Patagonia

The wind, the wind, the moon on the face of the waters; the dark shapes swimming beneath a dark sea, the rushing clouds. The wind...

And then it was on her, her orgasm, rising from nowhere with astonishing speed. She didn't have to coax it, she didn't have to work for it. It just appeared, insistent and unstoppable, and she barely had time to grab onto the sheets before her body spasmed into a rigid arch, all her muscles clenched and quivering and her hips punched against him with some deep and primitive reflex that wasn't even under her control. The same reflex that made her pussy contract and start milking him in obscene waves of peristalsis, hungry and famished for his seed. She came so hard that she embarrassed herself and had to cling to him to hide her look of rapturous amazement by burying her face in his chest. She hung on him and strangled back her cry of release till it was no more than a desperate, mewling whine.

And all she heard was his animal grunting and the wet slap of their bodies butting together and the rhythmic creaking of the rope-sprung bed as he continued to fuck her, mindless of what she'd just experienced, mindless of everything but his own impending pleasure. Caroline expelled the breath she'd been holding and gasped for air, trembling, shaking, amazed by what she'd just felt. She'd never come like this before, with such total abandon and such incredible force. And with a stranger, a man she hardly knew. It was shocking and alarming and almost frightening, as if he'd uncovered a new part of her, a new and unexpected place she'd never even known about, someplace deep and primitive and filled with fire.

She wanted more.

"Oh God! Yes, Alex! Yes. Don't stop! Don't stop! Please, baby! Fuck me, Alex! More! More!"

She grabbed his hair and pulled his face up so she could see it, and she saw that she hadn't needed to ask. His face was set and red in the lantern light, sheened with sweat, his jaws clenched, eyes wild with lust. He was a savage again, a throwback to his aboriginal roots, a dominating animal who was not about to stop or slow down till he got exactly what he wanted.

And what he wanted now was Caroline on her knees so he could take her from behind. She moaned when he pulled out of her and left an empty vacuum behind, but eagerly responded as he pulled her up and arranged her as wanted, facing the pale curtains with the dark world outside, ass up and knees apart, resting on her elbows, spread wide and waiting for him.

It was just what she wanted, to be mounted and taken like a beast, a bitch in heat. She dropped her face to the bed and waited shamelessly, legs spread, pussy twitching. Alex took her wrists and drew her arms behind her, forcing her to arch and raise her ass even higher. Caroline's eyes sprung open. She'd never been held like this, trapped like a vehicle for his lust. Her face was smashed into the blankets and she had to turn her head to the side in order to breathe.

But there was no time to object or tell him to wait as Alex slid his cock into again, using her arms to pull her back onto it at the same time. Caroline howled and pushed her face back into the bed to muffle it. He was so deep! So fucking deep! She gasped for air and tried to adjust but he was already fucking her with deep, savage strokes. He rode her like a chariot, her arms the reins in his hands, swinging his hips like a hammer.

"Oh Alex! Oh God..."

He changed his grip, seizing her arms just above the elbows and pulling her up till she was bent like the figurehead on the prow of a ship, plowing some deep midnight ocean. Another orgasm hung in front of her like a shape in the mist, and Alex drove her towards it with unrelenting frenzy and need, growling like an animal as he beat into her.

He was close too. She could feel him growing inside her and feel his grip increase. He fucked her so hard that her tits bounced on her chest, flopping up and down from his violence, lewd, degenerate. She bore down as best she could, squeezing him, wanting him, needing the force of his release. He battered into her once, twice, three timers, and then just thrust deeps and froze...

She was already coming, even before she felt him throb and jerk inside her and heard his growl of climax. She felt him throb as he came and the hot splatter of his semen inside her, the thrilling force of his ejaculation. Her eyes were closed and her mouth open and she hung on his cock and came as his heat flooded into her, so much cum that it was already starting to seep from her cunt even as he was pumping in more.

He finished at last and fell back into the bed, pulling her with him and holding her against him. And in her post-orgasmic bliss she felt the ocean grow calm and the whales sink back into the depths, the wind die down, and a dim and milky starlight light suffuse the barren landscape all around her.

The bed wasn't cold with both of them in it, and for the first time since she'd been there Caroline slept a deep and glorious sleep, awakening only twice to have him again. There was such a purity to their lovemaking, totally carnal and unconcerned with doubts or reservations. Was it the barrenness of the place that made the sex so intense and pleasurable? Some sort of sensory deprivation thing?

When Herrera woke her in the morning by knocking on her door, Alex was already gone, as she knew he'd be. She washed as best she could in the basin of water, then quickly packed with no reluctance and no remorse or feelings of betrayal. All she felt was a kind of satisfied completeness and a strange sense of triumph. She had fucked this place and won; made it cum three times, and she still had the evidence inside her. As Herrera pulled onto the unpaved track that served as a highway here, Caroline didn't even look back.

* * *

Back in the States and back at her desk, Ultambacca the place quickly receded into memory to be replaced by Ultambacca the project. Caroline had done well. She had done very well, and she could hardly keep up with the sudden avalanche of reports, memos, meetings, and presentations that followed her success in that god-forsaken place. The contracts were sent to legal and approved, maps were drawn up, architects put to work, anthropologists consulted, engineers assembled, and a finance team, and Caroline's notes and reports went out to all of them, were circulated, commented on, discussed, and recirculated. In a matter of days she was at the center of the project, working alongside EcoVenture's design and marketing brass. It was all very heady stuff. It was all just what she'd hoped for.

The sensations and memories of the place faded. She no longer remembered or even thought about what had happened there, about the strange mood of the place, the wind and the fugitive skies, the whales, or Alex standing in the in the freezing night as the rain and sleet spattered and steamed on his naked skin. And she couldn't even remember what she'd been feeling when he opened her blouse to that same damp cold and she was filled with this sudden sexual heat. She could remember what happened, but refused to remember the feelings, and without the feelings, all of it meant nothing.

It wouldn't be wise to summon up such feelings while there was so much work to do, and while she needed to hide so much from Jack. He'd been so glad to see her, meeting her at the airport with a bouquet of flowers and her favorite slippers, one of their shared private jokes. She still wanted things to work out with them, and in the haze of jet lag and culture shock that accompanied her return to civilization, it was easy to dismiss all of Patagonia as an aberration or coke-fueled fever dream. So she never even mentioned Alex to Jack or to anyone else at work other than to describe him as a local who had helped her in some transactions, and of course, nobody ever pressed her. She'd completed her assignment and done what she'd been sent to do, and now she could enjoy her rewards.

But the excitement of her reunion with Jack didn't even last as long as the flowers he'd brought to the airport, and it wasn't, she knew, just because of the strain of her insane new hours. Jack himself was distracted, and more removed from her than ever. She should have been bothered by this, but she found that, despite the vows she'd made to herself to work on bringing the two of them closer, this new arrangement actually worked out rather well. Jack had his buddies and his sports, and Caroline had her work and her promotion, and that seemed good enough. And of course, late at night, when Jack was out or asleep, there was always Señor Amante, who never seemed to fail her.

And then she learned that EcoVentures wanted to send her back down to serve as go-between with the Indians, a kind of PR flack. The project had gotten a big green light and was put on the front burner and there were plans and there were timetables. She'd be down there at least six weeks. They gave her a week to think it over.

Jack didn't want her to go, and neither did she, though she couldn't say why. It wasn't just Alex. That night had been a dream, a freak. It didn't mean anything. She'd survived one-nighters before, and with men a lot more powerful than Don Alexander. She could deal with any fallout. It wasn't even the boredom of the place, the emptiness. There'd be EV people down there, and business and construction. It was something else, something she wouldn't let herself remember.

Jack did everything he could to dissuade her. He was extra-nice and extra-attentive. They went out. He took her to the theatre and to dinner. They came home and made love.

And that's when things began.

His kisses, intended to be loving and full of passion, seemed to Carolyn almost to slide off her lips and just graze her face and breasts, as if she were waterproofed. His arms embraced her body, but never seemed to reach inside her, to where she needed to be held and embraced.

Carolyn recalled the sensation of being out in the night with Alex, the feel of the cold wind and icy sleet on her skin, but the warmth inside. Was this something like that? It didn't feel as strange, but there was something...

Jack didn't seem to notice. He laid her down and put his face between her legs, and Caroline lay back and tried to enjoy his attentions, but that inner fire wasn't there; that yearning for him. Instead of being thrilled, she found herself mildly irritated by his efforts. He seemed disconnected, distracted, just going through the motions. He licked her too long in one place till she had to push him away. He seemed to have forgotten what she liked and what she didn't. She pulled him up under the pretense of wanting a kiss, but really so she could go down on him and speed things along. She wanted him to enter her and finish.

But when he got on top of her she was surprised at how little she felt. Jack was well endowed, a major point of pride for him, but now she it was as if she hardly felt him. He was there and pumping away between her legs, but she felt as if she were suddenly cavernous, a hole that couldn't be filled.

In panic she raised her knees against his ribs, then up beneath his armpits, grabbing his ass and pulling him deeper. Jack pushed her legs back so her knees were on the pillow, her feet pointing at the ceiling. Knowing he was bigger than most he'd always been gentle and careful with her, but now he fucked her hard, sliding the whole length into her. Carolyn made the requisite sounds of pleasure and writhed and panted, but he felt far away, remote and inconsequential, and she felt alarmingly numb.

There was something wrong. This wasn't how they made love. This wasn't the way Jack acted. There was something desperate and frustrated in his fucking that went beyond his attempt to get a reaction out of her. There was an anger, a resentment, a contained fury that almost frightened her. He held her knees by her ears so she was wrapped into a ball and stabbed into her again and again, and that's when Caroline realized he was having an affair.

She knew it as certainly as she knew he was there shoving himself into her. He was fucking her like he was trying to hurt her or push her away or dispose of her. He fucked her like he was through with her. And she knew then with absolute certainty that he was seeing someone else. And that's why he'd been so distracted and was out with his buddies so much. He'd found someone else.

Her lack of anger shocked her. Her lack of rage, the absence of jealousy. It was almost a relief, really. It was over. All that working at it and trying and breaking up and getting back together— it was over. He might not know it yet. He might think he had time and was still choosing between her and someone else, but it was over. They were through.

She said nothing. She opened her legs to him and let him have her. She let them fall open and pushed herself up to take his thrusts, wrapped her arms around him and joined him in this last farewell, this last sexual union. He didn't know, but it was over.

Jack cried out, a little anguished grunt, a muffled curse of frustration as he came. But this time she felt no sense of joy, no sense of victory or triumph or fulfillment. She felt him cum and he felt small and weak and distant inside her, somehow lost.

She held on to him, comforting him and letting him finish, soothing him. They said nothing, but Caroline knew there would be no next time.

There were things moving inside her. Things rearranging themselves to accommodate the new truth of Jack's affair. Carolyn could almost feel them, dark shapes in dark water, the pieces of her world, the pieces of her life, moving to fill in this new open space.

He rolled off her and they lay on their backs, fingers intertwined the way they always did after making love, or always used to do. There was still nothing to say, nothing to talk about. There never was, because the important things were never discussed or even acknowledged. She thought he might say something now and tell her, but no. He made his usual little jokes, and Caroline forced a smile and asked him how his flag football league was going, and his rugby.

He got up and went to the bathroom, and Caroline rolled on her side and pulled the covers up over her shoulder. She stared out the window at her reflection in the darkness outside. Her reflection looked back, a pretty girl but unhappy, huddled in her bed, floating in the empty air above the street.

Jack came back freshly showered and got into bed. He turned off his light, kissed her shoulder good night and rolled over with a sigh. Caroline stayed where she was, staring at the girl in the darkness, wondering what she should do. Soon, he was snoring.

She turned off her light and fell back into bed, too tired to shower right now, keeping her distance from him. She closed her eyes.

Something was wrong. Something didn't feel right. Something not related to Jack or to the sex they'd just had or to any of that. Something in the air. Something in the room.

She sat up. Out of the corner of her eye a hint of movement, maybe just a shadow, a darker part of the dark room. Then something brushed her face, soft, like cobwebs, but even softer. She swiped at her face and drew back. Nothing there.

It came back, soft against her shoulder and sliding over her back, lifting her hair and then letting it fall. She saw the curtains rustle.

And then it was in the bed, moving under the blankets and making them ripple. She gasped and then it was against her sex, between her knees, pressing at her like a piece of warm fur.

She clapped her legs together, horrified it might be a bug or even a mouse under the blanket. She looked down at herself. Nothing.

And then again, more forceful this time, working its way down between her closed legs, caressing her, soft but insistent, so soft it felt like a gossamer field of static electricity, as if she'd become charged.

She threw back the blankets and looked down and saw nothing; moved her legs and saw nothing, nothing out of the ordinary.

The sensation returned, between her legs again, and this time as it did she felt the bed sheet flutter in her hands, as if a sudden gust of wind had grabbed it.

Too startled to scream, utterly panicked, she threw down the sheet and scrambled frantically from the bed. Her feel tangled in the blankets and she fell to the floor with a thump, kicked her way free and crawled away

Jack raised his head blearily. "Caroline? What's going on?"

"Something touched me!" she yelled. "Something was under the blankets and touched me!"

He rolled over on his elbow and looked at her. "What? You're dreaming, baby. Come back to bed."

"Jack, I'm not kidding! Something touched me!" She looked at him suspiciously. "Are you doing something? Is this one of your jokes?"

Jack flopped back down into bed and rolled over. "Maybe it was my dick. Come back to bed, Care. You're dreaming."

She got carefully back into bed but then thought better of it. She went to the bathroom and cleaned herself off, examining herself for something that might explain that weird sensation, but there was nothing.

Wind. Wind. She remembered wind, but that was just too crazy. She wasn't even going to go there. She didn't have time for that.

She put on a snug pair of old lady panties and some flannel pajamas, then set about tearing up her side of the bed, pulling back the blankets and shaking them out, lifting the sheets, looking for something, a mouse or spider, a wad of dust, god-forbid even a squirrel maybe. But there was nothing, nothing, and she finally remade the bed, climbed back in, and rolled over to sleep with the light still on.

It was different the next morning, busy, hurried: coffee on, shower, hair, makeup, clothes. Caroline left like she was fleeing the place, never looking back, her focus on the day ahead. Meetings all day, a presentation, time-tables to go over, marketing, and the rest of the day on the site-enrichment plans for upgrading the sad and depressing village of Ultambacca and giving the place some character and identity, a brand. Teaching the bedraggled inhabitants how to be more proper Ona Indians and give them some dignity and identity. All this local color stuff that was now Caroline's particular area of expertise since she'd actually been there.

This was something she wasn't happy about. With the plans moving ahead and the scale model already built, she was worried. The place still had no identity: no lofty mountains or impressive views, no underwater reefs or jungle trails, no abandoned ruins or unique cuisines or anything else to give it a sense of purpose and focus. Just wastes of dull grass and gray skies, piles of rock and nasty squalls of rain, and, if the guests were lucky, an occasional iceberg or pod of whales.

And yet, since her return to civilization, her feelings about that desolate place had changed. There'd been something pure and primal there, something basic and elemental, like the emptiness of a whiteboard, where everything you felt stood out like messages written in high relief. A place with no scenery, no attractions, no beauty, nothing to distract or entertain, just the raw emptiness of earth, sky, and sea.

But how could she tell her bosses at EcoVentures that Ultambacca's desolation was really its one interesting feature? They'd never understand. She wasn't about to jeopardize the one project she was most associated with, the one she'd pinned her ambitions to.

All this was on her mind as she crossed the lobby of her building and stepped out into the street. It was a breezy day and overcast, no surprise for spring up here. But when she reached the corner for the bus stop she was struck by a sudden gust of wind that made her duck her head and protect her hair.

She thought of Alex and smiled inwardly.