Mexico.  Sundance Bar & Grill.  Happy Hour.

It was the way he held his drink that caught my eye.  Familiar.  Careless.  Sensual.  It was also how his lazy sprawl seemed to stamp the space around him, as if his ownership was so absolute he couldn't even be bothered to be territorial about it.  Like it wasn't even a blip on his radar, even though the other men clearly respected it and young beautiful women seemed to go out of their way to bask in that unmistakably lupine presence. 

My People would say he had a strong totem.  

I wonder what his People say? 

I would say he's a hunter.  And playful, too, like most predators are.  The petite blond he was with tossed her hair and giggled.  Over her head, our eyes met for a moment.  His bored indulgent look was replaced by a slight half smile.  It was the way a wolf looks when you catch one of the adults playing with a pup; half amused, jaws open with its tongue lolling out and tail wagging-- and half embarrassed at being caught roughhousing with the babies. 

The girl he was with flipped her hair again and touched his arm.  His eyes dropped back to her but even across the bar, I could tell something in his bearing had shifted.  He was still playing with the easy catch but the focus of his attention seemed to be elsewhere.  At this end of the bar.  I suppose it's only natural.  Good hunters always keep all their options open.  Until they move in for the kill, anyway. 

It made me feel attractive.  And uncomfortable.  In a good way.  But I wasn't sure that was a game I was up for playing tonight, so I left him to his flirting and ordered a mojito, trying not to think about how his thick fingers had looked stroking through the condensation on the dark brown glass.  Seeing a wet glisten on his fingers as he swallowed with hedonistic relish made me uncomfortable too-- in a much more intimate way. 

I squirmed a little in my chair and turned away from him slightly.  I was here to unwind.  So were a few of my colleagues.  For a group of presenters straight out of a three day symposium on Feminism and Tradition in Modern Indigenous Matriarchies, the Sundance seemed like the perfect place for us ladies to unwind, tongue in cheek style.  Like we would have had it any other way?  We'd been laboring under our professional masks for days.  Now it was time to let our hair down; to gossip about our husbands, lovers and children, to exchange stories and recipes and commiserate with each other on everything from tribal politics to the headaches associated with trying to get an academic grant.  It was a time to network and scratch notes on bar napkins-- not to pick up sensual attractive men. 

Especially not men who looked like they liked sex.  

A lot.

I shook the image away and sipped my drink slowly.  I make no excuses.  It was hard not to notice a man like that on a night like this.  Heat waves were still rising up from the cracking black asphalt outside.  The tang of the sea air and the sharp hulk-hulk-hulk cry of the seabirds could be heard over the gloomy din when the heavy door opened.  It also let in the tangerine glow of the setting sun.  I had the urge, however impolite, to ditch my colleagues and go take a walk.  This place had a different beauty than the wild grandeur of the Reserve where I grew up, but I don't think ethnicity has any bearing at all on a person's desire to feel soft warm sand under their bare feet.                           

I might have even been tempted to leave had it not been for my perfectly mixed mojito-- and for Elsa Redbird's sly nudge to get my attention.  Elsa was a beautiful (married) Hopi woman with a round face and dancing eyes.  I was the tall, skinny (single) Cree girl with wild hair.  Which of course meant that she considered it her moral duty to play matchmaker every time someone with something swinging between his legs caught her eye.  She's worse than my meddlesome old aunties that way.  Almost.  At least there's only one of her.     

She nudged me again.  "He's looking at you."

I didn't have to ask who she meant.  I knew who.  She'd seen him too.  I think we all had.  I glanced over.  He was looking at me.  I looked back.  And smiled. 

Elsa nearly choked when I turned my attention back to her.  Which put my back to him.  It wasn't a snub.  So we exchanged a look?  It was hardly an invitation for anything more.  And to be honest, I wasn't interested in being a member of his harem of simpering golden beauties.  Nor did I imagine a single look from him meant he was interested enough to even feel the loss of my attention.     

"What are you doing?" she hissed at me under the guise of sipping her drink.  "Go over there... ask him to dance.  You know you want to.  You know he's good, too."

I knew.  So did she.  So did every other woman in the place who'd seen him on the floor earlier.  He moved with a woman in his arms the same way he drank and smoked.  With absolute abandon and utterly without reservation about enjoying something that obviously gave him a considerable amount of pleasure.  But despite that, there was an odd politeness about him.  An old-fashioned air that reminded me a bit of the way my grandfather held himself.  A reserve. 

But a girl could also imagine a man who enjoyed a beer like that might also enjoy a woman with the same unrestrained intensity.  It wasn't too hard to imagine a man like him throwing a girl over his shoulder-- before throwing her down on a pile of blankets and covering her with his body.  I guess feminism in the matriarchy still takes a back seat to natural animal attraction if strong women are still fantasizing about stronger men. 

Maybe the real question is what do strong men fantasize about?  At that moment, the question I wanted an answer to was: 'What does that one man in particular fantasize about?'  It was a question I came back to again and again over the course of the evening.  And twined with it were strands of my own fantasies.  Elsa eventually gave up hope.  Conversation flowed on around me.  I sat quietly nursing my drink and let my mind wander.  My body felt loose and slightly aroused from the alcohol, from my own thoughts, and from the bombardment of sexy images; attractive men and women with lots of golden moist skin on display, talking, laughing, flirting.  Writhing together on the dance floor.  Writhing together in a different way in the numerous dark shady alcoves. This wasn't a very classy place-- which suited me just fine.  And we were a long way from the border.  It's funny how being in a strange place can somehow make you feel more like being the person you hide from everyone back home. 

Back home I never would have entertained the idea of a casual sexual encounter.  Though I'm easy about sex and have had a couple of lovers in the last few years-- all of them meant something to me in one way or another.  I'm not the sort of woman who'd even consider a one night stand.  At least, I thought I wasn't.  I think deep down I knew I still wasn't.  But for the first time in years, I was tempted. 

I thought about my wrinkled old aunties and the stories they told about the young handsome lovers they'd had when their skin was soft and smooth and their hair was long and shiny and black as a crow's wing.  I thought of how they cackled and held each other's gnarled hands as they remembered, cloudy eyes turning inward to see old memories that kept them warm when the prairie wind blew sharp and cold.  For the first time I wondered about making such a memory for myself, for when I was old and gray and sitting on the porch with a blanket over my legs, teasing my little nieces about finding some lusty virile man to keep them warm under the blankets like I'd had once long ago. 

Images of slender brown limbs entwined with a man's larger, heavier-- hairier body danced in my head.  I closed my eyes to see them more clearly.  I saw a man's hand on a woman's hip.  They were both naked.  His cock was long and thick and his skin was pale against hers.  His eyes were green and clear.  He wasn't afraid to keep them open when he came.  I felt my mouth curl into a private smile. 

"This seat taken?"  A tobacco voice, rich and sweet interrupted the erotic flow of my thoughts.  I knew it was going to be him before I even opened my eyes.  Of course a man like him would have a voice like that.  It made me think of jars of amber honey on my grandfather's sunny windowsill and of the way a horse's breathing sounds when he gallops hard over the prairie or blows out a greeting on a frosty morning as he lips your fingers looking for sweet oats.

I shivered and opened my eyes, extending my foot just enough to push out the opposite chair in invitation.  A pretty bold move for a girl with a Musquash totem.... but even the industrious little muskrat isn't immune to the desire to mate.  I hadn't yet made up my mind either way.... but a man like that was a potential memory worth considering making. 

He sat down, sprawling into my space with the same easy familiarity that he'd stamped on the space around him at the bar.  He was pushy... but in an attractive sort of way that spoke of arrogance and of humor.  He was cocky, too-- but not oily or insincere.  I liked him already.  I also liked the flash of uncertainty in his eyes in those long moments before I pushed out the chair.  I liked that he'd waited until Elsa was gone to approach me.  He might have a strong totem but he still didn't want to be shot down in front of another woman.  That touch of vulnerability was as attractive as his affable charm.  And it tempered that predatory sex appeal that seemed to ooze from him.    

I raised an eyebrow as he dropped an arm over the back of my chair.  He wasn't touching me but he was close enough for me to smell his warm skin.  "You always this forward?"

His smile was warm and crooked.  And pointed.  "Only when I'm after something I really want."  He was not at all apologetic for how that sounded.  Coming from another man, I might have bristled at that sort of comment-- but for all the innuendo in his words, he also sounded genuine.  How long had it been since I'd met someone who wasn't afraid to be a man or to speak his mind?  He exuded an unapologetic masculinity that was hard to ignore.  No wonder he had a small harem vying for his attention back at the bar.

I smiled in spite of myself.  "Something you 'really want'?  And in this case, what you want would be.....?"  I wondered if he'd have guts to say it.  And if he did, was that a good thing?  Or a bad one?

His smile changed.  "To know what you were thinking of before that put such smile on your face."

That was not at all what I'd been expecting him to say.  I was shocked.  And pleased.  And embarrassed.  I'd been thinking of his cock... thinking of his big hands on my hips and what it would be like to watch his face as he came inside me.  I think he knew it too.  I blushed hotly and he smiled with a touch of amusement - and triumph - when he saw my color rise.  But he didn't press me or even acknowledge it.  He could have used it to his advantage and he didn't, which was another point in his favor.  Maybe I'd misjudged him a little.  He was clearly looking for a girl to warm his blankets but the fact that he didn't use everything at his disposal to get me there told me he might be a passionate man who liked sex, but that he was also a pretty decent guy.  Or at least a guy with a deeper interest than just sex. 

He used the neck of his bottle to push the brim of his hat up a little before he extended his hand.  "I'm Alex." 

His hand was big.  And warm.  And hard.  

"Veronica."  

I felt swallowed in his sure grip and that feeling of uncomfortable excitement grew as he let his fingertips stroke softly against my palm when he withdrew his hand.  Something crackled between us, like the charge in a furred hide when you run your fingers over it on a cold dry day.  My breath caught.       

Before either of us could say anything more, a tipsy young blonde giggled her way over and tried to press a tall shot glass into his hand. 

"There you are, Ross...."  

Ross?  I thought his name was Alex? 

"I got us some drinks.... tequila!" she pronounced with a flip of her hair, ignoring me and making a rather public display of ownership as she wrapped a very proprietary arm around his neck.   

"Thanks but no thanks, honey."  He pressed both glasses back into her hand and deftly extricated himself from her grip and her company.  It was smooth.  He looked like he'd had a lot of practice at it.  She pouted for moment and then flounced off to join her friends when she realized he wasn't going to get up from the table.  He looked-- not embarrassed exactly-- but bashful.

"Tequila not your thing, Ross?"  I couldn't help teasing him. 

His lip curled in amusement.  "No.  Blondes aren't either."  He took a long sip off his beer and picked at the edge of the label with his fingernail.  He had good hands. 

"One too many worms in your past, eh?"

He laughed aloud at that.  "Something like that...."  Flicking away the little curl of paper he'd ripped off the bottle, he grinned.  "Let's just say both have left me with a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth these days."  For a moment I thought I saw something there under his swaggering smile.  Something that looked an awful lot like hurt.  Or maybe it was just what I wanted to see?  I liked him.  I wanted him to be a nice guy.  A man on the prowl to scratch an itch is one thing.  A man looking for something casual because he's had his heart stepped on is something else entirely.  Which one was he? 

I took a slow sip of my drink, savoring the flavor of the crushed mint as I tried to work that one out.

"My name really is Alex," he said softly into the silence.

I considered that for a moment.  "Who's 'Ross' then?"  Names are important in my culture.  I listened carefully to his answer.

"Me."  He paused, shrugging.  "My last name."  I knew it was silly but there was a small part of me that felt warmed by that confession.  He'd given me a more intimate name than he'd given to the others.  Why had he done that? 

His piercing gaze missed nothing.  "And before you ask-- No, I don't know why I told you my first name.  I don't usually do that."

"How did you know I was thinking that?" So much for Native stoicism!  He laughed at my look of surprise.    

"I'm a hack.  S'my job to notice things."  He plucked the sprig of mint from my empty glass and twirled it in his fingers.  "Like this for instance."  He ordered me another mojito and a beer for himself and we settled back into one of the cozy booths.  The light was better there; an orangey glow cast by a flickering candle in cheap red glass.  We talked about work and travel and politics.  A little about our pasts here and there between the flirting and the more serious conversation.  He was irreverent and sharp and outrageously playful in a quaint sort of way. 

He talked with his hands.  And smoked cheap cigarettes.  But it was his clothes that caught my attention.  I think they were a part of what gave him that old-time feel.  He was the only person in the bar wearing slacks and a dress shirt.  They were clean and he wore them casually, almost proudly even though they were a bit ragged and worn.  I wondered if they were his only clothes.  It reminded me of home and the meticulous care that the proud struggling people I knew would take with their ribbon shirts and 'good' jeans.  By the time we'd finished our drinks, I knew there was much more to Alex Ross than met the eye. 

He smiled at me across the table and stroked my arm lightly as he nodded at my glass.  "Get you another?"

I shook my head.  "I don't think so."  His eyes went up.  "Two's my limit."  I don't hold my alcohol well.  Blame it on my genes.  It's not like we've had a few millennia to work up a tolerance, now have we?  Alcohol makes my face flush red.  It also makes me forward.  I gave his skin a good, long, appreciative look.  "Besides, you look good without teeth marks."

He laughed then; a giggle that seemed not to fit with the rest of him.  "In that case, sweetheart, I absolutely think you need another."  His eyes danced.  "And I may need two.... got to have something to put these flames out!  It's gettin' a little warm over here."  He pretended to pull at his collar.  I laughed, but all his gesture really did was make me even more aware of the velvety skin of his throat.  There was a light sheen of sweat on it.  The only air conditioning in this place was the windows.  I fought the urge to lean in and lick him. 

Our drinks came.  I wasn't really sure I wanted mine.  I felt too out of control already.  I like a good strong buzz but I wasn't sure it was smart to be that lubricated here.  A strange city.  Alone.  With someone I didn't know.  It was different back on the Reserve surrounded by all my relations...  where there was no shortage of familiar couches to crash on. 

Alex leaned in and brushed my hair away from my neck before speaking soft and low into my ear.  "Go ahead.  You're safe with me.  I'll make sure you get home okay...."  His voice dropped, becoming darker, huskier.  "You can trust me.  I'll still stop if you say 'no'."

His words made me shiver.  How someone could sound so nice (and so dirty!) at the same time was confusing.  "I wasn't aware I'd said 'yes' yet." 

He said nothing.  I gave him a look.  Thought it over.  And reached for my glass.

He smiled this wolfish smile.

And damned if I didn't smile back.

We took our time finishing that next round, but my head was still spinning when we got up to leave.  The little blonde at the bar glared at me.  Elsa grinned and waved.  I barely noticed.  Alex had his hand on the small of my back and that was all I could think about, how it felt pressing through my thin blouse.  We slipped outside.  It was still pretty early and the street was full of people and strings of twinkling lights and the sound of mariachi music spilling out of other establishments.  The humid air smelled strange, like hot sidewalk and spicy food and the tangy brine of the sea. 

He lounged against the wall and pulled me in close, half nuzzling my throat and half swaying to the beat of some faraway song.  He didn't try to kiss me but his hands were on my hips, possessive and familiar.  Like how a man holds a woman when he's thinking about how she's going to feel under him.  I liked it.

Alex nodded to some nearby steps leading up to a second floor.  There was a long walkway and doors with numbers and peeling turquoise paint.  The feel of his breath against my ear made me shiver.  "I have a room up there...."  I could hear him swallow and I liked that he wasn't so certain of my response that he'd take me there without at least asking.  "You want to come up?"

I shook my head 'no' and felt him sigh against me.  

"You sure?"

The touch of hopefulness in his voice made me smile.  I nodded.  

His breath came out in slow heave.  But he still didn't let me go.  "You want me to see you back to your room then?"  There was no more hopefulness now.  I could tell by the sag of his body that he was disappointed - and still aroused - but he wasn't petulant or pushy. 

I shook my head 'no' for the second time.

This time he huffed frustration.  "What do you want then?"  I almost laughed.  Red or white... all men have that same look when they are exasperated and trying to work out exactly what a woman wants.

"A walk on the beach."  I was twenty before I saw the ocean.  The power and grandeur of it still affects me profoundly.  I wanted to clear my head a little.  And I also wanted to just be a woman walking alone in the dark with a man like Alex Ross.

He tipped his hat to me and offered his arm with a smile.  He still wanted to spend time with me even after I'd turned him down?  How many men do you know like that these days?  He really was something else.  Looking back, I think it was that exact moment I changed my mind about waking up alone. 

His phone trilled while we walked the last few blocks to the beach.  He fumbled with it a moment and then grimaced when he saw the display, cursing softly under his breath as he turned it off and pushed it deep into his pocket.

"Work?" I ventured, hoping some breaking story wasn't going to call him away just when I'd changed my mind about how I wanted this night to end.  At least, I think I had.  I was starting to feel more and more like maybe this was one memory I wasn't ready to walk away from quite so quickly.  One night might not be enough.  I sighed.  Damned Musquash... they can't ever stop that busy part of their mind, always planning, saving, wanting more when they're not even through with what they have already.  

He shook his head.  "No."  

"Girlfriend?"  I asked, thinking a man like him was bound to have a long trail of broken hearts behind him.  I suddenly felt uneasy for having asked, but I'd rather know now than later.  I make a good lover-- but a lousy mistress.  And I hadn't said 'yes' yet.  I suppose a lot depended on his answer. 

He sighed.  "You ever have an ex that just can't let go?"  

I nodded.  "Noah Cutknife.  I was nineteen.  He used to park on the road to my house and sit on his tailgate playing mournful songs on his old guitar."  He also took a knife and dug out the heart we'd carved into the old bridge that we used to make love under-- but I didn't tell Alex that.  A little bit about your past is good in the beginning.  Too much is just... too much sometimes.   

Alex winced and laughed.  "That's pretty bad."

I squeezed his hand and rolled my eyes.  "You should have heard the songs!"  Or seen what he carved into that old bridge after he'd cut out the heart and initials we'd scratched in it with and old car key.  It was the first time I'd ever been afraid of a man.   

He laughed again but soon fell quiet as we took off our shoes and walked along the edge of the water.  I liked that he wasn't embarrassed about looking silly as he rolled up his pants to join me in the sea as it swirled around my knees.  The bottom of my skirt got a little wet but I didn't care.  The damp cloth felt good against my skin when the warm breeze blew.  

We played in the waves for a while and then went back to walking along the hard packed sand, just at the water's edge.  Alex was walking ahead of me.  The stark white of his shirt made his shoulders seem impossibly wide against the starry night sky.  He stopped and looked out at the sea, bending to pick up a stranded starfish before throwing it absently back into the deeper water.  My grandfather would have approved.  He stood there for a long time afterwards, still and quiet.  Alert.  He seemed to me to be both powerful and yet somehow alone.  Mahihkanak. 

I am not so arrogant to think I knew what spirits were guiding him.  But he seemed like a wolf to me then.  And I knew what whatever spirits he heard just then were speaking loudly. 

I touched his arm.  "What are they saying?"

Alex gave me a funny look.  "Who?"  He shrugged and scoffed.  "The voices in my head?"

The tone of his voice made me feel bad for him.  White men had a more difficult time listening than most.  I just shrugged.  "If you want to call them that."

He huffed and looked back over the water, turning a smooth black pebble over in his fingers.  "I was thinking about magic."

I smiled into the darkness.  "I don't believe in magic."

"Me either."  

The set of his shoulders was stiff.  Defiant.  I felt like he was daring me to contradict him.  Foolish man.  Real answers never come that way.  But somehow I think he knew that.  "What do you believe in then?"  I heard an old man's words coming out of my mouth; words someone had said to me once.  Was this growing up?  I had a sudden longing for home that even the grandeur of the sea couldn't quell.  Just what did a man like him believe in?

"Love."

His answer surprised me.  I think it surprised him too.  It was one of those moments that was almost too honest; somewhere between painful and awkward.  That place where real truth lives.  I was not so foolish as to imagine it was a reference to me-- but it filled my heart with a warm glow all the same.  How many men in this jaded world believe in that kind of love anymore?  Fewer still can speak of it so candidly, without embarrassment and with genuine emotion. 

He turned to look at me.  His pale eyes glittered in the moonlight.  "What do you believe in?"

"Spirits.  Circles.  Walking a good road."  

His arms slipped around me.  "You sure you're on a good road now?"

I rested my hands on his shoulders and looked up into his face.  "I think there must be a string of broken hearts on your road."

He shrugged.  "No.  Just one."  

Just one heart cut over and over.  

His.

It suddenly all made sense.  The way he was with the women at the bar.  The flash vulnerability I'd seen in his eyes.  He didn't want to get hurt again.  He was really quite tender and gentle underneath that rough masculine shell.  And it seemed once he let someone in, once they touched him, he felt things deeply and was easily moved.

The warm sand cradled us as we lay on our backs like children and stared up at the night sky.  I had come here imagining we might join our bodies under the Strawberry Moon.  I hadn't imagined Wesukechak, the Bitter Spirit, would be silent long enough for a different sort of joining-- but even the Spirits can't know which two people will be drawn together.  Or why.

Mostly he listened at first.  I spoke of home and of my family and traditions, and also of a man named Noah.  As the shadows grew longer, he began to talk.  He's a good storyteller.  I learned of the medicine woman who left him for a rich playboy and then he spoke of a different woman who eased him into what he calls his 'new' life.  I am not sure I understood his crossing allegory completely, but I think the woman who helped him must be a medicine woman too.  He was respectful when speaking of her, but his eyes gave him away.  She had found much pleasure in his blankets. 

He even spoke a little of his last woman.  But not much.  He was bitter.  I don't blame him.  Most men are when they can't work something out and he seemed uncertain why she had left him.  He thinks he did something wrong.  I think maybe she wasn't the person he thought she was.  I don't suppose it matters.  He's the sort of man who needs answers to be at peace.  No wonder he was so far from home.  Sometimes those answers are at the end of a very long road. 

He fell silent.  Even the roar of the ocean seemed softer, almost sympathetic in the silence.  Shhh.... Shhhh...... Shhhhhh......                  

"E'kosi." I whispered to him.

He touched my hair.  "What?"     

I smiled.  "Thanks.  You tell good stories."  If he'd had any idea what a compliment that was, he wouldn't have so carelessly shrugged away my praise.  A seabird trilled in the night.  We watched each other in silence over a very short span of warm sand.  It was so dark I could hardly see his face but I could feel him exhale when the wind blew my hair across his skin.  And I listened to the voices carried on it.  Or maybe it was just the song of my own heart that I heard.  It sang: Join with him!  This is the memory that you are supposed to make.

I sang it to him without words.  He said nothing as I moved to straddle his lap but his hands were tight on my hips, holding me to the place where his blood burned.  I breathed against his open lips as he rubbed against me and the fire spread to my blood.  Come cry the moon down with me, Mahihkanak.      

He smelled of smoke.  I could taste it on his lips.  He sighed into my mouth.  His lips were soft and gentle but his tongue was bold, invading me, tasting me.  Sweeping a sensual path that made the world spin and my body shiver. 

Teeth.  On my chin.  My throat.  And that rough wet tongue, licking.  Flicking.  Wanting.  Making me whimper.

I heard a growl rumble in his throat when I spread my thighs wider to rub with more force where he was hard and swollen.  He pulled his mouth from mine, staring up at me from the private curtain my hair made for our faces. 

"Let's go back...."  His knuckles brushed my cheek softly before he threaded his fingers into my hair.  I felt his legs move restlessly as he shifted under me.  "Too public here... too sandy....."

I whispered a soft, "No..." and opened my mouth to receive his kiss as he lifted his mouth to mine.  While I appreciated his desire for a more comfortable, intimate experience where we could slip out of our clothes and roll around naked and entwined, I couldn't let him go.  The heat was on me and I wanted it to be this way-- a frantic joining here in this wild place where the water broke itself on the land like I wanted to break myself on him.

His passion rose as he accepted what he would have to give up and decided what he would accept in its place.  That predatory masculine force he exuded at the bar reasserted itself.  I could feel his power rising and he was not afraid to show it to me.  For long moments he held my face in his big hands, looking up at me as I knelt over him.  He exerted just the softest touch of direction, urging me to lift up so my weight was resting on my knees instead of on his cock.  He shuddered at the loss of it and chased my mouth with his instead, needing another connection to make up for the one he'd lost.

Rough warm hands slid up my legs, under my skirt and he groaned softly as he cupped the naked skin he found there, one cheek in each palm.  And he squeezed.  Hard.  Digging his fingers into my brown skin and smiling up at me with dark hooded eyes. 

"When did you take them off?" he breathed against my throat, sucking a bite that made the heaviness in my belly become a slippery trickle between my legs.  My hips swayed. 

"I didn't."  A breath caught in my throat when he moved his hand down to cup me possessively.  "I don't wear any."

I think he liked that even better; a male reaction that always amuses me.  I don't do it to be provocative.  The real truth is that I grew up far below the poverty line.  Our home didn't even have electricity until I was seven.  By the time we could afford underwear, I'd gotten used to going bare.  Which isn't to say I haven't worn sexy lingerie for the men in my life.  I have.  But when I'm alone, I always go back to what I like best.

I was glad he liked it too.

He kept touching my soft natural hair and holding me, shivering when I rubbed against his palm and whispering to me how much he liked it and that he still couldn't understand why 'modern' girls would want to shave it all off.  I wasn't sure what he meant by that-- but the rough glide of his fingers was making it was hard to think. 

"Hold still."  His hand tightened on my hip, holding me where he wanted as he pushed a thick finger up inside.  I mewled softly when he added another before he reclined back against the side of a dune for a better look.  My skirt and the darkness hid everything.  It didn't matter.  It was my face he was watching.

I moved experimentally on his fingers, rising up to kiss his mouth and then sinking back down with a whimper.  He groaned.

"I'm bigger than that," he murmured softly and with some difficulty he added a third finger, growling deep in his throat at the sensuous feel of delicate tissue stretched so obscenely around his invading fingers.

The hand he had at my hip encouraged me to start moving and I rode his fingers there under the blanket of stars while we kissed.  Hidden below my skirt, his hands were rough and demanding while his kisses were so gentle and soft.   

He turned my mouth loose when I got close.  He didn't want to swallow my cries, he said.  He wanted to hear me come.  A rude, intrusive push of his fingers made it happen and he watched with dark eyes as I ground myself down on his fleshy palm and cried my pleasure to the night.

Strong arms caught me and held me close, whispering words that don't exist in the light as he waited for me to come back to him.  When I did, he held my face in hands slick with my own essence and told me to open his pants. 

He wiped his glistening fingers down the side of my neck and between my breasts while I worked his belt.  I smiled and stopped what I was doing to wipe away the slippery ooze but he knocked my hand away.

"Leave it."  He put my hands back on his zipper, nodding to the wet glisten on my skin.  "That's for me later."

I shivered at his words and slipped my hands into his open pants.  It was dark and I couldn't see, but my hands were my eyes.  He was thick and long; wet at the tip and his skin was so hot.  Sweaty and ripe.  I scratched my short nails into his hair, half wishing I had gone back to his room where I could look upon him in the light and suck and kiss drink of him until I had my fill.  But there was something to be said for wild abandon in the dark, too. 

I had to ask for the condom-- but he gave it without hesitation.  It made me smile.  He would have rather been bare, but I am no fool.  I don't want any children now.  And something tells me he has known a lot of women since he left home and started walking his road.  Part of me found his virility attractive.  Part of me didn't want to think about where else his beautiful cock had been.

Like the vision in my daydream, big pale hands gripped my hips hard.  And his eyes were open.  "Sit down on me... take me in... I have to--"  His voice choked off as I rubbed his thick tip between my legs and put the head inside. 

He couldn't wait.  He pushed my hips down hard, surging up under me as he did.  I cried out.  He groaned.  And he didn't apologize.  I didn't want him to.  I like a man who's not afraid to show a woman what he wants.  And to take it from her when the moment is right.  Whatever the future brought, I would have the memory of this night to warm me the rest of my days.

I came again, wild and unstrained.  In the morning I would find that I'd rubbed my thigh raw on the teeth of his zipper.  My frantic cries inflamed him.  He licked at the wet trail of musky fluid he'd wiped on my skin and buried his face between my breasts as my gentle tender lover disappeared into a man desperate for his own release.  His rough grunts became more erratic and then in the deepest part of his pleasure when he held me against him so tightly that I almost couldn't breath... it was then that his voice changed from commanding man to something soft and vulnerable like a boy.  He shuddered hard and I wished for a moment that I could feel the deep wet heat of his seed like I knew he could.  The soft strangled cry he made told me it had splashed against the barrier and bathed his sensitive skin in a soothing liquid warmth. 

The soft sand shifted under us as we moved apart and he slipped a hand down to pull off the rubber, tossing it away into the night.  The thought of his seed spilling out onto the barren sand was somehow disturbing.  It seemed like such a waste.  So I braced myself for the pungent flavor and leaned in to kiss his spent flesh, swirling my tongue in the most intimate of kisses. 

"Too sensitive!" he gasped.  His body jerked and he shivered, wrapping his hand in my hair and pulling me up to him lazily.  For a long time we lay there, watching the stars.  Not talking.  Just breathing.  And smiling.

After a time, I got up and walked to the edge of the waves, pulling my skirt to my hips and squatting over the rushing water, scooping it up to rinse away the slippery residue he'd coaxed from me.  He watched me. 

And he lay back and sighed in pleasure when I wet his handkerchief in the cool water and used it to clean his soft sticky cock.

Afterwards, he pushed aside my shirt and touched my breast.  "You have a tattoo."  He seemed surprised. 

I nodded.  Typical teen rebellion.  White kids get heavy black tribal designs.  Indians get a howling coyote or a medicine wheel with an eagle feather.  He traced the circle with his finger.

"What does it mean?"

I shrugged.  "Lots of things."  He looked at the circle divided into four equal parts, each with a different color.  Red.  Black.  White.  Yellow.  "The four directions.  The four elements.  The four phases of life.  The four colors of people.  The four kinds of beings-"

"Four kinds of beings?"

"Two-legged.  Four-legged.  Swimmers.  And flyers."  I smiled and zipped him up, caressing the soft bulge affectionately. 

"So, nothing about the kind with two backs, then?" he teased, pulling me back into his embrace and nuzzling his face into my hair.  That was when I noticed his tattoo.  USMC.  I traced the letters with my fingertip, wondering what else about him I might never know.  Things that might always remain hidden by our clothes and by the minutes that were running out.  A soldier and an Indian girl, eh?  I wonder how many times and how many others have been here before us?       

We sat there, wrapped in each other's arms until the stars started disappearing from the sky.  I didn't want to go but with the light came the responsibilities and commitments we had made to our jobs and to other people.

"I always hate this part," I said, standing and brushing the sand from my skirt.

"I don't."  He rested his head on my shoulder.  "Not with you, anyway," he allowed when I gave him a pointed look.  He laughed and then grew quiet.  I think we were both afraid to hope this was anything more than a pleasant night.  Somehow the things we'd talked about made parting more awkward than it would have been if it had only involved our bodies. 

Despite that, neither of us wanted to be the one to say it.  And the truth was it really was okay if this was all it turned out to be.  I could live with that.

"I promised to walk you home," he said with a smile.  

"You don't have to." I said, pushing down my giddy excitement at his words.

"I want to."  

"I have a flight to Calgary in four hours."

"I had a meeting that started forty-five minutes ago." He shot back.

It was amusing in a sad sort of way.  "So this is goodbye, then."

He pushed his hands into his pockets.  "If you want it to be, then... yeah, I guess so."  

We stood there, staring at each other in the early morning light, trying to decide what else to say.  Trying to decide if there was anything else to say.  He shuffled nervously.

"Hey, it's okay, Alex.... I don't expect-"

"Look... I don't have an apartment or anything.  The phone I have only works here and I'll be leaving soon.... but if you want to find me...."  He tucked a business card into my hand.  "Someone here should be able to get me a message.... if you ever..."  He sighed and blew out, running his hands through his hair before putting his hat back on and pulling it down at a jaunty angle.  He gave me a kiss and then turned to go.

"Alex!"  I fumbled with my purse and dug out a bent old card - it was either that or a gum wrapper -  and I scratched my number on the back before pressing it into his fingers.

He looked at it.  "The Smoke Signal?"  I nodded.  It was a tobacco shop back home.  "Irene Talksabout?  Who's that?" 

"My mother."  I have my father's last name.  "It's her store...  My number's on the back...  Use it if you want."  He tucked the card into his pocket and patted it with a smile.  He didn't say he would call.  But he didn't say he wouldn't, either.

We shared one last passionate kiss and then he was walking down the beach, presumably to his meeting-- and I was heading back the way I came... back to my old life and my old responsibilities.  I could still taste him on my lips.  And still feel him between my legs.

I turned and shouted a goodbye over the wind.  

Walk in a good way, Alex. 

He turned and waved.  I watched until he was a black speck on the beach and then looked down at the tattered card he'd slipped into my fingers.  The Come On Inn?       

Who knows?  

One of these days, this road I'm on just might lead me there.