built up a rhythm, him jackhammering into me, whispering things in English and Spanish, telling me what a good boy I was, how sexy, how I drove him crazy. He pushed hard into me and shot off, howling with ecstasy, and I came again on his wooden desktop.
* * * *
That second orgasm was so hot, I was moaning and thrashing around so much, that I woke myself up. My bedsheets were soaked with cum, and I hoped Larry hadn’t heard me through the walls. Or at least, I hoped he hadn’t heard me crying Walter Loredo’s name.
Sunday Dinner
I slept most of Saturday, though I managed to drag my ass out of bed that night to join Larry and some friends for dinner on Lincoln Road. Most of us were working at our first real jobs, and it was interesting to compare notes.
I won the prize for earliest start—my friends were amazed that I had to be at work at seven. Larry worked the longest hours, because his coworkers had no lives and he was encouraged to hang around the office and play networked games with them after hours.
Larry and I straggled home after one in the morning. Early Sunday afternoon I showered, shaved, and got into my car for the ritual drive to my parents’ house for dinner.
I drove past the retail clutter of Alton Road to the MacArthur Causeway, a six-lane highway that ran through the middle of Biscayne Bay, with the residential islands of the rich and famous sticking off it like lollipops. Each house was more elaborate than the next, with arcaded balconies, terracotta roofs, and huge powerboats docked at the water’s edge.
From there I took the highway until I exited at Coral Way beside a stand of feathery Australian pines and faced the commercial sprawl of the part of Miami where I had grown up, called Westchester. Row after row of small houses that represented a milestone for Cuban immigrants, their first home in the US, a chance to move up from the tiny apartments clustered around Calle Ocho.
My father lived on Calle Ocho when he first arrived in the US in 1980, when Fidel opened the port of Mariel and anybody who wanted to leave and could fit onto a boat could go. He hadn’t known anyone in Miami, so he lived in a tent city under the highway until he found a job. He worked his way up at a machine shop to become foreman, and he and Mami pinched every penny to buy our house when I was six and my sisters were four and two.
My papi’s parents never came to the States, so the only grandparents I had were my mami’s, and once they had reconciled to Mami marrying a Marielito, Abuelo and Abuela were always underfoot, especially at Sunday dinner. Abuelo’s battered old Ford sedan sat at the curb. I parked behind it and walked up the concrete driveway. From inside I could already hear Papi and Abuelo arguing.
Instead of going inside, I walked around to the tiny backyard. My sister Maria del Carmen, Del for short, was sitting in a lawn chair with her six-month-old baby, Fabiola, on her lap. Her husband, Hernan, was standing by the back fence talking on his cell phone.
Del looked a lot like me—narrow face, fine dark hair, slim build. She had a china-doll beauty, accentuated with lots of makeup and false eyelashes. She and Hernan were high school sweethearts, and got married right after they graduated. “ Hola, mi amor ,” I said, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “How’s my beautiful niece?”
“She’s a handful,” Del said. “She doesn’t like something inside, and she’s only quiet when I have her out here.”
I picked up the baby and held her up to my face. She smelled like talcum powder and the musky perfume Del wore. “Hola, niña ,” I said, sticking my tongue out at her. She giggled. I held her up to my shoulder and hugged her.
“You okay?” I asked Del. “You look tired.” Her eyes were puffy, as if she’d been crying or not sleeping.
“Just tired. Work is crazy. We have a new assistant manager who’s running us ragged.” Del worked part-time as a cashier at a Sedano’s
Stephanie Hoffman McManus