silence, but as his mouth moved up her body they became diffuse and languorous.

She pushed him so he was lying down and she could climb on top. She traced the shell of his ear with her soft, pink tongue. Then she pulled herself higher on his body and traced his cheeks with her nipples until he suddenly turned his head and caught one between his teeth. Lucie laughed and kept her breasts moving. She enjoyed the little jolts she felt when he would suddenly flick his tongue against the firm little buds or the faint, pleasant thrill of having been caught when his hands wrapped around her so that he could catch the whole of her breast in his mouth. She liked the little noises of surprise she made. They expanded like bubbles in the sea and popped when she made another moan.

“More, please,” she said, the words slipping from her open mouth. Kai unbuttoned her jeans, hooked his thumbs into the sides and tugged them down, dragging her underwear down too. She retrieved a condom from the back pocket before slipping out of her jeans completely. As Kai rolled on the condom, Lucie rested on her elbows, wiggling her hips in invitation. She felt the weight of his body as he knelt behind her. As he pressed down on her back, her belly lowered and her back arched so that the little dimples above her ass deepened and lines where her muscles connected sharpened as she tensed. It was as if someone else who had once been in his same position had pressed his thumbs into her backside, an indentation for all those after him to fill with their thumbs as they gripped the sides of her hips.

She yelped in surprise when she felt the pad of his finger circle the delicate skin of her asshole. He kissed the top of her ass.

“Relax,” he said.

“That area isn’t clean.”

A glass of water with a lime on the rim sat on his bedside table. Lucie saw it the same moment that Kai did. He smiled as he leaned over and pulled the cut lime out and held it over her backside, then squeezed it over the small space where her cheeks came together, letting the juice slip down the valley of her asscheeks. She shivered when she felt a drop rest at the raised pucker of her ass and threaten to keep going, before she felt a hot breath and then the tickle of a tongue licking it off.

“Tastes perfectly clean to me,” he murmured. He stuck two fingers in his mouth. Then he returned them to her ass, increasing the pressure of his massage until he fit two fingers in her.

“Yes, clean, good,” she sighed. “So good.”

Kai made a careful exploration of her asshole, pausing when her breath hitched and rubbing the same places over and over again when she moaned.

“Please,” she said again. This time, her voice sounded out loud and clear. She felt Kai remove his fingers. She whined, turned around and reached behind her to guide him in again, but he pushed her hand away. Soon, there was a larger sensation of a cock pressing slowly into her slick, wet opening.

“Please, what?” he asked. But Lucie’s words clamored in her mouth and grew lost among her moans. He eased in farther and any coherent sentences she might have uttered erased themselves from her mind. The sounds that came out were not meant for his understanding, but to affirm the pleasure she felt. She was showing him how she wanted to be fucked with the way her legs spread for him and the way she reached around to pull him closer, so his breaths fell shallowly against her neck.

“You have to tell me what you want,” he commanded, slowing his pace and punctuating each word with a hard thrust. She liked the way his cock hit her walls like a clapper against a bell, ringing her with a slow vibration. His force against her was direct, strong and sustained. The current of sensation that passed between them concentrated on the places they connected; it moved freely between her clit and a spot deep within her. It swirled at her core, growing stronger with each brush through.

The filter between her mind and mouth grew lax. There was no conscious decision to say one thing or another; what came out was a ceaseless babbling as her pleadings and moans ran together, reverberating against the walls as her cries filled the room and punctuated by a sudden stillness when her body reached a point beyond her control. In that still place, their limbs, following her words, entwined together. It was a full embrace of bodies. No space was left untouched between them, creating a perfect alignment of casual asymmetry. They fell asleep that way, wrapped in a sheen of sweat and stickiness.

The next morning, Lucie woke up to a lime, lying green and sharp in a glass of water, and a note letting her know that there was fresh ceviche waiting for her in the kitchen.