The Strangeness Within Pt. 06

Esther smiled and leaned closer to him, and then Javier surprised both of them by picking her up and kissing her hard, on the lips. She returned the kiss eagerly, awkwardly trying to wrap her legs around his, knocking him off balance. He hurriedly set her back down rather than dropping her. His heart pounded, and he thought about carrying her right back to her bed. But instead she smiled and ran for the soccer ball.

Javier had no trouble taking it back from her, of course, but she'd never done this with him before. Seeing her run and keep breathing easily was a precious gift. He had to find a way to thank Mark.

They were passing the ball back and forth when Esther told him that Mark would be there in a few minutes.

"How long have you known that?" he teased her, and she bit her lip.

"A while," she admitted. "I don't know what the right way is to do this. There's so much in my head. I thought it would make you nervous if you realized how much I could do."

"No," said Javier. "I was only teasing. I think everything you can do is amazing, and you should figure out for yourself what makes sense to tell me. It sounds like whatever you decide will be a lot more than Abuela told you."

Esther nodded. "She was so secretive," she said. "I wish I'd had more time with her. I still know so little about her life, though I think Jacob knows more. I wish she'd had a chance to meet you, when she wasn't so worried about the future. I bet she'd have liked someone to speak Spanish with."

"But you speak Spanish just fine," he said.

"Understand, yes," she said. "Speak, no. I told you that, Javier. I'm not that good at languages, except for the parts you can memorize. It annoyed Ms. Mendoza no end."

It was then that Javier realized Mark was watching them from the edge of the path. He was always silent, even more than Esther.

"Hi Mark," he called. "Want to play some soccer? Or at least kick the ball around?"

Mark had an odd expression on his face. But after a second he nodded and jogged over to form a rough triangle with the two of them.

Mark was a lot better with the ball than Esther was, and soon Esther abandoned the game to watch the two of them play some one-on-one soccer. At first Javier easily outmaneuvered Mark, but after a while Mark made him work harder and harder, eventually providing a real challenge. It was good fun, and Javier was reluctant when he had to call it quits after an hour or so. He wasn't in top shape. Mark, of course, seemed as if he could do this forever, and he was hardly even sweating.

Esther went for a bathroom break, leaving the two of them standing awkwardly together.

"Thank you," said Mark. "I haven't done that since my childhood. I forgot how much I enjoyed it."

"You're really good," said Javier. "Did you play on a team back then?"

Mark shook his head. "Just with a couple boys in the neighborhood. Dad wouldn't —"

He suddenly looked angry, and given what Esther had told him, Javier could well imagine why.

"We'll have to play more, then," said Javier hurriedly. "I bet you'd be an amazing player if you practiced."

"I was only watching you," said Mark. "You are very skilled. It made it easy to figure out how I needed to move."

Javier's mouth fell open. He'd assumed Mark had been an avid player who was just rusty after many years. He hadn't realized how subtle the other man's abilities were. But of course, so were Esther's.

Javier put the ball away and they went to wash up before preparing dinner. This was all much easier than he'd expected. Mark seemed to have forgotten entirely about his reaction yesterday.

But when Esther joined them, Mark swallowed and took a few deep breaths.

"I am so sorry for losing my temper last night," he said. "I don't know exactly what happened. It makes me think of how I felt when Andrew was here, but you're not at all like Andrew, are you? I guess that means I'm jealous, but that's not fair. Esther told me how much you meant to her. Are you going to stay?"

Javier looked at Esther and then nodded.

"But you can stay too," Esther said hurriedly. "I know you two will get along fine. And Javier can take care of a lot of chores, so I can spend more time meditating. Things outside are getting dangerous and I need all the help I can get."

Mark nodded. "I assume there's also no need anymore for me to help you intimately?"

Javier coughed, but Esther held Mark's hand.

"Perhaps not, but we should talk about that later," she said.

Javier blinked and looked at her in confusion, and it didn't seem that Mark understood either.

"But Javier's here. You love him. It makes sense."

Esther nodded. "Yes, it does. But you have to promise me that you'll think about how you feel, and that we'll talk about it another time."

Mark still looked confused, but he nodded. And with that, a great tension seemed to leave Esther. They ate dinner, and it was about as normal as could be expected under the circumstances.

When they'd cleared up, Esther stood up casually.

"I think Javier and I will sleep in Abuela's cabin tonight, if that's all right, Mark."

Mark nodded. "I am glad you are comfortable in her cabin. The bed is bigger."

Javier snorted, but when Mark looked at him suspiciously, he realized it hadn't been a joke.

* * *

Abuela's cabin was full of those wooden-root sculptures Esther had described. They were beautiful and uncanny, and unsurprisingly they reminded Javier of Esther's sketches. "Frozen insights," as she'd described them.

The whole cabin felt carefully arranged. Well-loved. Esther said Abuela might have lived there for nearly a century. Javier still couldn't wrap his head around how old Abuela had been.

Esther moved a few sculptures off the bed and pulled back the covers. Then she turned off the light, leaving Javier totally blind. It made sense that she'd be more comfortable in the dark, but he nearly tripped getting into bed.

"Oh! Sorry, Javier," Esther said. "I forget how well I see in the dark now."

A moment later she turned on a dim light next to the bed. She was sitting up, still fully clothed, and obviously nervous.

"What do you want, Esther?" he asked.

She shook her head, and then started to undress.

"I want you, Javier," she said when she got her shirt over her head. "I want us to figure out how we're going to make love, and then just keep doing that forever."

Javier laughed, and a moment later Esther giggled as well. "Maybe not forever," she admitted. "Until we fall asleep?"

"Until then," he agreed.

There was nothing practiced about the way he pulled his clothes off. Distilled need flowed through him, like nothing he'd felt since that first time with Samantha. God, he hadn't thought about that gorgeous redhead in a while, and there was nothing comparable here, except the need. Esther finished undressing, and in the dim light she seemed to glow like a magical creature. An elf from the woods, he'd sometimes thought. He wanted to taste her and smell her and fuck her.

Javier picked Esther up under the armpits and half tossed her onto her back on the bed. She spread herself wide, surrendering everything to him that she'd hidden away for so long. Javier half collapsed on top of her, trying to avoid jabbing her with his massive erection. But she pulled him right against her, until his cock bumped right against her pussy.

For a minute he thought she wanted to try sex, as impossible and frustrating as that would be. But then he realized she was rubbing herself on his shaft. There was lubrication between them, and most of it wasn't from him.

It felt amazing. He bent close to taste her lips, and with a single touch it was as though all the months hadn't passed at all. They were together in their tent, awkward and exploring, only this time they were having something remarkably like sex. His shaft was coated with her juices now, and her hips slid back and forth, back and forth, with a little grunt every time the head of his dick rubbed the area around her hole.

She knew what she wanted, and he didn't mind if she'd learned that with someone else. He kissed her and helped her rub her back properly, and then to his surprise her whole body started to shake, like Clara before she had an orgasm. The spots on her chest had turned remarkably brighter blue, and all her muscles contracted. She ground her pussy onto him for a few more strokes, and then she cried out softly into his mouth.

He held her tight throughout, waiting to see the signs that he'd transported her into some other dimension with his skills. But after a little time, she opened her eyes and smiled.

"That was amazing," she said. "Oh, Javier, thank you so much."

"Do you need more?" he asked nervously. "I thought you would — did it work the way you need it?"

She laughed happily. "It worked the way I wanted! For once, I stuck right in my body. Javier, I felt that all the way through my toes. I've never been as connected to an orgasm. And yes, I need more, but first let me take care of you."

She shoved him to the side with rather more strength than he'd expected, and then she crawled between his legs. From the moment she stretched her mouth around his cock, he was in heaven.

She'd learned something from Mark, for sure. Maybe it was just practice, or maybe Mark was as infuriatingly good at making love as he was at everything else physical. But that was unkind. Esther was with Javier, by her own choice.

He jerked in surprise when she flicked her fingers lightly downwards, almost to his asshole. But it all felt amazing. When she sped up her hand motion, he groaned and brushed his hands through her hair. She knew he was about to come, and she didn't stop sliding her lips over his shaft, her tongue teasing the most sensitive spot just below the head.

With a groan he fell into his orgasm, the first spurt so powerful it made him see stars. Esther kept sucking him throughout, swallowing and murmuring happily around his hard cock until he was completely dry and shuddering with pleasure.

Finally she let go of his cock, and it bounced away, still erect. He doubted it had been ten minutes since they'd dived into bed together. But he could go plenty more rounds tonight.

"My love," Esther said softly. "Now let's do it again, slower. I'm going to tell you how to use your tongue."

Heart pounding, Javier arranged himself between her legs. Esther wasted no time.

"Right inside the hole," she said. "Pretend you're having sex with you tongue, but very slowly. It's like some of the nerves in the clitoris I don't have are spread through the inside. There. That's perfect."

She didn't taste like Samantha or Clara. He always liked the way a woman tasted, but Esther's was a light, fresh taste that he couldn't get enough of. He carefully worked the tip of his tongue inside her, and she gasped. There was nothing wrong with her body. She was exactly the way she was supposed to be.

* * *

Esther gasped again as Javier pressed his tongue downward, stretching the inside of her vagina and pushing the wall back, towards the place she was too embarrassed to ask him about yet.

She still tasted his semen in her mouth, and given how hard his penis was she expected there would be more soon enough.

For now, though, she just needed a good orgasm. Something to convince herself that Javier could do everything for her. He was good with his tongue, but not quite as good yet as Mark or Nicola. Of course he'd get there, though, and in any case he was a more creative lover than either of them had been.

How flexible was he, really? He'd seemed surprisingly accepting of her having sex with Mark. An image popped into her head, of Mark slowly pressing the length of his penis into her mouth, even as Javier worked on her with his tongue.

It was an idle fantasy. She didn't even know if she really wanted anything like that. But the thought of all that attention on her ...

She started to quiver, and Javier stroked her chest, exactly as she always liked. But Nicola had done that as well. And when her orgasm finally lifted her from her body, her last memory was of a warm, wet nipple between her lips. She missed Nicola so terribly.

* * *

"Wow," said Javier, when she'd finally finished. "Was that as amazing as it seemed from this side?"

He scooted up to let her cuddle against him, the way she always loved. Esther stroked his chest and his stubbly chin.

"More amazing," she said. "But I always feel like my body is having fun without me, when I go into that abstract space."

"Describe it for me, again," said Javier, and she did her best. But words always failed when it came to what she felt there. Esther was pretty sure mathematics was a better language for it, but even there she felt lost in its complexity.

Javier was obviously even more lost, but he seemed delighted to hear her talk about it. He was such a good partner.

"So," he said. "You need an orgasm like that to see the way everything connects. But you can still do a lot of things without it?"

"Yes," she said. "Abuela's maps help me a lot with that. And the more I do this, the more glimpses I can get in my ordinary meditations."

"Well, then," Javier said. He reached to gently tweak her erect nipple. "I guess we'll have to keep fucking."

Esther giggled and took hold of his half-erect penis.

"I suppose you're right," she said seriously. "We'll have to keep fucking."

..........................*** Chapter 39 ***...........................

Esther didn't need any special senses to know where Javier would be. Sure enough, she found him kneeling with a trowel, planting a row of peas.

Last week he'd brought back from town a fat volume on home gardening, and he'd been obsessed ever since. Mark had pointed him to a site where there had once been a garden, until its caretaker had left without replacement. Javier had enthusiastically attacked the myriad chores necessary to prepare the soil, with some help from Mark. But it was Javier who lit up every time he talked about winter vegetables. Esther loved seeing him like this, and for a few minutes now she simply watched, until Javier noticed her and waved.

"I found Raj again," Esther said. Javier sat back on his heels and nodded.

"No luck with Nicola, though?"

"No," Esther agreed. "She must be really far away. Or maybe it's not as simple as that. Maybe it's because I already know where to find Raj. Still, this is the easiest it's been. Even now, I can feel him distantly."

"That's great," Javier said. "Not that I minded those heroic attempts to find him, but it seems more practical if you can manage it with your regular meditations."

The two of them broke into smiles and just looked at each other for a while. Esther was the one to break the silence.

"About that," she said. "I really do want to find Nicola."

"Uh huh," said Javier. He wiped his forehead on his shirt and then he realized how Esther was looking at him.

Smiling, he pulled the shirt off over his head and dropped it in the dirt. Esther took his hand to help him up, but he surprised her and pulled her down to her knees instead. He was so much bigger than her, but Javier hadn't understood how much stronger she was now. She shoved him backwards and tried to pin him in the dirt.

Javier laughed and grappled with her, and in no time he had her on her back, her shirt grinding against the rough soil. Esther struggled mightily, but she still had no chance against him. As she struggled her back rubbed against the ground, and she knew she was starting to flush. When Javier moved his hand to her shirt, she bit her lip and nodded.

Esther kept pretending to struggle while he unbuttoned her, even though they both knew it was a farce. She loved this feeling, the gentle touch of a man stronger than her. She almost hoped she never got stronger than this. Though who knew? Maybe one day she could return the favor to Javier, if he liked it.

She hadn't intended things to go so this far out in the open, but Javier showed no signs of stopping. When he finished opening her shirt, he squeezed his hand underneath her and expertly undid her bra clasp. Before she even had time to react, he brushed his tongue across one of her nipples. Esther cried out softly and began to struggle more earnestly, but Javier gave her no mercy. Even as he kissed and nuzzled her breasts and her sensitive chest, he worked to pull off her pants.

She managed to undo the button on his jeans, and he laughed and pulled harder, hooking his thumbs in her underwear and yanking it all partway down her thighs. As soon as she was exposed, he trailed kisses down her stomach and brushed his tongue all the way to her opening. Esther's fingers curled in the sun-warmed dirt and she wiggled her back harder. She felt a strange connection to the ground, and she needed to feel more of it. She awkwardly pushed at her pants, and Javier took a break from his licking to pull them the rest of the way off. Then he finished pulling off his own pants and underwear.

The sun reflected off a sheen of sweat on Javier's skin, accentuating all the beautiful lines of his body. She wanted him to fuck her. That was the word. Fuck. A dirty word, which seemed appropriate right now. She shrugged her arms out of her remaining clothes and reached for him. When he made to slip some clothes underneath her for her comfort, she shook her head.

"The ground," she managed. "Amazing. Fuck me, Javier."

His eyes widened at her language, but he seemed to understand. He pulled her shirt and bra aside and then leaned onto her, pinning her against the soil with his weight. She groaned and wriggled her bare back against the ground, feeling the tiny rocks, the random twigs, the living essence of the soil underneath her. Javier's penis gently rubbed her entrance, but she almost didn't care. It was the sense of the Earth cradling her, with Javier's body completing the embrace. As though she had two very different lovers sandwiching her. She took deep breaths and heard her body's moans and sighs, smelled the rich loam and sweat and musk and earth. She was the soil, and the earthworms, and the bedrock beneath, and the deep vibrations. The grunts and cries of a living planet, the echoes of its surface inhabitants, and the much faster vibrations hinting at physics down to the atomic scale and beyond. She thought of Nicola and how the other woman tried to explain this to her, and she almost cried, because she finally understood what Nicola couldn't put into words.

Javier was doing something new with his lips and fingers, and she wanted to tell him how perfect it was, but everything was being swallowed in this wall of sound. A music that extended further than humans could conceive, so many tones and frequencies that it seemed to be just noise. But it wasn't entirely.

Esther's body passed the threshold to orgasm and the glowing connections burst into her second sight. There were so many ways to look at this glorious world, but all she wanted was to find Nicola and tell her that she'd been right about everything. Tell her that she still loved her.

Her orgasm was cresting, and with sudden clarity she began to piece together a very specific set of vibrations. All so incredibly faint, but they arose from a distantly familiar source. Footsteps, of a strikingly familiar woman, pacing in a room somewhere far away to the east. Deep in thought, but not in danger. Esther gasped in relief, and then she lost all the strands, the vibrations, everything except the warm sun and the comforting weight and smell of a beautiful man who was on the verge of his own orgasm, his hand sliding slickly along his shaft even as her continued rubbing the tip against her sensitive hole.

She scratched her nails on his back and kissed his neck, and Javier let out an immense groan, turning slightly at the last minute to avoid their discarded clothing. The semen spurted out onto the soil and her hip and torso, and she began to cry a little because everything in the world was so perfect. Slowly Javier settled his weight onto her, and for a few minutes they rested together inside the stillness.