Paradise Gained

Over the years, my husband and I have experienced sexual quirks I suppose you could call them. I imagine most couples have to one degree or another. We confessed and discussed most of them including three infidelities (one on my part and two on his) and love each other more because of our frailties. One indiscretion, however, is known to me alone. Given the time that's passed and the nature of my behavior, it will likely remain that way.

Rarely these days do my thoughts take that long, two-and-a-half decade journey back to that magical week on Bali. I'm not proud of my solitary, undisclosed betrayal but, in truth, just thinking about what happened can still bring me a pleasure unlike any other.

Our marriage was in the glow of its honeymoon then. I was a blue-eyed, pretty-faced, long legged Canadian whose hair was more naturally blonde and, as now, crazy in love with my husband Jeremy. At the time I was still accepting overseas assignments but our desire to start a family meant the trip to Jakarta would be my last. My husband would join me for a week at the conclusion of the assignment where conception would, perhaps, occur. Unfortunately, his work interfered at the last minute and baby-making coitus was put on hold.

The animus I directed at my husband for spoiling our idyllic plans was admittedly immature but the result had me spending that week, our week, on my own in paradise. Despite my disappointment with Jeremy's choice, I looked forward to a week of topless sunbathing and intoxicating drinks.

~ * ~

I fell in with a group of ex-pats I met at the hotel on Bali, mostly single and mostly European, with a sprinkling of Aussies, Americans and other Canadians. We all headed to the beach together.

"Where's Blaine?" one of the girls asked as soon as our troupe deposited its beach apparel and apparatus on the sand.

"I thought he left last week," someone said.

"He told me he's been extended a week," one of the German guys reported, "but that just meant he had to work extra shifts to get the work done. That is why he has not been around, but he did say he would be here today."

While others debated the location of an erstwhile companion I'd yet to meet, my ears perked up at the enthusiasm being exhibited.

Forget where, who's Blaine?

I wondered silently.

"Great!" a Swedish wife bubbled. "Janey, have you met Blaine yet? He'll absolutely love you!" My name is Jane and everyone calls me that, but this group had re-christened me with the added "y" and its accompanying syllable at the start of the week and it stuck.

I didn't ponder why someone I didn't know would "absolutely love" me because my mind immediately began forming a mental picture of the absent Blaine in whose welfare everyone seemed so concerned: handsome, mid-twenties, Swiss or German, probably less than six feet tall, blonde mane, unruly but perfectly suited to his personality, fit, bronzed, excellent posture, impossible-not-to-notice angular jaw, offset by soft lips and smile, and blue eyes as deep and disarming as the azure sea lapping against the beach twenty strides from where we now congregated.

"Why are you girls always so interested in what Blaine is doing anyway?" the French guy asked, but his grin indicated his question had been rhetorical. In addition to an answer being unnecessary (except for me), there was no time for one as the blonde Australian let out an ear piercing shriek.

"Blaine!!" she yelled (rhyming his name with wine) and my head snapped around to follow the direction of her eyes and then her sprinting feet. She quickly reached the young man that had been the entire focus of the conversation to that point and embraced him warmly.

Her naked breasts mashed against his abdomen and, even on tiptoe, she needed to crane her neck to offer a kiss. Just as her lips might meet his, he moved his face aligning her mouth with his cheek instead. I couldn't tell if it was done deliberately or accidentally. What was clear was that, after the initial contact, Blaine didn't move his lips back to establish the greater intimacy she clearly sought.

Blaine was nothing like I had imagined moments earlier. In the two most immediately visible ways, he was as direct an opposite as was possible. His hair wasn't blonde and unruly; it simply wasn't. And his skin wasn't bronzed by the sun; it was black by birth. Coal black. Black as night. Black as soot. Black as the ace of spades.

I stared at the young man whose body oozed sexuality and commanded attention. I felt myself both softening and stiffening. My insides turned slick and flowing while my nipples became so rigid I briefly worried they might bleed if touched. I was embarrassed by my obvious physical reaction but was also strangely proud as well.

In truth, I recognized the black youth as someone I'd already seen on the island. I was headed out to dinner alone. The restaurant was first class and I was dressed more formally than at anytime since my project had begun to wind down.

I could hear the click of my stiletto heels echoing against the pavement as I walked. I liked the shoes because they promoted a natural wiggle in my bottom that made me feel sexy. I felt good because the micro dress and tall heels I wore drew attention to my legs, my best feature.

It was impossible not to notice the young man I would come to know as Blaine as he approached. His handsome blackness took my breath away. He was easily a head taller than anyone else in the crowded street. The narrowness of his waist and hips emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and musculature of his bare forearms.

He was wearing long pants and long, albeit rolled up, shirt sleeves. The loose fitting clothes billowed in the evening breezes. The cloth was so thin the darkness of his skin bled through. Even though his pants weren't designed to reveal, the wind pushed the fabric in ways that displayed Blaine more fully than he may have intended.

I could see that Blaine noticed me too. I exaggerated my walk to show a suppleness of form. Pretending to window shop, Blaine made a quarter turn as I walked by. He turned again when I was past him and I could tell by the faces of the women approaching that he watched me continue down the sidewalk.

I was pleased that his eyes had followed me and wondered if we shared the same thought. 'I wish he were coming with me,' I told myself as we both continued our separate ways.

Despite any regret I felt at that missed opportunity, on the beach with Blaine that afternoon, I seemed determined to let a second chance pass me by as well. While the others chatted and laughed animatedly, I withdrew into a protective shell. Perhaps it was the strength of the magnetism pulling at me that had me scared. Forces that strong usually require hazard labels.

Blaine, too, seemed content to ignore whatever had flickered briefly between us. Was his indifference the result of the aloofness I often project? I wasn't accustomed to male rejection, just the opposite in fact, and could leave the impression I was too good for them.

With Blaine I felt strangely different, bewildered. I was a respected member-in-good-standing of the staid community of scientists. I didn't deal well with the unexplained. I didn't know what to make of the young black man that was causing me such confusion. Yet my attraction was real. And it had been immediate, the most dangerous kind.

So, while the guys tossed a Frisbee and romped in the surf, I sunned topless with the other girls. I learned that Blaine was only twenty-one but already a university graduate. He was in the middle of a two-year hiatus in his education, experiencing the world and saving money for law school by working as an international auditor.

Occasionally, the other women would venture out to sea where they would join the game of catch or clamber aboard strong young shoulders and try to unseat one another in a game that used to be called "cock fighting" back in the community swimming pools of my youth. I felt a hot flash of jealousy as it rushed up my neck and face when I saw the dark-haired French girl's thighs straddling Blaine's thick neck.

Another couple was flailing harmlessly away at the "undefeated" mahogany Blaine and creamy Camilla when a finger caught in the string securing her bikini bottom. It became untied. The barely-a-garment-anyway separated at her right hip at the very moment he lurched one way and she the other.

It all happed in a split second but to me it unfolded in the slowest of motions. Camilla's bikini bottom came apart as her hips swung left and Blaine's face jerked right. That picture, that moment in time became frozen in my consciousness. His puffy lips pressed against her bald, pale pubis two full inches below her perfect tan line.

Camilla squirmed awkwardly as she tried to reclaim a greater degree of personal decorum than her current dishelvement permitted. Consequences of the unintended variety flipped the struggling Frenchwoman off Blaine's shoulders and onto her back in the shallow water. Flailing legs had dislodged the bikini bottom and it settled around one knee as she lay, pretty gash grinning at the world, in the water laughing.

Sexual emotions became too heated for me and I was already packing up when the group staggered wetly up from the water's edge. It had become all too obvious Blaine wasn't thinking of me in the same way I had been thinking of him, a way that made me wetter than any of those that stood dripping salt water onto their towels.

"Are you coming tonight Janey?" they asked as they too gathered their belongings. I shook my head. There hadn't been any specific plans but there was always something happening with a loosely knit group of strangers on holiday. I was about five years older than most of them (and nine older than Blaine). Suddenly I felt as if a generational shift had taken place and I no longer belonged. I couldn't face a night of flirtations that wouldn't extend to me.

"Are you sure?" they asked sincerely, but I declined a second time.

I couldn't shake an annoyance rooted in Blaine's indifference. His indifference and my annoyance made me absurdly horny. All I wanted to do was rush back to my room, raid the mini-bar, and shove the first thing I could find that would fit up my searing snatch while gulping liquor straight. While I wanted to dash off immediately, I waited for the others to cover their tits and we all walked back to the hotel together.

What happened next was completely unexpected. In front of everyone, Blaine asked if I'd like to go sightseeing the following day. Just the two of us. My heart jumped but I demurred for what seemed like a proper amount of time, hoping he'd expend a worthy amount of effort at seducing me and was frankly disappointed when none was forthcoming.

Why would he remaine silent and risk losing me yet again? I was married, not exactly the easiest score on the beach. Yet he was acting like my true answer had been a foregone conclusion even before the question was asked. My coquettish ruse had been exposed. Could Blaine be that perspicacious? Was that how women in general reacted to him? Like he were the catch and it was up to them to make the play? If so, it was about to be reinforced.

"What would we do?" I asked, finally restarting the conversation, pissed that I had wanted to be pursued since the first moment I'd seen him and now was having to chauffer him to my own defilement, humiliated that the others had witnessed my desperation.

"Look at stuff."

Look at stuff?!?!? It was the worst pick up line I'd ever heard. How did a kid this devoid of communication skills graduate from college? What learning had he needed to demonstrate? That he could stack a pile of blocks so high? Identify barnyard animals by their sounds? What law was he going to study? Murphy's?

Still angry at my husband's unexcused absence, I felt I had to accept the date for justifiable retribution purposes alone. That's what I told myself because I didn't want to admit that I was going off with someone primarily because of his looks and sexual magnetism. My current fury at Blaine notwithstanding, an assignation was arranged.

I awoke the next morning even hornier than I'd gone to bed. That despite the rapid and repeated invasions and withdraws I'd mounted against my combusting pleasure chamber using every pseudo- and quasi-phallus contained in my luggage. Sometimes I concentrated on a single object and a single location. Other times I urgently multitasked.

By the time Blaine rang my room for our "date" I had showered, slid on my sexiest sandals, and pulled my hair into a ponytail. "There," I said aloud to the woman admiring her nakedness in a full length mirror, "Blaine should appreciate this!"

What I realized as peculiar was that I had barely given my husband a thought in almost twenty-four hours. My date with Blaine was to be Jeremy's loss for being a shit and canceling plans made months before. But Jeremy couldn't be bothered. His work was too important to be put on hold for even a single week. "Well fuck him," I said to the cute woman speaking to me from the mirror. "Fuck Jeremy and the horse he didn't ride in on."

I continued critiquing/admiring my reflection as I tugged on the briefest, sheerest pair of panties I owned, bought specifically for my husband's enjoyment. I smoothed the front and could both feel and see the small, trimmed trapezoid of pubic hair and wondered if Blaine's hand would somehow find its way to the place my fingers now caressed. Would I want that?

I floated a tiny, nearly translucent sundress, almost as thin as the panties now dampening from the fervent kisses of my moist nether lips, over my upheld arms and down my torso. I'd bought the dress for Bali. What had seemed like a reasonably scandalous skirt length when it was to be worn for my husband, became streetwalkerishly short as I imagined myself strolling with Blaine. Surely he'd think I was throwing myself at him. Was I?

In the mirror, I could see shadows of my features beneath the dress that outlined my body. 'It's nothing Blaine hasn't already seen,' I reasoned, thinking of how I'd already displayed myself to him at the beach the prior day. With a deep sigh and nervous smile, I walked out of the hotel into the brilliant morning sun.

"Over here!" Blaine waved. He was sitting astride a motor bike.

"W-what's this?" I mumbled, excited about the prospect of snuggling against Blaine on the one hand, and daunted by the immodesties of mounting and dismounting a mode of transportation I hadn't employed since...Bermuda probably.

"A friend lent it to me. Isn't it great?!" Blaine enthused.

"How am I supposed to get on?" I asked, flapping my short skirt in flirtatious provocation.

Yes, I possessed sufficient bravado to employ brevity of wardrobe to entice a young black man whose fancy I currently sought in private where just the two of us would know. The question was could I also, in full view of everyone milling about the hotel entrance, arc my leg over the seat of that minimal vehicle and display what was between my legs covered only by something that resembled a film of breathable cellophane?

"Oh come on, Janey," Blaine challenged impatiently. "Don't be a prude. Just put your leg over. It'll be just like the beach. Here, I'll help," he offered, extending a hand, not to mine but to my leg, going so far as to brush his palm against the soft skin of my bare, inner thigh.

But this wasn't like the beach at all. The bikini bottom I'd worn then was meant to be seen, and it was a much more a substantial guardian of my virtue than the gossamer garment barely concealed by the most insubstantial dress I'd ever owned. No, it wasn't like the beach at all. Not even my bared breasts exposed to all on that sandy venue made me feel as naked as I did when Blaine's hand slid slowly up my leg on that Balinese boulevard. I became his then and we both knew it. Still, I attempted a protest.

"Why are you doing this to me?" I asked, trying to hold Blaine's gaze as the back of his hand pushed into my crotch. I felt my eyelids flutter then close. I'm sure he heard me moan, felt me shudder, and saw my teeth close on my lower lip.

"What am I doing?" came the most disingenuous question ever posited.

"Taking me," I heard myself reply.

"Because you're pretty." The vibrations of Blaine's deep voice penetrated all the way to the core of my clitoris. "Because I can," he continued in a whisper as soft as the secret no one had ever dared think about me was deep. I yearned to be taken. Just once I wanted to be commanded so powerfully resistance would not be an option.

I pushed against the hand beneath my dress and arced my leg over the motorbike exposing my most intimate channel to anyone who happened to be looking. As I settled onto the seat Blaine brushed the back of his hand against my face, transferring the dampness, my dampness, to my cheek.

"What's here?" I asked with trepidation when our first stop was a building where young women dance for men. Surely I wasn't being sold into white slavery, was I?

"You are dressed inappropriately," he answered as he held the door open for me.

I wore exactly three items of apparel: a pair of panties (which I counted as one item despite its denotation); a dress; and a pair of sandals (again identified as a single item for counting purposes). What precisely wasn't appropriate I wondered but Blaine didn't explain. Inside the shop was a variety of products, all of a sexual nature. I caught glimpses of Asian women behind beaded curtains who made me look over dressed.

We walked past displays of pictures and posters of naked people engaged in every manner of provocative activity and of intrusive devices and suggestive clothing used in those activities. We stopped at a table holding undergarments even filmier than the one I wore.

Thongs had yet to gain widespread acceptance but g-strings had been used as part of the sexual exhibition trade for decades. I could see the women entering into and exiting from private rooms wearing the same skimpy, transparent, products arrayed before us. Selecting one, Blaine hooked the string of white that would soon be nestled between my buttocks over his little finger and led me into a changing room.

Once inside, Blaine placed the garment on a hook and reached up under my dress. Amazingly, I offered neither verbal not physical resistance as I felt my panties being lowered. Quite the opposite in fact. I actively assisted by placing my hand on his shoulder to steady my balance as I raised first one foot and then the other so that one pair of skimpy panties could be removed and another even skimpier pair slipped on.

Despite the oppressive Indonesian heat and humidity, goose bumps dotted my flesh and I shivered uncontrollably as a black young man slid the briefest, sheerest item of clothing I'd ever seen up my thighs and over my hips. I widened my stance at his urging. I waited, tingling all over, as my buttocks were pried apart and the equivalent of a shoelace was carefully placed in my posterial fissure and centered atop my sphincter.

My nostrils flared and my nipples felt as if they would explode as Blaine pressed the thong filament between my labia then dragged it gently back and forth to seat it in my sloppy channel. I opened my eyes when I felt my dress lowered into its more customary position. I followed Blaine as he led me to the front of the store. The last thing I saw as we exited the dressing room were the panties I'd bought to excite my husband drop from Blaine's fingers and float lazily into the refuse bin.

Pointing to a pair of scissors next to the cash register, Blaine held out his hand and an Oriental woman of indeterminate age handed them to him. He lifted the hem of my dress and grabbed the price tag still affixed to the panties. I felt the cold steel against my skin as the tag was cut free. Blaine handed me the tag and the small purse I'd entrusted to him in front of the hotel and left the store.