The Jezebel

by Dylan Allen

  “I’ll never get over how beautiful this place is. Thank you so much for bringing me.”

  “You haven’t seen anything yet,” I promise and guide her to the spot where I set up the telescope.

  I was eight when I got my first telescope and I fell irrevocably in love with the sky. For a child whose curiosity felt insatiable, the possibility of unending questions and endless discovery was like finding the Holy Grail.

  To this day, no matter how many times I see it, the scope and breadth of the galaxy never ceases to amaze me.

  “What are you looking at?” Regan’s question snaps me out of my drifting thoughts. I finish focusing my viewfinder and step away.

  “Come see,” I beckon her over.

  She smiles excitedly at me before she looks into the viewfinder and then back at me, and the delight in her eyes, clear even in the dark of dusk, makes my stomach do a flip.

  “Wow it’s so beautiful. What is this?”

  “It’s pointed at Venus. If you just look, you shouldn’t have to adjust it to see.”

  “Oh my god, for real? Like the planet, Venus?” She puts her eye back to the scope and gasps and her back arches a little.

  I wish I could look at the same time; I want to see what she does.

  “This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen, tell me about it, please.”

  “For real?” I ask, surprised. My friends and family humor me and the wonder this holds for me, but they never ask me to talk about it.

  “Yes, I want to know everything. God, I wish my kids could see this. This is mind blowing.” The awe in her voice is gratifying and the imagery her words conjure, rather than feeling like a pesky reminder of our outside lives, is endearing. “Well, tell me!” she demands.

  I smile and oblige my goddess “Venus is the most unique of planets. After the sun and moon it’s the third brightest star in the sky. But it’s positioning makes catching sight of it rare.” I explain.

  “Wow …I just can’t get over how small we are. Do you think that somewhere out there, someone is looking through a telescope and seeing us on one of those tiny stars, too?”

  “Absolutely,” I answer right away.

  She glances back at me with a mischievous grin on her face. “You believe in aliens?”

  “Yes,” I say unequivocally and her jaw drops.

  “You’re a doctor, a scientist of sorts, right? You can’t really believe in little green men.”

  “We have no idea what lies at the edge of this galaxy and beyond. We can’t be the only intelligent life in the entire universe. They may not be human, but I think they’re there.

  “I guess. Why haven’t they made contact then?”

  “Same reason we haven’t. It’s fucking hard, no matter how smart you are, to travel through space to reach other galaxies. It would take three hundred years to reach the edge of our galaxy—well at least as it’s defined. No one really knows where the edge is. There are different measures, even within NASA.”

  “Wow. It’s a wonder you’re a doctor and not an astronaut,” she says in awe.

  I laugh and shake my head ruefully. “Until the year I decided to become a doctor, it was what I wanted to be. I had this book called Cosmos there was a time I thought it held the answer to everything.” Including my future with her.

  “Huh, so, what happened? You lost interest?” she asks.

  I sit down in the sand, gather a fistful of it, and let it sift through my fingers. Like she will in just a few days.

  “No, I love space, but I couldn’t spend my life chasing something I could never catch.” I’m not sure if I’m still talking about space…or if I’m talking about her.

  She walks over and sits next to me.

  “You okay?” she asks. I hate the concern in her voice. I smile and toss the sand away, forcing my mind back to the conversation.

  “Space discovery isn’t a challenge, it’s a quest without end. Voyager 2 launched in 1977 and forty years later, it’s only just reaching the edge of the heliosphere. Most of the people who launched that mission are dead. Imagine if there was a human being in there right now. Alone for forty years. Even if we could supply him with enough food and water to last that long, human beings are social creatures.”

  “Why aren’t you an astronaut?” she asks in a whimsical, but still awed voice. Seeing her so relaxed and present, relaxes me, too.

  I stare up at the endless sea of stars. I understand why human beings looked at the heavens and imagined it could only be the work of gods and goddesses.

  “I used to want to be. But I want to spend my life answering questions and doing work that has an impact now. I admire the universe but ushering new life into the world…for me, beats it every time.”

  “So, Venus lost you to babies?” she asks with a good-natured, ribbing smile.

  “My Venus will never lose me.”

  “You talk about her like she’s a person,” she remarks, and I have to force my shoulders not to tense. She can’t know, because I didn’t give her that book, how close to home she’s hitting.

  “She is, kind of,” I admit.

  “Tell me more about her,” she murmurs. And as if her voice was her body or lips, the words wrap around my dick and wake it up. But I wasn’t kidding about sunrise sex and we’ve got time to kill before that. So, I force my mind back to the topic at hand and sift through my mental encyclopedia of knowledge.

  “She’s named after the Roman goddess of love. Myth says Venus was born from seafoam. She’s the goddess of love, victory, fertility and beauty. And even though she was married to Vulcan – she was in love with Mars, the God of War.”

  “What happened?” Her voice is rapt with curiosity. I glance at her from the corner of my eye and have to bite back a groan. She’s stretched herself out in a pose similar to mine, and her breasts spill out of the sides of her tank top tempting orbs of smooth brown skin that makes my mouth water.

  “They were lovers, in secret of course. Until her husband became suspicious and set a trap for them.”

  “A trap?”

  “He built a net out of a bronze chain so fine it was nearly invisible and hung it over the bed where they met to make love. When they were naked and joined, the net fell and ensnared them. They were trapped. Caught in the act and he invited all of the other gods on Olympus to come and bear witness to the couples’ humiliation.”

  An awkward silence descends, and I could kick myself. Of all the parts of Venus’s mythology I could have shared, why did I pick the part about her husband and lover?

  “So, is that why Mars and Venus are synonymous with male and female? Because he was the fire and she was the foam?” she asks.

  Grateful to her for keeping the conversation moving, I do my part, too, and it’s not hard. I love mythology as much as I love science.

  “Mars and Venus really represent one whole person. In the myth, they had a daughter named Harmonia, Greek goddess of…”

  “Harmony,” she offers when I trail off.

  “Bingo.” I wink. “In particular, she oversees the harmony of marriage and partnership. She’s the soother of controversy in all things. In mythology she tells us that the union between War and Love is cosmic balance. But when you think about them… they’re, in essence, polar opposites that couldn’t exist without each other.”

  The flash of her bright, effervescent smile is all it takes to make my heart skip a beat. “Is there anything you don’t know?”

  “I don’t know anything with certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream,” I quote Vincent Van Gogh in response because what I want to say is that I watched her fall asleep and wished I could know what she was dreaming.

  I laugh when I recall her friend’s joke about me fucking her feelings.

  I’m the one she should have warned.

  She has completely and utterly ruined me and being this close to her, when Venus is right there makes me desperate to sink into her body and claim her like I’m the pillaging god of war him
self.

  Like she can read my thoughts, she says, “These clothes are stupid. Let’s take them off.” She stands up and slips her shorts off and pulls her tiny tank top overhead. She pulls her hair free of it and a cascade of dark ringlets spill over her shoulders. With nothing between her and the view, she appears to be rising out of the foam of the waves crashing behind her. Just like Venus in Botticelli’s famous paint - but so much more beautiful than a mere mortal could capture on a canvas.

  The underlying gold of her brown skin is set ablaze by the moon’s adoring light. I make quick work of shedding my shorts and grip my dick and stroke it. “Come here, my Venus.”

  “I like that,” she murmurs and then sinks down, so her knees straddle my thighs. She cups the back of my neck and she plants a soft, wet kiss on me. The scent of citrus whipped with sea and sky fills my nostrils and shreds my equilibrium.

  I grip her hips and pull her down, impaling her with my rock-hard dick. She unleashes a moan so guttural, I’m afraid I’ve hurt her. “Goddess, are you okay?”

  “I have never been better in my life,” she pants against my lips. We find a rhythm that’s as timeless as the universe and is ours, alone.

  I wrap an arm around her waist, cradle her head in my free hand and hold her flush against me while I lose myself her most exquisite pussy. She’s a tight fit, but so perfect. We barely move, but the rapid roll of her hips causes explosions of pleasure to every nerve ending in my body.

  “Regan,” I call her name

  “Call me Venus… be my Mars…”

  “You want me to go to war for you, baby?” I demand and she groans into my mouth as I grind my hips against her, pressing as deep, but not as deep as I’d like, into the softest wetness I’ve ever felt.

  She has always been my Venus. But instead of her cool easing my fire, every second I’m inside only makes me hotter, hungrier.

  While I worship her from the front, the rising sun crowns and veils her in the light of its first rays, from behind.

  Her expression is fierce with lust. Her hair is a wild mane of sable coils and curls. The vast sky seems to exist solely to canvas her untamed beauty.

  I don’t recognize the growls and grunts she pulls from me.

  I barely know my own name.

  I am undone by the sunlit goddess who just took me like she owns me.

  I know we’re just fucking.

  But damn, if it doesn’t feel like flying

  I know we’re not supernatural mythological beings.

  But when we're together like this, I'm certain we could make the whole world bend to our will.

  I’m a fool. I know this deep in my bones because if my life depended on it right now, I'd say this kiss was flavored by portent and the promise of so much more.

  She drapes her sweaty, sexy body over me. And instead of pulling away, I let myself sink deeper into the quicksand and wrap my arms around her.

  “That was perfect. You are perfect,” I whisper into the crook of her neck.

  She sighs and nestles closer. "You’re a sweet talker.”

  “Can't be helped. I’ve been kissing a goddess with a mouth made of sugar."

  She peeks up at through the thick tangle of glossy lashes.

  “Don’t say things like that…you’ll make me want to keep you,” she says in a dreamy voice before her eyes drift closed.

  I laugh and ignore the way my heart gets a full blown hard on hearing those words.

  It wants to mate her as much as my dick.

  Thank God for my job and my unbreakable commitment to spending the rest of the year in Colombia.

  Otherwise, I’d be tempted to follow her home.

  Friends

  Regan

  “How did you end up in Colombia?” I prop up on one elbow, reaching over him, to grab a slippery, tender slice of mango from the small plastic container that was part of the lunch our guided tour provided.

  “You know, for someone who actually studied journalism, you ask imprecise and vague questions.” He shakes his head in amazement.

  “And here I was, just thinking how wonderful you are. Thanks for reminding me what a know-it-all you are.”

  His eyebrows shoot up, a cocky grin spreads from ear to ear, and his eyes dance with relish. “You were thinking I’m wonderful?”

  I scoff and curl my lip. “You have selective hearing. I said you’re a know-it-all.”

  “Ah, Regan,” he says, tssking in mock disapproval. “But you like know-it-all’s, remember?” He leans forward and nips at my bottom lip. They’re swollen and kissed nearly raw, and I wince, even as I open my mouth for his kiss. He swipes his tongue along the inside of my tender flesh, and I groan against his lips.

  “I only said that because you were ten years old and sad, but, really, I hoped you’d grow out of it.”

  He holds his hands up in the universal sign of surrender, as if this fierce, fearless man would ever give up on anything. But it's sexy that he'd pretend to for me. “You’re right, it’s a bad habit of mine. I know I started it, but let’s not fight. I’m sorry.”

  God, why can’t he stop being perfect? I wrinkle my nose at him. “Okay. But only because you asked nicely.”

  He blows out a breath as if he’s relieved. “Now, let’s get back to the part of the conversation where we talk about how wonderful you think I am.”

  Effervescent laughter bursts from a wellspring deep in my soul. I am awash with delight. Being with him, laughing, arguing, teasing, it’s like stretching my legs after hours of riding in the cramped third row of an overcrowded minivan.

  He reaches one of his long, thickly muscled, arms over my body. He smells like me and mangos, and for a second my wits scramble.

  He plucks a slice of mango with his deft fingers. It’s perfectly ripe, the succulent flesh barely taut enough to contain the juice. My mouth waters.

  I reach up and take a tiny bite of the fruit in his hand.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything so good,” I groan at the perfect balance of sweet and sour.

  He swipes at my lip, catches a dribble of juice on the pad of his thumb and sucks it into his mouth. “Hmmm, It’s good,” he muses. “But your pussy’s sweeter.”

  I bite my lip, and heat suffuses my cheeks. I fan myself. “You could start fires with your mouth.” The smoldering unabashed hunger in his eyes makes my whole body tingle.

  “You could start wars with that face,” he says.

  I roll my eyes at his over the top praise. I have zero make up on and haven’t tried to brush my hair for two days. I know I look a fright. But Stone looks at me like I walked out of the ocean like Venus herself.

  And I love it.

  Being with him is like having a decadent dessert for every meal. Indulgent. Expensive. Impossible to resist. “It’s a shame we’re not alone, hmmm?” I nudge his calf with my foot.

  He scans the riverbank that the rest of our excursion party is spread out across. We’re a small group made up of other couples and we’ve all retreated to private, shaded spots to eat lunch.

  “All I see is you.” He picks up another juicy slice of mango and lifts it to my lips but before I can bite it, he drags it down my chin, down my chest and draws it around my nipple through the dark green fabric of my bikini top.

  And then his mouth follows the sweet, sticky trail with hot open-mouthed kisses. I clutch his head and sink my teeth into my lip, to muffle my moan of delight when his lips close over the throbbing tip of my breast.

  The already aching peak swells, the heat of his mouth scorching even through the fabric. My core contracts in delicious anticipation.

  But we’re not even close to being alone and now that we’re off the island and making our way back to Cabo San Lucas, real life doesn’t feel as far away as it did yesterday.

  Reluctantly, I let go of his head, push at his divinely muscled shoulders and manage to snake out of his hold and scrabble backwards just in time to evade his lunge.

  “Stone, stop, not here!
” I try to wriggle out of his grasp, but he’s so strong and he pulls me into his lap. The urgent press of his arousal nestles against my backside. His lips brush my ear and I giggle.

  “Promise you’ll sit on my lap on our way back, and I’ll let you go.” he draws and my shudder in anticipation.

  “I promise,” I whisper and press a kiss to his temple and draw in a lungful of his delicious sweat, and fresh air scented skin before I climb off his lap and sit cross legged next to him. I cross my arms over my chest when his gaze drops to the wet spot over my nipple.

  He straightens and mimics my pose. “Fine, let’s talk.”

  I chuckle at the way he says talk like it’s an expletive. “Okay. So, you were telling me why Colombia,” I refresh his memory.

  I’m impressed with, but not surprised by, my ability to refocus on the conversation when my body is still so distracted by aftershocks of his attention.

  Stone stimulates the most erogenous zone on my entire body - my mind. And when he’s talking to me while he’s inside me, it’s like having a full body orgasm.

  He takes his cues from me and leans away a little, his eyes darting the banks of the mangrove lined river.

  “I went to med school thinking I was going to be a trauma surgeon. Then I had my rotation in obstetrics. My very first delivery made a believer out of me. Babies are the only people in hospitals who aren’t there because they’re sick.”

  “Do you like kids?”

  He frowns and looks skyward, as if he has to ponder the answer to that question.

  “Ummm, that’s a pretty easy yes or no question,” I tease, but find my laugh constricted by the breath I’m holding.

  His chuckles. “Yes, I do. They remind me that there’s hope for humanity. As long they keep coming into the world, we have a future. You know?”

  “So, you want children one day?’ I ask, genuinely curious but acutely aware of the flutter of apprehension in my gut. I don’t know why his answer should matter to me. But it does.

  “I don’t know…. From the time I was ten until I was twenty-two, every decision I made was based on what was best for my brothers. I was in medical school and too busy trying to survive that to do anything I wanted. Now that I’m finally living just for me, I can’t imagine going back to being responsible for getting little people to school, and doctor’s appointments, and all that shit.”