Beijaflor

by RoZita, Deena, Delorita, & SusanLeigh

We are in a ballroom in a very posh hotel in South America, Ché and I...no, not Argentina because I want to get him away from all that. Yes, we're in Rio de Janeiro--such a lovely name! The hotel overlooks the beach and you can see the ocean through one window and the mountains from another, very lush scenery....but I spend precious time looking at the scenery. Ché is in a tux and I wear a burgundy velvet evening dress with a white orchid corsage in my upswept dark brown hair. The ballroom is lit by a dozen chandeliers with real candles, long tables with candelabra on them, and wall sconces....the floor is highly polished and reflects all the candle flames, so the room seems to be full of stars, and it smells of wax, cigarette smoke, and various perfumes. A small band plays Latin music and we dance the tango, the rumba, the mambo, the cha-cha, and the waltz.

Ché dances with all the intensity of his passionate nature. I can see every candle in the room burning and flickering in his eyes, which have a language all their own; he is a son of thunder. Every time he pulls me close to him I can smell the scent he's wearing and it drives me nearly wild. What a tease! The spirit of the Brazilian rainforest has entered me. I want to pounce on him like a jaguar...cover him with orchids...carry him off to my secret lair...tie him down with my hair...drown him in kisses...float in his eyes...ravish those luscious lips like jungle fruit....

Finally I can hold back no longer and I pull him close to me and kiss him on the mouth. I wrap my leg around him. His hands slide up and down my back. Everybody is looking but I don't care. My gown is low in back so I can feel his fingertips tingling on my bare skin. He kisses my cleavage in front.

"You are a very hot mama," he says and I giggle because that's what I called myself on our first night together after I'd had too much to drink. And he looks so cute and serious when he says it.

I say, "Let's go somewhere more private" and we slip away onto the balcony....

"Now, for once I will make you smile," I tell him, although secretly I think that he would not be Ché if he were not angry, if his eyes didn't smolder...but just for tonight I will make him forget the world, as I promised to do after I met him in that bar in Buenos Aires and he was so damned serious and angry all the time, talking about all the trouble in his country and all I could think of was getting him to look at me, look at me. . . .

On the balcony, where we are alone but still hear the wonderful music, I press my aroused body against his, feel his muscular chest through the velvet of my dress. We are still moving in the rhythm of the music. He's holding me tight against his body, one of his strong thighs between my legs. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath of the warm night air. I caress his forehead, his eyelids, his cheeks with my fingertips...and slowly, very slowly he loses his angry expression...the wrinkle between his beautiful eyebrows is almost gone and while he takes my face very tenderly in his hands he sings with a most caressing voice, which has only tenderness and longing in it, "I smile for you, mi Chiquita," and then his warm wet lips cover mine...his soft tongue tip meets mine and while our kiss increases I feel his hands moving across my shoulders over my back to my behind.....

The balcony is very secluded and looks out onto a wide expanse of lawn. The lush green looks like black velvet in the moonless night. Only the lights from the Club are visible setting pinpoints of gold in the night. In the distance I can barely make out an ornate gazebo.

"Let's go down there," I command him. I slip my shoes off and remove my thigh-high hose. In my bare feet I can feel the dew on the grass. "Take your shoes off, too," I direct him. "They'll get ruined. Besides, you'll like the feel of the moisture on your toes." I toss off a light laugh and run lightly down the stairway toward the open structure. I know he's chasing after me and it adds a frisson of fear to our play. Though I run as fast as I can, he still beats me, scooping me up as he reaches our destination. "There, querida." He tosses me lightly to the cushions on the wooden floor. "Now what?" "Do you know what these things were called, mi corazón?" I can scarcely see his face, but I know he is smiling. "Yo no se." "Follies. Let's do something foolish." He helps me to open his trousers, and there it is, his big hard one…I caress it with my fingertips and go down on my knees in front of him. I blow on the tip of his arousal and he moans very deeply caressing my head. And now I lick it tenderly, to make it more and more moist and he sighs "Oh Dios!" And I'm unable to resist and take him my mouth as deep as I can, still circling the tip with my tongue. I taste a little drop of his white seed and he begins to thrust, groaning, "Do I hurt you?" To show him he doesn't hurt me I move up and down with my mouth on him, his whole smooth skin is totally wet and I almost reach a climax only from doing this and there he comes…His whole body is one shudder and with a deep moan, "Oh mi amor" he jerks several times in my mouth. And I come too because it's a most enjoyable feeling to satisfy him…

His soft moan as he comes arouses me more than I could imagine. He pulls me up to attack my mouth, then lays me gently back on the pillows. I want him on top of me…I want him in me…elsewhere.

I tear at his clothes as he tears at mine. When we are finally freed from them, he lies on top of me, teasing me with his fingers. But it's not his fingers that I want deep inside me.

But he is making me wait. He is enjoying my reaction to his touch. He smiles down on me and starts to kiss me. His fingers are making me wild…I can't stop myself from moaning and thrusting harder and harder against his hand.

Finally he moves his hand and replaces it with his lips. The sensation is too much to bear as he licks and nibbles at my tenderest of spots. I cry out unashamedly--climaxing and grabbing his hair to keep his lips doing their magic.

When the room stops spinning, I see his beautiful face smiling down at me.

"You like that, sí?" he whispers.

"Oh, God, yes," I moan. "More, please?" I have lost all shame and am begging for more from this magic man with the magic hands.

Finally he gives me what I am reduced to begging for. He enters me slowly with his eyes closed savoring the feeling. At first he doesn't move. He is so big that it gives me sensations I never thought possible. Slowly he slips his penis in and out of me and my wild arousal takes off again. But I decide that this time I want to control the pace.

I push him on his back and mount him like the wild stallion that he is. Now it is his turn to moan and thrust wildly. He thrashes his head from side to side but lets me control the pace and penetration. Seeing him helpless under my domination is such a turn on. I don't know how much longer either of us will last.

He decides to take matters into his own hands and grabs me by the waist jamming me down hard over and over again on his erection. When he moves his thumb to my clitoris, it is too much to bear and I come with a squeal just as his climax hits.

Afterwards we lie together on the cushions and he says, "That is your idea of something foolish?" And I say, "No my darling...tonight I have accumulated wisdom beyond telling. I know more now than King Solomon ever did." He strokes my hair, which has lost all its hairpins and is now quite damp. I am wearing only the orchid corsage. He kisses my eyelids. I kiss his. Our lips meet in burning fellowship. Soon the follies are soaked with sweat...

The next day we go to the beach. There is a huge crowd, everyone seems happy. It is like a holiday. Musicians play sambas and rumbas, people dance in the streets, kids play and holler and fight and beg, we give them coins and candies. We buy frivolous little keepsakes. I buy a doll made like Carmen Miranda for the dashboard of my car, that dances when you drive, and colorful woven bracelets. Ché buys me a ruffled blouse in the Brazilian style, brilliantly embroidered, and I model it for him in our hotel room. I dance for him and sing "The lady in the tutti frutti hat" and "Carioca". He smiles at my silliness. But his eyes are sad somehow.

We make love as though we were the ones who invented it. Just outside our window I see a very colorful hummingbird, the like of which we don't have in the States, hovering about the luxuriant hotel garden, and I say, "Do you know the Portuguese word for hummingbird? It's beijaflor--'kiss the flower'. It's almost all the Portuguese I know." With a mischievous smile he says, "The Spanish is picaflor--'pierce the flower.' We are more forceful." And he begins to kiss and pierce, both tender and forceful. At the moment of climax he shouts my name, over and over, then later he calls me by the lovely new name he has given me. And I tell him, simply and sweetly, "I love you." But when I awake next morning, he is gone!

I find a note on the pillow where he lay the night before. It has my name on it in his strange handwriting. My Spanish is not very good but I manage to read what he has written. Every word is a nail driven into my soul.

Mi amor, I must go back now. I love you but my country needs me. Argentina must now and always come first. I left in the night without bidding you farewell because I was afraid you would try to follow me. It is too dangerous for you there. I could never allow it. You have no idea what they could do to a girl like you. So I had to leave you only with a kiss on your sleeping lips. I am so sorry. It hurts me to leave you, sweet one. Our time together was not a mere diversion for me. I have discovered my own soul. Through you I have plumbed the depths and heights of myself and acquired dimension like never before. I have become as a god knowing good and evil. So I thank you, my Beijaflor, for all that, and leave you with the knowledge that I will never forget you. I will treasure the memory of our time together as long as my heart beats....and it beats for you.

But Argentina IS my heart. When I first met you, I thought: I will leave Argentina, I am tired of fighting for her, it is useless. She is like a wife who has been unfaithful, she is no longer worthy, I shall leave her to her fate. But I believe now that I was wrong, and I must win her back, or die trying. I cannot desert her. No matter how I want to stay with you, or take you with me.

You must think of me as a soldier. I was a soldier on leave, and you made me forget my war for a few days and taught me how to smile and dance. But I must go back into battle. I am sorry. Are you familiar with that poem that says, "I could not love thee, dear, so much/Loved I not honor more"? But I will return to you...and our little follies. I do not know when. But someday, when the battles are over, I will come back. I do not expect you to wait. But if you still want me, I will come back. Ché.

After reading it I think my heart stops pounding. I press my face into the pillow where he left his luscious scent, where I could still smell the sweat of our hot lovemaking. My tears run across my cheeks like an ocean while I kiss his words again and again until they become invisible beneath my tears. I press the piece of paper against my heart, lost in thoughts about those wonderful days and nights with him. He had been so passionate but so tender too, so full of love. But yes, every time it was in his mind, I did notice it, a certain little sadness...sorrow. Now I know WHY and I've to admit I'm jealous of Argentina because she pulled my sweet lover away....

The thoughts circle around through my whole wounded soul for hours and hours. I push them back and forward. The good things against the bad things until I come to the conclusion that I do understand him. I do understand the love for his homeland, for the people there. Now I'm determined to find him and tell him I'll fight with him together.

It is months before I am finally able to go to Buenos Aires. And I've no idea how to find him. I do not even know his real name. I have brushed up on my Spanish but it still seems inadequate. I haunt the bars, the dance halls, the hotels. I have only one photograph and it is not a very good one, you can barely see his face in it. People shake their heads when I show it to them:

"Yes, he used to wait tables at El Flamingo, but…"

"I think he got married."

"Last I heard he was at the metal works…"

"Niña, if I see HIM, I may eat him up myself!"

I find a job as a chambermaid in one of the not so fine hotels. My co-workers do not seem to know what to make of me. But they all talk of Eva Peron. I watch her as she speaks from the balcony of the Casa Rosada. I cannot understand all her words but I can see the effect she has on the crowd. She is as glamorous as a movie star and as charismatic. Her voice makes seductive music. I wonder what kind of hold she has over my lover.

I do understand her when she says "I'm Argentina and always will be."

I can see why he watches her so intently. I can hardly take my eyes off her. Perhaps it is the fascination of the bird for the snake, but I am transfixed. At the same time I try to push her away from me. I love her and hate her. She is my queen and my rival. I want to bow to her and I want to push her from her throne.

I love Argentina.

I think of a quotation, from Blake I think, "If a fool would persist in his folly he would become wise." I am becoming wiser by the minute.

I finally tell my story to one of the other chambermaids, Dolores, a lovely girl who loves a sad, romantic story. She comforts me and makes me laugh and we become close friends. She is certain Ché and I will meet again. "It is your destiny," she says. "I know this. This is meant to be."

She goes with me to look for him, very helpful with my bad Spanish. She has a combination of innocence and naughtiness that makes her delightfully childlike, yet she also has a certain style, carrying herself with such a unique grace and poise and twinkle in her eye that I'm a little afraid if Ché ever meets her he'll fall for her instead. I tease her about this, and she looks at me all big eyed saying, "NEVER! You are so more HOT!" We both laugh until tears come to our eyes.

One day I awake to what appears to be a wild celebration in the streets. I look out the window to see a milling crowd and hearing music and shouts and laughter. I sigh and lie back down on my bed. I have no heart for a celebration. I am sadder than I ever believed possible. What an idiot I've been, I tell myself, and it is then I decide to leave. I can't bear it any more. I dress and look around for my suitcase, half blinded with tears, when I hear an urgent tap at my door.

It's Dolores. She is excited, grabbing my hand, saying, "Sweetie, you must come, quickly! He is out there! I saw him!"

She is giggling, helping me to brush my hair, put on my shoes, then we rush out into the throng…oh where is he, where is he…

And now finally I discover him in the distance. He is dancing with a little girl in the water that spurts from a new pipeline. But as he's watching me in the crowd his expression becomes serious and he steps in my direction, with hesitance. I do the same until we meet. Oh he looks so incredible with the wet black hair hanging over his forehead, water drops all over his handsome face catching all the sunlight. I want to kiss each glittering drop.

I kiss Dolores's cheek quickly, then take another little step toward him. We look deep into each other's eyes and I swallow my embarrassment, lower my eyes and whisper, "Please forgive me, Ché. I know you said I shouldn't come but I could not bear to be without you..."

My voice gets lost in the feelings that overwhelm me as I stand close to him again. He takes my hands and very softly kisses my forehead.

"I've missed you too...Beijaflor," he sighs, then bends my head to him and suddenly kisses me very deeply. I clasp him tightly with all my strength, my heart pounding.

"Oh mi amor, I made you totally wet now!" he says with a smile like a string of diamonds. I smile back and I'm sure not only the front of my dress is wet. There is a certain part of my body that is wetter than the dress....

But I reach out to put a wet curl away from his forehead, begging him, "I want to fight together with you for Argentina...."