Coming Home

1

Todd opened the door to his condo, beams of light from the late setting sun still breaking through the slatted blinds fitted within the openings of the living room windows, their shape softened by pale green drapes. He loved coming home to his place, even if it did echo and remind him that he lived a solitary life.

The complex was set in landscaped grounds, the condo one of eight in an award-winning complex with its geometric roofs and gaudily painted walls, clipped hedges and stunted trees softening the view of the building as visitors and residents, alike, drove up the twisting roadway. The wonderful views over the neighbourhood in Austin, and out into the distance, had been one of the reasons he had chosen to buy the place.

He lived alone now and had done so since Lori had left him over two years ago, his obsessive working routine getting too much for her to continue putting up with. She’d gone and married a friend of his and moved to Dallas, so there were no chances of having to endure an embarrassing meeting when out shopping in the local mall.

Work at Bright-Spark Electronics Inc kept him in the loop. There, his engineering skills were put to constant use in devising new touch-screen technology, solar energy panels, control systems and batteries, along with only too functional electric pump systems.

He turned his hands to anything that stretched his mind, but the result was that he felt wasted most evenings when he came home. It was not a good feeling, at all, for a guy who had yet to turn fifty. That would be in a less than a year. He had money put by and could pick his moment to retire if he decided on it, but then what? The sailing boat, or cruiser, on Lake Travis was scarcely used now that Lori had gone; she with her lightly tanned skin and freckles, her love of sunbathing, when out on the water with him, only too evident on her fulsome figure.

He missed the woman she was, in and out of his bed. He felt no sense of loss for the arguments they had fallen into before the end came. He had tried to meet her half-way on his work routines, but it hadn’t washed. She’d left him, anyway, and occasional date nights, or weekends, had failed to find a woman for him to settle with once more.

Someone, and somehow, his life had to change. Money didn’t buy him happiness. He wanted someone to share what he had worked so damn hard for and continued to do. The question was with whom and how that magic moment could be found.

♠

“Hola, señor Todd?” he heard his housekeeper Alicia call out as she worked in the utility room. “You do the washing! That’s my job, señor!”

It was a Saturday and it had become something of a routine for him to be at home when she called in for a day’s cleaning, clothes washing and even ironing.

Alicia looked at the man as Todd loomed in the doorway. She met his smile. He looked good and strong, his bearded face lending him distinction and matching his closely cropped greying hair.

“I’ve done some,” he said lightly and helping her take the ironing board from a tall corner closet in the small room. It was filled with a freezer that held most of his provisions; vegetables and fish of various types. He rarely ate red meat which, for a Texan, was not what many expected to learn of him. “I live alone now, as you know…so, it’s no big thing.”

“But is less for me to do, señor!” she observed vehemently. “I can not take money for work I do not do…”

“Yes you can, Alicia. I’m not goin’ to argue about it. That’s the way it’s to be. You live alone too…and have your son to still look after.”

She heard the consideration in his ways of talking to her. Alicia nodded. “I…I don’t want to feel that I cheat you…señor, that is all.”

“You sure won’t, and I reckon it’s about time that you called me Todd…drop the señor part. It makes me feel old,” he said in a reassuring voice and on looking at the woman before him. “That’s not what I want to believe when you’re around.”

“You’re not that to me…not like other people I work for. They do nothing to help me…not like you.”

He knew that she thought of herself as a Tejano now. She had earned her right to stay, even as he knew that, from the agency who had first sent her to his door, she had not entered the country illegally. The border wall was still unfinished, and all kinds of no-good people were coming in and ruining it for others who played by the rules. On what she felt about that thorny topic she kept quiet.

“We help each other…say it that way,” he smiled.

“Si, okay, we do that.”

The dusky skinned woman with her long mane of loosely flowing jet-black hair was looked on as a brighter moment in his week. She wore white jeans with a loose-fitting denim shirt, its sleeves rolled up revealing strong arms. She had a chunky watch in a wide leather strap to her wrist and sparkly dangling earrings swaying as she moved purposefully about his place.

Todd watched as she refastened a bandana, with a large brooch at its centre to hold back her hair; how her shirt shaped her as Alicia did that. She moved to plug in the iron and spoke over her shoulder.

“My son Mario does not see his father anymore, so we are alone many times…me most of all…señor…I mean Todd.”

She laughed on correcting herself. Todd saw the brilliance of her wide smile, the brightness in her eyes, when she did that.

“So you work every day?” he now asked, disconcerted by how he had begun to be attracted to her. He moved to again stand in the doorway and to look on at the woman before him. There could not be so many years between them. She wore it well, but he reckoned her arduous ways of earning a living accounted for that. He liked her tended voluptuousness, felt uncommonly grateful that she kept her figure ad didn’t look like some women who stretched their jeans or slacks to breaking point. It wasn’t a something you went and talked about, was it?.

“Every day except Sunday. If I don’t do that then I lose money and I cannot do that…for my sake, but most of all Mario’s. I do it because I do not know when it will end…or how.”

“Why should it do that?” he asked, talking to her as she ironed expertly and quickly. Alicia moved closer to grab at the hangers that he always placed on a hook, under a bookshelf, whenever he changed a shirt for work and put it, and other dirty clothes, in the laundry room. “Why should your work end, Alicia? I don’t have to be here, yet I know you will do what is necessary to keep my home clean…and my clothes ironed.” He grinned at her. “You sure do it better than me…”

“At least you try to help, Todd”, she smiled at him in response to his compliment and to his expression of trust in her. “I am not young Todd…people want younger ones around them now. They also think they will be cheaper…barato,” she finished in her native tongue and with some feeling. “It is what some of the politicians want…more people…more competition for the work there is and that I do.”

“Don’t you go worrying about all that, Alicia,” he confided, seeking to reassure her. “I’m not one of those…so you can work for me as long as you like. I sure want that you know?”

“I would like that very much, señor,” she said and then gasped on a captivating laugh that had him look at her intently. “I go proper again…” Alicia gathered up the ironing in her arms and waited for him to make way for her. The man was taller than she was, dressed casually and it was obvious that he wanted to talk more than usual. “Is there something you want to say, Todd?”

He nodded, provoked into clearing his mind on something that had pre-occupied him for some days. He looked almost shyly at her.

“It sounds goin’ to sound crazy, I know, after all the time you’ve worked for me and I’ve lived alone here in this place, but…I have a boat up on Lake Travis that I don’t use as much as I used to. I…I wondered if you’d like to spend a day on it with me…bring your son if you want…if he wants to do that?”

“Señor…Todd!” she gasped in obvious dismay. ‘It is not done…’

“In this I really don’t care that you work for me here.” He said the rest in flawless Spanish. “We both live alone, so what’s to stop us? I will be proper…you could bring your son along…so he that could meet me if that concerned you. We talk a lot, in English,” he laughed, “but that would change if you said ‘yes’. I would like your company. The boat’s no good for me when I’m on my own…”

Alicia looked back at the man in amazement. “I like it that you treat me differently…with respect, and not like some of the other people I work for. I will need to think about it…talk to Manuel. He is very protective of me…el me protégé… he would say.”

“I understand that…”

“Sorry, Todd…but I like it that you ask me.” Alicia smiled softly at him. Without thinking, they slipped easily in and out of using Spanish to talk to each other.

Todd followed her to the door of his dressing room that was set to one side of the large bedroom with an enormous bed placed at its centre, and that he slept in alone. He chose not to follow further but to keep on talking and thought quickly, not intending to let it go.

“I have another idea…”

“Si? And what is that?” she smiled onlooking round the corner at him. Todd saw the light in her hair from the window beyond. He saw how it fell onto her shoulders. He was captivated by her wondering smile all over again. It seemed that he stood at the edge of a bridge he had dared not to cross until now.

Another idea had come to mind and informed by the sudden realisation that her son would wonder about him if it was to be a first ‘date’ between them. “There’s no sense in having Manuel wonder about us. So, until we’re sure we want to meet we do that on our own. I’ll cook you lunch…and we share that when you’re finished?” He waited. “You do some work…and I do the cooking. It’s a trade…we share the duties.”

“I do it! Yes…I do it, Todd! Thank you…'” she said on touching his arm. When he drew close she chose to confess what was now on her mind. “Eres una sorpresa para mi, Todd…maravilloso.”

He slowly reached out to touch her face. “As you are to me…Alicia. I want your company…I may as well tell you that.”

 

2

They became more adventurous and dated; they went to Latina art shows or sampled Mexican cuisine in low key eateries. They gossiped and joked in Spanish and Alicia felt that she was being taken into another world entirely; into a life so different from all that she lived by and could afford and that Todd by his actions and attentiveness wished to take her away from. To know that was her comfort; where she knew its boundaries.

“Let go,” he had kissed her on parting during their last date. “Believe you can let go and do that with me…”

“My life is here now and nowhere else, you mean?”

“Yes, Alicia…it’s exactly that. No one can take it away from you…no one.”

Manuel, she had heard from him, understood and made no issue of it; that an American was in her life if not yet in her bed. Her son had his American girlfriend, and nothing was going to hold him back in getting the education he deserved, and that she strived to help him with. Todd was a part of that…and she was losing her grip on what she felt for him. The man gave her time and space to believe that they would become lovers, when she thought it to be the right time, and her bond with him as solid as she could make it. Her religious upbringing, and the words of her mother, still resonated…old fashioned as that was now.

The day came when Todd was to take her to Lake Travis and his sail yacht. She arrived at his apartment as normal, on a Saturday, but there was no work to be done. He forbade it.

“We’ve gone way past those ways. Alicia,” Todd told her when she had stepped inside, and he had closed the door. She fell into his arms and met Todd’s kisses of welcome. “You look beautiful…”

“And you want me…” she affirmed with a stilled look of her dark eyes upon him. Her man wore a short sleeve denim shirt and white slacks; his large feet shoved into battered canvas beach shoes. His hair had been trimmed short and his white beard clipped. Todd’s wondering look never left her.

A sleeveless shift dress, in a boho print, flattered her figure and revealed Alicia’s toned legs, her hair again kept neat by a thin bandana and her wrists festooned with shiny bracelets and beaded wrist bands. She had let go of any remaining restraint in wanting Todd to see her for the woman she felt herself to be once more; passionate and uninhibited when in his company, alone.

“!Dame un beso…otra vez,” he grinned before Alicia kissed him. “My secret’s out…”

Alicia held onto his hand as they walked into the vastness of his living room. “Is there time?”

“No…I want you to help me carry a lunchbox down to the car. I’ll bring everything else that we’ll need…”

“And here I was thinking it was my day off,” she answered him on a playful slap of her hand to his arm. Alicia still did as he asked of her, but it was an act of sharing in the work now, and in that lay the difference from former times.

♠

The forested slopes and rocky crags that lined the lakeshore passed them on the starboard side; the Bermudan rigged boat’s sails taut in the stiff breeze. Todd soon sensed that once they had slipped their moorings, in the marina, that Alicia was experiencing something quite new. She stayed close to his side, her dress pressed against her body by the breeze and inflaming his senses.

“Come, sit by me?” he said in assurance, “I’ll show you how to steer so that I can change the sail trim when we have to do that…”

“Can’t we go on the engine?” she asked, flicking him a nervy look as he drew her close, his hairy leg brushing against her smooth thigh. Todd now wore a pair of frayed denim shorts and a singlet; his feet bare. Life jackets were close at hand; the heel on the yacht not so great that he felt it wise for them to put them on.

“Look at the tell tales on the stays…the wires that hold the mast,” he said pointing to them. “Keep them stretched out the way they are now and you’ll know that you’re on the right course to the wind direction…”

“And if I’m not?” she asked, her grip on his hand as they held the tiller, tight and unrelenting. She squealed as he brought the yacht almost into wind.

“The sails flap…like they are now.” Todd said looking across the narrow space between them. His fingers brushed her face. “Away with those…don’t be frightened. Nothing’s goin’ to happen….”

Todd steered again until the yacht leaned over, and they resumed their course to a cove where he said they would anchor and have lunch.

“Keep holding my arm…I want you to learn how it goes. Soon, I’ll want you to do it on your own…when we get to that bay. Now, ease off the helm a bit…” He met her nervy smile; Alicia scarcely noticed that he was no longer applying pressure to the tiller arm.

“Todd!” she laughed out as he moved out of her reach.

“Go on…live a little!”

“I am you wonderful man!” She watched as Todd stripped off his singlet. The man was strong; his body nicely toned. She shivered. He was all man with that hairy chest and belly; a man she’d thought of and when she would give of herself to him. “Don’t fall in!” she yelled as he moved over the cabin coaming and began to lower the mainsail.

“Keep her pointing as she is now!” he called out to her. He smiled to acknowledge her appraising look upon him. Todd soon made his way back and slumped down on the seat beside her. “I’ll start the engine…”

“Phew! Thank God for that!”

“You did fine,” he smiled over his shoulder as he felt her caress to the skin of his back. Even as he said it the wind gusted, and he felt the first drops of rain. He looked up and felt the large droplets break on his face and body and saw their lazy fall from the black clouds above them. He moved to let go of the sheets of the foresail and it soon flapped in the gusty wind. “Steer straight…go for that orange buoy…straight there…on the bow…to your front!” he corrected as Alicia looked at him uncertainly. Todd had throttled back then stopped the engine to idle before grabbing a boat hook.

“Todd?” she called out, standing up and the tiller still gripped in her hand.

“Yeah?” he was seen to grin. He had taken in the look of her, his dusky woman with that colourful dress getting wet and shaping her, leaving nothing to his imagination any more. He blew her a kiss and then reached out with the boat hook to grasp the mooring ring on top of the buoy. “Throttle back…pull the silver lever back for a moment! Do it now!”

She did as he asked, pushed the throttle lever back to neutral when she saw that they had slowed to a stop. Her man leant over the bows and was seen to thread the mooring rope through the ring and play out some rope before tying it securely on the deck cleat by his feet.

The boat bobbed as he ran heavily back over the cabin roof to join her.

“Dos marineros! I’m not alone anymore…” he laughed and meeting her stilled look on him. “What?”

“Neither am I…we’re two people…somos juntos…together.” Alicia squirmed in his embrace and soon met Todd’s kisses before she held his head to the swell of her breasts, outlined so starkly through the wet fabric of her dress. “I’ve waited long enough to know the man I am with…”

She saw Todd nod and met te slow touch of his fingers to her face. He pressed them to her lips for an instant.

“In the cabin…this is only a shower. We’ll love through it…won’t we?”

She nodded through his renewed kisses and felt the caress of his fingers as he reached under the hem of her dress and touched her. She pressed forward to meet them; held his head to her body, then bent forward to kiss his upturned face as she saw the look of recognition, and longing for her, in his eyes.

“I want you too…querido.”

♠

Alicia felt his hands on her hips as Todd guided her down the few narrow steps and into the cool confines of the cabin. He saw the tumble of her breasts as she had to lean forward under the hatch coaming.

“At last…together like this, at last,” he said embracing her.

Lustfully, Todd pressed his lips to her mouth and sought the fastening of her dress; tugged it down and unclipped her bra; felt her hands brush his skin as she drew the sodden garment over her head, unable to delay his questing touches and kisses to her skin and to the tumble of her breasts. He sat down on one of the benches in the cabin and she stood over him, between Todd’s outstretched legs. He just looked and touched in his admiration for what she brought.

“You wonder…you wonder,” he kissed as she drew his head to her body. Alicia encouraged him as his lips tugged on her nipples and kissed her belly, his fingers offering questing caresses to where she ached for him to be. His tongue licked her skin, wet from the rain, passed over her throat and neck, Alicia’s shoulders and arms as she sought to restrain him and offer her own touches to his erect flesh that she felt press against her belly. He had stood up, his bowed.

“Where do we go, Todd…oh, where…where?” she asked through their kisses. Alicia tugged at the button fastening of his shorts; felt him shudder as her hands found him and drew his straining penis free of his briefs; felt him push them down his legs as she sought him; cupped his sac and smoothed her hands over what he sought to bring to her.

She snorted through his kisses as Todd lifted her onto the bunk and resumed in his wild kissing of her; pushed her fleshy thighs apart and bent to press his tongue to her cleft; to finger her and to feel the gush of moisture that thoughts of them together, and now his touches, had aroused.

“Ven…ven…jodemos!” she urged in words he never thought to hear pass her lips.

His fingers started to push against her g-spot while his palm rubbed parted flesh. Alicia shuddered with lust; she had forgotten the chill of the wind and rain; grabbed for his straining prick and soon felt the swell of the veins along its length and the smooth tip as she caressed him.

“Ven…ven mi amante!” she groaned against his lips.

“I’ve waited so long, Alicia darling…maybe we should wait a moment longer?”

Her cries of longing and desperation filled the darkened space as he took to her once more. She tugged on his hair then pushed down the hard surface of the upholstered bench to meet his stare upon her.

“No Todd…no! We both know that you need this as much as I do!”

Todd silenced her with his kisses and moving her legs up he entered her body in one long sinuous movement of his hips; one fierce plunge of his prick deep into her body.

“Ai Alicia! I nearly came just then,” he breathed huskily in her ear. “You are so warm and wet against me…”

“And your heat, Todd! Your heat after the cold and rain…now.” She embraced him; put her arms and legs about his body and simply claimed him and all that he brought to her so tempestuously. She ached to discover so much with him now. “Love me…love me…do that, please?”

Todd felt her clamp on his length and moved to claim him and bring herself on. He began thrusting with hard, long strokes. With every thrust he saw her breasts shake and tumble to each side; he heard her moan as he clenched her nipples between his lips, in turn and felt her movements coax him to go deeper until their hips crashed against each other’s body.

Alicia reached between their bodies to touch herself and caress what he brought into her.

‘Ai…mi querido!” she shrieked as her orgasm began to build and as Todd frantically sought to keep up with her, matched his pace with Alicia’s gasps and moans. “Todd! Oh…Todd! Sorry…I’m sorry my lover!”

Her muscles tightened around his plunging prick and she tugged on him, sought to keep up with the pace of his movements and gasped as his hands gripped her breasts as if he would tear them from her body.

“Alicia! I’m going to come!” he exclaimed.

On loud moans and the shudder of their bodies they shared in the rushes of their orgasm and release. They discovered the joy of finally consummating what they had each sought to share, but propriety had persuaded them to delay in seeking of the other.

They languished in their embrace and felt the boat rise and fall as a motorboat passed them at some speed. Alicia moved to rest on him. She could just make out his features in the gloom of the cabin. It seemed that the clouds drifting overhead would soon part and the sun would help them dry their sodden clothes. She restrained him from easing away and checking on things up on deck.

Alicia moved to press her mouth close to his and share in each other’s breaths and body heat.

“Thank you for not trying to rush things, Todd…I respect you for that. I love you even more, now that I have been with you like this.”

Todd cupped her face in his large hands.

“Alicia, listen? I know that there’s much to think about…and you have Manuel to consider. I’ll leave it up to you when you want to escalate our relationship, but I want it to be so different. Don’t come to the apartment and clean. Live there…be with me there…do that every day and night. I’ll be ready any time.”

She clung to him fiercely and placed kisses to his face and lips. She gave him a wobbly smile. “You are a good man, Todd.”

“I want it to be more than that…just being good for you.”

Alicia rose to look into his eyes; pressed her body to him and again kissed deeply. “You…you want me to marry you?”

“Is it such a crazy idea? You’re alone…you sure know that I am and have been, for two years or more. We are good together. I speak your language and can relate with Manuel, over time, if he wanted it to be that way. The condo’s too big for me on my own and all I do is work…make money…work some more. I want more from life and want to share it with you.”

“What else, querido?” she asked, brushing her fingers over his parted lips. So much in her life was l falling back into place after the tumult of gaining access to the country and after her marriage had failed. She felt his knees press between her thighs and felt him hard against her belly once more, his fingers soon finding her.

“You’re still young enough to…”

“To have kids?” she gasped. Alicia pressed her cheek against his face so that he would not see her tears. “You are a wonderful, crazy man. You want that and with me?”

“With no one else. You’ve been in my life long enough for me to know what I want from it…and of you.”

“And I of you…”

“So, what do you say?”

“So, the answer’s yes…yes…yes!”

She knew this man could soon be the father of her children and would give her the life she had sought when she had crossed the border, papers in hand and work to go to. She would love and be loved by this man. She would be wealthy and feel pleasured. Todd would work out the details and that she would be taken care of if anything were to happen to him, but that she would be unable to take him for all he had in other situations, were they to arise. She felt confident that they would not. She wasn’t made that way, just as she had never encouraged any ideas in others that she worked for, the men in those households, that they could take her for what they wanted and nothing else. She had her pride; and she had her son, Manuel.

There would be two men in her life again; each having a special place in her heart.

She decided she could live with all of that and would feel that she had finally come home. Her struggles had been worth the wait; the man to really find her again a blessing.

“Love me, Todd, like never before…don’t stop! Do that now and forever!”

He did, and Todd knew then that he would continue to do so. Like her, he felt that he was really coming home again.