Escape to Havana

by Nick Wilkshire

  “Hola,” she said, her white teeth shining in contrast with her smooth brown skin.

  “Hola.” Charlie noticed a mischievous sensuality in her eyes as she looked him over.

  “American?”

  “Canadian,” he answered, after she had placed her order with the bartender.

  “I’m Charlie, by the way,” he added.

  “Maria. What brings you to Havana, Charlie?” she asked, sliding onto the barstool next to his.

  “I work at the Canadian embassy.”

  “How interesting.”

  “Your English is very good,” Charlie said.

  “Thank you. I have the chance to use it a lot in my own work,” she said, as the bartender delivered her drink.

  “Salud,” Charlie said, as they each sipped their drinks. “And what line of work are you in?”

  She stirred her drink as she seemed to ponder the question. “I work for the Ministry of Culture.”

  “Really?” Charlie fished a business card out of his wallet and handed it to her, trying to remember the name of a man he had met at the ambassador’s reception that he was pretty sure worked for the Ministry of Culture. Or was it sport?

  “I don’t have a card,” she said, looking at his and repeating his title. “Consul. That sounds very important.”

  “Not really.” Charlie could see Landon had noticed their new neighbour, so he made the appropriate introductions.

  “Maria’s with the Ministry of Culture,” he added.

  “I just work in the office,” she said, with a demure smile.

  “I didn’t get your last name,” Landon said.

  “Aguirre.”

  “Well, Maria Aguirre, I hope you’ll join us for dinner.”

  “Thank you,” she said, “but I can’t. I have to meet someone later.”

  Charlie tried not to show his disappointment, though by looking at her he shouldn’t have been surprised. What were the odds such a beautiful woman would be alone on a Saturday night in Havana? They continued to chat, and when the bartender said it would be at least fifteen more minutes for a table, Charlie decided to order another drink.

  Maria fanned her face with a napkin. “It’s so hot.”

  “It is warm, isn’t it?” There was a breeze blowing outside, but in the crowded bar, the ceiling fans did little to circulate the heavy air.

  “It’s a good night for swimming,” she said, with a little laugh.

  Charlie nodded, his mind conjuring up an image of this woman gliding through the blue waters of his pool. “I may just have a dip myself when I get home,” he said, immediately wishing he hadn’t. Not many Cubans had a pool in their backyard. But if she was offended, she certainly didn’t show it. Instead, she inched closer to him as his drink arrived. She stirred the sugar in her own, put her chin in her hand, and spoke in a softer, almost intimate tone.

  “So how do you like your work, Charlie? It must be fascinating.”

  He tried his best to make his day-to-day work sound fascinating, and he felt he was doing a pretty good job of it, judging by her reaction. She asked him about Canada, and how it differed from Cuba, and as she listed the things he must see during his time in Cuba, Charlie found himself transfixed by her sparkling eyes and glowing skin. He was so taken with her that he had almost forgotten about Landon and the rest of his dinner party behind him.

  “It’s really too bad you can’t join us for dinner,” he said, resigned to the fact that he would soon be deprived of her company. But she surprised him when she smiled and beckoned him closer with a crook of her delicate index finger.

  “I’m not really meeting anyone,” she whispered. “I just never eat here. It’s too noisy for my liking. Good for drinks, though,” she added with a smile.

  “Would you like to eat somewhere else?”

  “But you’re here for a meal with your friends.”

  “To be honest,” he said, lowering his own voice this time. “I only really know Drew,” he said, pointing behind him with his thumb. “And I was sort of thinking the same thing about this place — and it’s so hot,” he said, wiping a trickle of sweat from his temple.

  “I know a little place just a few streets over with wonderful seafood. Why don’t you join me? Your friends too.”

  Charlie leaned back on his chair and looked at Landon and the rest of the group, as Maria pulled out a cigarette. He waited for the right moment to tap Landon discreetly on the shoulder. After a brief and whispered discussion that was lost in the background noise of the crowded bar, Charlie turned back to Maria.

  “They’re going to stay here,” he said, as Landon glanced over to Maria and smiled. Charlie leaned in closer. “One of the girls really wanted to eat here, so he doesn’t want to offend. Otherwise …”

  “Of course,” she replied. “But we should go soon, so we are sure to get a table.”

  “Right,” Charlie said, reaching into his pocket for some money. Fate seemed to have put him in a position to share a meal alone with this lovely woman, and he was anxious to get going before the arrangement changed. With a hurried good-bye to Landon and the others, Charlie followed her to the front door. Once outside, Maria slipped her arm in his and led them off down the street. As they turned the corner onto a wide boulevard, a warm ocean breeze blew in and momentarily dispersed the sultry night air. Maria brushed her dark hair back from her face and sighed.

  “It’s so much nicer out here,” Charlie said, as she led them into a dark side street that ran into a little plaza. The restaurant was on the far side, its patio outlined by twinkling white lights adorning an iron railing that enclosed a half-dozen tables.

  After a brief exchange with a waiter, Maria looked to Charlie and smiled.

  “We’re in luck.”

  Moments later, Charlie found himself sitting across from her, with the bright Cuban stars overhead and the soft pulse of Latin music drifting from inside the restaurant. Charlie had to resist the temptation on several occasions to pinch himself, reluctant to believe his luck at stumbling into such an enchanting dinner companion. And whether it was the crisp white wine she had ordered for them, or the mojitos already in his system, Charlie found himself strangely at ease with Maria. She seemed genuinely interested in his work, and he was fascinated in turn by her description of her own life in Cuba. Food and wine came and went as they chatted easily, and before he knew it, Charlie noticed that two hours had passed and the waiter was serving their coffee. Fearing the end of the evening, he was waiting for the appropriate moment to suggest an after-dinner walk, or anything else that might extend it, when she finished her coffee and looked at him with that mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

  “Did you say you something about going for a swim tonight?”

  Charlie froze with the little coffee cup at his lips and looked at her. Was she pulling his leg?

  “I was thinking it would be a nice evening for it, yes.” He searched her face for a sign that she was toying with him, but sensing the time was now or never, he took the plunge. “You could join me if you like.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “What a beautiful home,” Maria said, as Charlie fumbled with the front door key. She was holding on to his arm as they stood on the front porch, and the sensation of her voluptuous body pressed up against his was making the usually simple task of inserting and turning the key quite a challenge.

  “Teddy?” he called out as the door opened. A few seconds later, the dog appeared, looking as though he had just awoken from a long nap. “I’ll just give him some food,” Charlie said, as Maria followed him to the kitchen. While he filled Teddy’s bowls with food and water, Maria looked out over the backyard.

  “It’s a lovely pool.”

  “And it’s a perfect night for a swi—” As he straightened and turned, he was surprised to find her standing so close behind him that he almo
st knocked her over. But rather than recoiling at their sudden proximity, Maria wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him closer.

  “Later,” she said, as he stared into her dark brown eyes. “We’ll swim later.”

  Charlie lay on his back with Maria by his side, her arm draped over his torso. He didn’t want to move for fear of disrupting the glorious warmth that coursed through his entire body.

  “You are a great lover, Charlie,” she purred, lifting her head to look at him. He just stared at her, searching back through the archives of his mind, skipping entirely over Sharon, and the one other woman he had dated seriously in university. There was that cheerleader he’d had a drunken one-nighter with back in high school, but she didn’t come close, either. Maria Aguirre was the hottest woman he had ever slept with, by a wide margin.

  “But you have made me very thirsty,” she added, running a finger down his arm.

  “Let me get you a drink,” he said, though he didn’t move. He wasn’t sure he could. His whole body felt like rubber.

  “You stay here,” she said, getting up. He continued to lay still, his eyes the only part of him that moved, in order to follow her progress from the bed to the door, in all of her naked splendour. Only a woman with a body like that could be so unconcerned by her lack of clothing. Just watching her cross the floor was enough to stir him again, and when she reappeared a few minutes later at the door, a half empty bottle of Cristal in her hand, there was a conspicuous lump in the sheets.

  “You are a very bad boy,” she said, jumping on the bed and brushing up against him as she brought the bottle to his lips and he raised himself up on his arms. “You’re going to need this.”

  He took a long sip of the cold beer and watched as she kissed her way down his chest. When she got to his stomach, she looked up at him and smiled.

  “Finish your beer, and lie back down.”

  Charlie took another long swig and set the bottle on the bedside table. As he lay back and watched Maria’s dark tresses moving over him, he felt such a combination of joy and relaxation that it was as though he were drifting on a cloud toward another dimension. As the pleasure increased, Charlie felt his eyelids grow heavy and he let them close, unable to reopen them as a broad smile creased his lips.

  Chapter 12

  It was the singing of the birds that he heard first, their excited chirping bringing him gently around. Next was the sound of laboured breathing, coming from the warm body lying next to him in the bed.

  Maria…. She was real!

  Charlie smiled and reached for her, content to leave his heavy eyelids closed and rely on his memory of the previous night. But rather than the soft, supple skin he was expecting, he found himself caressing a soft patch of … fur.

  “Teddy!”

  The dog jumped up in surprise and bounded off the bed, barking and wagging his tail furiously as he gauged whether it was safe to venture back toward his interim master.

  “Sorry, buddy,” Charlie said, rubbing a hand over his face. “I was sort of expecting someone else.” The dog yawned and continued to wag its tail as Charlie sat up and looked around the room for a sign of Maria. Her clothes were gone.

  He couldn’t remember her leaving.

  Come to think of it, he was having a hard time remembering much after she had returned with the beer. Well, apart from the first couple of minutes, which he had no trouble remembering in vivid detail. He looked under the sheets to confirm that he was naked, but as for actually closing the deal the second time, he was drawing a blank. He glanced at the bedside table and noticed that the beer bottle was gone.

  Getting out of bed and throwing on his boxers and a T-shirt, he headed downstairs. Maria’s shoes were gone. He looked out by the pool, but there was no sign of her there, either. He went to the front door and noticed immediately that it was unlocked. He stepped outside and glanced over toward the little guard hut, where the guard was preoccupied with a piece of loose caulking on the outside of the window. Charlie was debating whether to approach him when the guard waved.

  “Buenos días.”

  “Buenos,” Charlie replied, remembering that the guard had been on duty when Charlie and Maria had arrived back at the house the night before. He walked slowly over to the hut. “Uh, what time did my friend leave this morning?” he asked, catching his reflection in the window and realizing he was standing there in his underwear.

  “She no leave this morning, Señor,” the guard said, with a grin. “Las’ night.”

  “She left last night?” Charlie couldn’t conceal his surprise. “What time?”

  “Late.”

  “Like, midnight?”

  “Dos horas.”

  “Right,” Charlie said, looking up at the sky to add, before he turned to leave: “Beautiful, huh?”

  “La Señora … si, mucho.”

  Charlie ignored the wolfish grin and returned to the house, hoping a hot cup of Cuban coffee would refresh his memory of the events of the previous evening. As he made his way to the kitchen, he noticed the basement door was ajar. He was pretty sure he had closed it, he thought, as he stared at the door. For most people, it was the type of thing that might be easily forgotten, but Charlie had a rather obsessive habit of closing doors, especially basement doors. Had the dog pried it open? He frowned and looked at Teddy, who was sniffing himself in the corner, and immediately decided the idea that he had reared up on his hind legs to manipulate the doorknob with his paws was ludicrous.

  “Whatever,” he muttered to himself, closing the door and shuffling off toward the kitchen and the coffee maker. With a fresh pot brewing, he filled the dog’s bowls and got himself some breakfast.

  As he chewed his cereal and sipped his coffee, Charlie replayed the evening in his mind, starting with their first roll in the sheets shortly after their arrival back from the restaurant. He had no trouble remembering that, and doing so left a smile on Charlie’s face so broad that even the dog seemed to notice, as it cocked its head and watched him from the foot of his chair. Also burned into his memory was the vivid image of Maria’s naked profile slipping gracefully across the bedroom floor on her way for refreshments, as were the contrasting sensations of the cold beer she had returned with and the growing warmth of his arousal….

  But that was it.

  Had he experienced such an earth-shattering orgasm that it had short-circuited his memory, even rendered him unconscious? Maria was smoking hot, to be sure, but it still seemed a bit of a stretch. Perhaps it was the cumulative effect of the alcohol he had consumed over the course of the evening. The more he thought of it, the more likely that scenario sounded. After all, he had combined mojitos, wine, and beer, albeit in what he felt at the time were relatively modest quantities. But booze had a habit of sneaking up on you, and Charlie had never been much of a rum drinker.

  He sat there, sipping his coffee and revelling in the memory of what had been a most enjoyable evening, the sudden unconsciousness aside. More troubling than his unexplained power failure was the fact that she had left without giving him the opportunity to say goodbye, or to get her number. He knew her name, but the odds of finding someone by looking them up in the phone book weren’t good. This was Havana, after all.

  Charlie took his coffee out by the pool and sat in the shade, breathing in the fresh Sunday morning air. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and he could sense that it was going to be a hot one. Maybe he would take a drive out to one of the beaches on the other side of the city. As he sat there looking at the pool, his thoughts of travel plans for the day were soon eclipsed by visions of the lovely Maria Aguirre. To whatever force of fate had thrust her in his path last night, he was truly grateful.

  Chapter 13

  Charlie was returning from a hurried lunch at the nearby sandwich bar when he saw the van pull up to the embassy gates and felt a wave of unease as he stood on the opposite corner, waiting to cross. His initia
l excitement at being able to arrange a very quick visit by the headquarters property team had gradually given way to anxiety as he realized that he was largely accountable for the visit’s success, or failure. He had thought he would reserve a few hotel rooms, set up a couple of meetings, and that would be that. But as the number of meetings grew, so did the difficulty of coordinating everyone’s schedule with those of the various Cuban authorities. Charlie’s head was swimming with the times and locations of a dozen meetings to be held across town over the next four days, and while there had seemed to be plenty of time at first, he was now seriously wondering whether they would be able to fit everything in. Since confirming the dates with Ottawa the previous week, he had been inundated with emails from the project manager, architect, engineer, and lawyer, who were now disembarking from the van inside the embassy’s gates. Now, he would have to respond to their questions first-hand, rather than through the comfortable filter of his office computer.

  Arriving at the front gate, Charlie gave the guard a smile and headed straight to the driveway and the three men standing outside the van, squinting into the bright afternoon sun. They were looking around as though they had just been beamed onto the surface of Mars from the comfort of their air-conditioned workstations in Ottawa.

  “Welcome to Havana,” he said, approaching a heavy-set man in his fifties. “I’m Charlie Hillier.”

  “Oh. Hi, Charlie. Bruce Redden,” he replied, identifying himself as the project manager. “This is Dan Hart and Antoine Lefebvre,” he added, pointing to the two other men, whose names Charlie recognized as the architect and engineer, respectively. Charlie was about to ask them about their flight when he realized they were one short. How could he forget the lawyer, whose litany of pointed emails had kept him hopping over the last week? His own legal background aside, Charlie felt his spirits rise at the possibility that she hadn’t made the trip, his general impression of his legal peers having been forever tainted by his economic disembowelment at the hands of Jimmy the Leech.