by Unknown
Red knocked on my door just as I was resigning myself to going out to dinner alone again and kicking myself for turning down the chance to be the filling in a Uruguayan tortilla.
‘Thanks for inviting me,’ I said drily before he launched into a sketchy apology for leaving me. Apparently they’d bumped into a couple of mates from home who persuaded them to go back up to Pisac, the mountain village we’d visited together a few days before. It sounded a bit of a coincidence to me, but it was none of my business. I suspected that Robbie was fed up with the rôle of voyeur and had persuaded Red to go off with a couple of girls, but hey, we were all free agents.
After a few pisco sours I got over it and we took the train together the next night to Puno and Lake Titicaca. Robbie was reading out loud from the guidebook about it being the largest freshwater lake in the world. I wondered if his reading was a hint that I should get fresh on the train but it was too full and I was tired and still slightly pissed off and, anyway, I hadn’t turned into one of Pavlov’s dogs. Puno was the nearest thing to a shit hole I’d seen since the Lima shanty town and I decided to head straight out for the island of Taquile. Maybe they’d gone back to close buddy mode because neither of them wanted to come with me, so I left most of my gear in the guesthouse strong room and wondered if they’d be there when I got back.
The boat was good fun, not least because there was an English girl, Ros, who spoke fluent Spanish and interpreted the patter of the captain. He wore traditional dress: a rather dashing full-sleeved white shirt and an embroidered cummerbund, though to my mind a bit spoiled by a Wee Willie Winkie-type hat. He explained that because the end of his hat was plain rather than patterned it meant he was single, but if it was a hint it was lost on both of us. I mean, the islanders knit their own hats, and if there’s one thing that’s more of a turn off than a man in a nightcap, it’s the fact that he knitted it all himself.
The fantastic thing about Taquile, apart from the knitting and the fact there are no cars, is that it’s run as a co-operative, and the islanders refuse to have any hotels built. Instead you sign in and are allocated a place to stay. Ros and I were taken to a cabin built around a restaurant. It was fine though unlit, and the toilet could have been nearer, had a flush and not been at the top of a muddy sloping path, but I didn’t expect luxury. We were told to present ourselves for dinner at seven and walked round absorbing the peace of the island until then.
Dinner was a bizarre affair. The food, which was quinoa soup (not bad) followed by a Spanish omelette (the local fish was off), was entertaining at least, but the turns the conversation took were even odder. The other guests were two couples, not together, one German-speaking Swiss and the other French. Ros turned out to speak French as well as she spoke Spanish but there was no means of communication with the Swiss couple, so they talked among themselves. Ros launched into a rapid-fire conversation with the French couple so all that was left for me to do was launch myself into the wine. Patrice, the French guy, was also knocking it back and I suppose that’s why the conversation went the way it did.
First he was gesticulating and shrugging in that Gallic way and puffing out his cheeks, then he was leaning across saying something to Ros in a low undertone. Gabrielle, the woman, was smoking disdainfully and interjecting scornful remarks, while Ros was giggling coyly. I thought resignedly they were setting themselves up as a threesome and I’d be in the cabin alone, but then Gabrielle gave a final shake of her head and turned to me.
‘Do you mind if I change with her? They want to have sex.’
‘Doesn’t matter to me. I only met her on the boat and I don’t fancy her myself.’
She laughed. ‘I don’t know him very well either. We just met up yesterday and both wanted to come here.’ She spoke to the others in French and they all stood, so I guessed we were going to play swapsies and sure enough Ros’s stuff was removed from our hut and Gabrielle’s installed.
‘You want some more to drink?’ I asked her, switching on my torch. Even with a bit of light it was pretty dark in there and it was still early.
‘No, I’m tired. Patrice is such a bore. He hasn’t stopped hitting on me since we set out this morning. I think he’s creepy, don’t you?’
‘Not my type either,’ I agreed. ‘Well, I suppose we might as well turn in.’
‘Look, you stay up if you like. To be honest with you I’m going to get in my sleeping bag and play with myself.’
Things were looking up, but as she was sick of Patrice coming on to her I decided against asking her if she wanted a hand.
‘Well, I don’t really want to stay up with nobody to talk to . . . do you mind wanking while I’m there?’
She laughed softly. ‘No, as long as my vibrator won’t disturb you.’
‘Oh, wow, I wish I’d brought mine.’
‘You can borrow mine if you like, after me.’
Decisions, decisions: shall I make do with my hands so we can masturbate together, or shall I take my turn with the vibrator, sticky with her juices? Either way I couldn’t lose, and with her long black hair and sulky French girl mouth she was a million times more of a turn on than the rather plain Ros. I just smiled and started to undress. It was cold in the cabin so I kept my top half wrapped up in my sweater and fleece.
I had unrolled my sleeping bag earlier and now moved it sideways so I could sit with my back to the wall and my legs bent, facing in Gabrielle’s direction. She was lying full length on her bed and had already switched on the vibrator. Her body was pretty near perfect; although my legs aren’t fat they’re a bit muscular, and I appreciated her white, slender thighs.
‘God, this is so much better than having to put up with Patrice,’ she murmured. ‘This trip is just not a success as far as sex is concerned.’
‘Mine’s pretty good so far,’ I admitted, giving my clit a little tease. ‘First there was Peter on the plane . . .’
Five minutes later she passed the vibrator over with a satisfied sigh. I knew she had been inspired by my adventures, and hoped she’d reciprocate. While I’d been telling her about my trip I’d merely been toying with myself, having decided I’d hang on for the power pack.
‘I decided on this trip because my sex life was crap,’ she said dreamily, lighting up a post-orgasm cigarette. ‘For six months I had an affair with a married man; you know, everybody does it in France. But he was – what’s the word in English – decadent, perhaps? It doesn’t matter, but he had done everything. He was forty, quite high-powered and successful, and apart from a stream of mistresses he’d had prostitutes from Biarritz to Bangkok. It was like everything had lost its interest for him: he’d seen it all before. I didn’t think it would last, but he had taken me to nice restaurants and bought me some jewellery and shoes and so on; it was fine. Then one day we had a dinner date and I opened the door to let him in and he wasn’t alone.
‘There was a cameraman with him. He said he wanted to make a film of me, of us. First he got me to strip off, like for a porn film, OK, then play with myself. I didn’t mind; the cameraman was all right; I didn’t feel too bad doing it in front of him. Then, you can guess, I had to undress Michel and suck him and then we fucked for the camera, different ways, you know. It was a turn on, and he brought the film next time and we watched it; it was pretty good. Then he wanted another one, but this was a different cameraman, and after Michel and I had been fucking for a bit he got him to stop and then he took the camera and the cameraman fucked me. I wasn’t very keen on it, but didn’t want to make a scene, so I went along with it.
‘After that Michel went crazy for filming me with other men. He got his own camera and started bringing other men round to film with me. He would even pay them sometimes, which was so degrading. Thank God they weren’t too bad looking, and clean. I don’t know why I went along with it . . . but I really liked him, you know? And he always fucked me afterwards so passionately. Then one day he brought a woman. I’d never done anything like it before; the thought had always turned me off, but he
talked me into it and in fact I quite enjoyed it. I would have done it again, except that when we out to dinner a week later, before we went back to watch it, we bumped into a friend of his. “Oh, Gabi, it’s so nice to meet you. I’ve loved watching your films,” he said.’
‘Oh shit,’ I muttered. With the aid of the vibrator I’d come as soon as she’d mentioned the other woman, maybe because I rather hoped for some of her myself, but the end of the story was a real downer. ‘Hey, Gabi? You OK?’
She had gone awfully quiet.
‘I’m fine,’ she said at length. ‘But I’d like to go to sleep now. Thanks for your stories; they helped me.’
‘Yeah, well, I’d started to enjoy yours. I’m sorry it ended like that.’
‘Me too. Still, I always wanted to be a film star. Goodnight.’
‘Night.’
Back in Puno was a note from Red and Robbie. They would probably meet me in San Pedro de Atacama in a week or so, if not maybe Santiago where they’d be staying at the Hostal Australe – how apt. I wasn’t going to hold my breath, and anyway Gabi and I were going to Bolivia together.
Quite why we ended up riding bikes down the precipitous road to Coroico, a jungle town twenty miles out of La Paz, I don’t really know. She had met someone who had done it and I was ready for a bit of adventure. It was a different matter though when we were actually on the road contouring the hillside, with a vertiginous drop down into the forest below, the unwelcome squidge of mud under tyre, what seemed like a non-stop honking stream of cars, buses and trucks overtaking us and coming towards us, and the unnerving frequency of roadside shrines to drivers who’d gone over the edge.
Eventually we arrived, booked into the nearest cheap hotel with a pool and plunged into the freezing water, shrieking like a couple of teenagers. Back in the room we rubbed ourselves dry vigorously to warm up again and had one of those magical moments when two people suddenly look at each other and, click, they’re in each other’s arms, without any premeditation. We were both wired by the ride followed by the swim and maybe anybody would have done for either of us, but there was a definite spark that connected us and propelled us towards each other like a magnetic field. Our bodies were cold but our mouths and our cunts were warm and soft. I pulled Gabi’s hair back from her pale fine-featured face while I explored the warmth of her mouth and then laid her on the bed and spread her legs to explore the other warmth. She wanted to reciprocate but first I wanted her to come and my tongue luxuriated in the wet pinkness of her and then teased her clit until I knew she needed my hand. Once I judged my fingers were doing a perfect job I put my mouth back on her and relished her jerk against my face.
‘Oh, Bliss,’ she breathed. ‘What a good name for you – I have got that right, haven’t I? Like really happy?’
‘Yep, like blissed out,’ I told her, stroking the soft gentle roundness of her belly. ‘You know that expression?’
‘Of course. Blissed out, that’s how I feel. Come here and hold me.’
We snuggled together. She was a lot warmer than I was, thanks to my attentions.
‘The only other woman I made love to was for Michel’s benefit, and when I came with her it was as much because he was watching as because of her mouth and hands. But with you it’s just so . . . so normal, somehow. And exciting.’
‘It is normal, Gabi,’ I told her, looking into her still slightly defensive eyes. ‘We can all be bisexual, if we want to be. But only if we want to be, not for someone else’s titillation.’
‘You’re right.’ She smiled. ‘Now let me do something just for you.’
Her mouth showered kisses all over my breasts and then circled one of my nipples. She started sucking, gently and hesitantly, and then more greedily, almost like a suckling baby. Her fingers echoed her actions on my other nipple and I closed my eyes and surrendered myself to the sensations, wanting to be completely passive so that she could choose for herself what she wanted to do to me. I knew she’d do it right.
Always sensitive, my nipples felt like they were on fire from her protracted sucking and nuzzling. Her other hand moved down past my belly and rubbed lightly over my fleece and then pressed firmly in a circular motion just above my clit. My whole sex was suffused with that velvety warm feeling, combined with the delicious certainty that I was going to come, and come hard. Then she turned around and I thought she was going to give me her sex to tongue again while she did the same to me, but instead she spread it over my tits and moved lightly from side to side. It was as though her cunt was sucking my nipples up inside it one by one as she swayed on top of me. Her hands meanwhile had found other work, with two of her fingers gently fucking me while her other hand played my clitoris like a violin, one finger fretting the hardness itself while the flat of her hand pressed down on my mons. I raised it up to meet her palm and she took the hint and pressed hard and fingered faster and I grabbed the trim pale globes of her arse as she slid crazily across my breasts and pulled them apart and mashed them together. She took up my rhythm with her hands and in my mind’s eye I could see inside my cunt, see the walls swelling and reddening and throbbing and pulsating and then landsliding as the orgasm shook me.
We ate fondue and a massive salad in the hotel restaurant, spearing bread and dipping it in the molten cheese and scoffing the salad as though we’d spent the day labouring in the coca fields, then fell into bed and slept, satisfied in every respect.
There were two things they told us. First, the path down to the river was obvious, just start at the corner of the football field. Unfortunately after about an hour of walking in the intense heat we’d stopped exclaiming at the bananas and coffee growing at the side of the rapidly narrowing track and walked round a piece of old sheeting spread with leaves. Coca leaves.
I say unfortunately because the other thing they had said was, take care not to get off the right paths in the jungle areas and stray into the coca plantations. Whoops.
‘Shall we go back?’ asked Gabi nervously.
I looked around. There was no one in sight and I wondered how bad it would be if we were found in the plantation. Loads of tourists must make the same mistake and end up off the path, and it was hard to believe we would be harmed. The track was descending so I guessed it would still lead down to the river; maybe not at the point we’d expected, but we could always walk up or down stream. Retracing our steps and starting again would mean two hours lost, and it was too hot to walk uphill unnecessarily.
‘Let’s just carry on,’ I decided. ‘Just for another half an hour, and if we can’t see the river by then we’ll turn back.’
At that moment a couple passed us, going uphill; a man in jeans and a woman in the usual five skirts – how do they stand it in the heat? – both carrying bundles on their backs, which, no getting away from it, had to be coca leaves. They responded to my buenas días politely and I brushed off any fears and set off down the way they’d come up with an obviously reluctant Gabi in tow.
Life would be boring if all our decisions were right ones, but when three men appeared in front of us and stood stock still, waiting for us to walk towards them, I rather wished that I’d made the right decision and turned back earlier.
‘Bliss, what do we do?’ asked Gabi, agonised.
‘Keep walking, smile and say hello and hope they get out of the way,’ I said in an undertone. We had to brave it out, otherwise we’d clearly be running up the path away from them. I had no doubt that if they wanted to they’d be able to catch us.
Following my advice – another bad decision – we reached them but they didn’t move. There was no way round them.
‘Buenas dias,’ I tried again with a smile. ‘Podemos pasar?’ I knew podemos meant can we do something, and from the Spanish Civil War stuff I’d read I thought pasar must mean pass.
The one in the middle answered me in a torrent of Spanish of which I understood only the first word, which was ‘No’. We seemed to be at an impasse, both literally and verbally.
‘We’re going d
own to the river,’ I thought I said in Spanish. They laughed and spoke to each other, and the middle one stepped forward. He was small and dark-skinned with a moustache.
‘You, no, be, here,’ he said, jabbing a finger towards me. Gabi took a step back.
‘I do be here,’ I replied pleasantly, figuring that he wouldn’t understand anyway. ‘OK, if it means that much to you, we’ll go back.’
One of the others who had a handsome Indian face said something in Spanish. Although my heart was thumping my fear was modified by the fact that neither of them sounded particularly threatening, and the average Bolivian is about three-quarters my size. Maybe they were just as frightened of me, though Gabi’s backup lacked a certain presence. Anyway, sometimes you have to live dangerously and the adrenalin rush was exhilarating.
‘You, Norteamericana?’ asked the handsome one.
‘Inglés,’ I answered with a smile, then pointed at Gabi. ‘Frances.’ I almost felt I was getting the hang of this Spanish lark.
‘Inglés?’ he repeated, and put a hand on my arm. I decided not to assume they were going for a gang rape and smiled again and nodded. He was quite cute, and I was still charged up from the bike ride and sex with Gabi the day before. I couldn’t resist making my smile a little bit pouty.
The moustached one slapped his hand away from mine and said something to him angrily then pushed me, quite hard, and then Gabi.
‘You go,’ he said fiercely. ‘You no here.’
The handsome one intervened again with a bit of nudging and I started wondering if I shouldn’t have smiled so suggestively, especially when he put his hand on my waist. Why do I always have to go too far?
‘Oh shit, Bliss, what are we going to do?’ wailed Gabi.
‘Tell them we’d love to entertain them but we’ve left our condoms back at the hotel?’ I suggested, but without much spirit left. The man with the moustache was looking as though he was considering a change of heart and my determined cheerfulness took a nosedive.