Chapter Nine

“They’ve extended your contract? How much longer?” Clarita held the phone between shoulder and ear, draping her coat across the back of a chair. “Another week? I will miss you, corazón, but I understand.”

The call ended too soon. As an offshore worker, Mateo labored for back-breaking hours and could only use his cell phone during between shifts. They were fortunate to have service at all. Only a few oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico had signal boosters; most relied on satellite communication or spotty wi-fi to maintain contact with the mainland.

She sighed. Her husband was a good man who slaved endlessly to provide for his family, but she missed his presence dearly. Sleeping alone in their marital bed for weeks at a time was not the dream she had envisioned upon immigrating to the United States.

They hadn’t been blind to the hardships laid out before them when making that life-changing decision. The journey had been expensive, and the visas were costly, but in the end, they had made it as legitimate green card holders, prepared to do whatever it took to build a new life as a family.

Sweat and sacrifice paid for the humble tract house in a low-income suburb of Madison. A neatly kept plaster and tile construction that abutted the neighbors on both sides. Clarita could extend her arm out a window and touch the untreated timber fence that divided them, and the backyard was barely a strip of dying weeds with a small herb garden cultivated against the rear wall.

She was proud of the home regardless. She and Mateo had earned it together. Endless hours at the aged care facility as a nursing assistant kept her away more than she would have liked, so she could only imagine her husband’s frustration at his prolonged absences.

She prayed nightly for his safe return.

The soft beats of lofi music hummed down the hallway leading to the bedrooms. Clarita smiled fondly at the familiar sound; her precious Carlos was home and studying diligently as always. He was growing into a fine young man–earnest and hardworking–inheriting his father’s tall, swarthy frame and charming smile with her dark hair and piercing hazel eyes.

As a mother, she knew she was biased but didn’t miss assessing glances the local chikas sent his way.

Gracias a Dios, her son wasn’t like the other skirt chasers swaggering around the streets like adolescent peacocks, Clarita thought, stepping out of her white flats and wiggling her toes. He was going to get a proper college education and make something of himself. The Burgos family name wouldn’t be remanded to the ranks of those struggling from paycheck to paycheck forever.

They would be more than another overlooked statistic in the soul-grinding system of bureaucracy.

Wandering into the kitchen on stockinged feet, she stretched and groaned as several tired muscles protested in complaint. Her stomach growled too. The corporate-run care facility kitchen charged staff and residents alike for meals, an expense Clarita couldn’t justify on a strict budget.

Home cooking was simply more frugal.

Opening the refrigerator, she spotted her lunch, forgotten in the pre-dawn rush to catch the early bus—a brown paper bag with grease stains at the bottom. The quesitos would be fine after a minute in the toaster oven, something to tide her over until she prepared a hearty dinner of asopao de pollo.

Setting the bag aside, she checked to ensure she had the ingredients. Chicken thighs, celery, corn, onion, and peppers were all there. Clarita was hunting for the cilantro when a small styrofoam container stuffed in the back caught her attention.

With a delighted smile, she straightened and inspected the contents. Six fancy little egg tarts sparkled up at her.

Her Carlos was such a considerate boy. Bringing home little treats like these when he could, swearing they didn’t match her empanadas in taste and sharing them with his aging mother.

“Oh, my sweet Cariño.”

The baby cannoli last week had been lovely, crunchy pastry powdered with sugar and filled with creamy ricotta. These quiches shimmered expensively with confectioner’s gold, and Clarita’s stomach grumbled.

Popping one between her lips, she chewed, then moaned in pleasure. The delicate flavor was divine, even if the crust was a bit stale. Dumping the bag of quesitos back on the bottom shelf, she turned her thoughts to a relaxing shower before dinner.

And maybe another tiny quiche to quell her hunger. They were incredibly moreish.

Clarita frowned at her naked self in the bathroom mirror as she waited for the shower to warm.

She hated to waste water, but the pilot light in their dinky gas heater had a bad habit of extinguishing itself without warning, and an unexpectedly cold shower wasn’t pleasant at the end of an arduous day.

Shaking out her strict bun of raven hair, Clarita tried to ignore the hints of gray as she combed out the tangles with her fingers. They seemed premature. Too distinguished for a woman in only her fourth decade. But life would take its due, and at least she didn’t have the extra padding many others gained in the inevitable march toward their more venerable years.

Twelve-hour days of lifting, fetching, and pushing around the senile in uncooperative wheelchairs was better than any gym membership. Not eating as well as she could also contributed to maintaining her lean, sinewy figure. Stress, too, possibly gifted Clarita with the wiry frame of a scrappy bantamweight fighter rather than the willowy beauty of her youth.

The shine was definitely fading from that apple, and no amount of exercise, intentional or circumstantial, could combat The Dreaded Sag.

The days of dressing in sprayed-on leather pants and cute, wispy tops for Mateo were in the past. Now, her wardrobe heavily featured durable jeans, hard-wearing knee-length dresses that covered the varicose veins on her skinny thighs, and a lot of comfy flannel—nearly all of which was purchased at thrift stores.

A sense of existential angst tugged at her tummy, and Clarita munched on another glittering pastry to settle it.

Bringing food into the bathroom wasn’t exactly sanitary. But she kept a clean home and hadn’t realized she was still carrying the takeout container until the door was already sealed and securely locked.

Nothing else for it then, she decided, wiping the crumbs from the corners of her lips.

Steam enveloped Clarita when she stepped into the tub. The hot flow massaged her skin, delivering a mildly scalding tingle and warming her to the bone. She preferred her showers to be nearly unbearably hot. The heat scoured away tension and grime, reddening her coppery flesh like a boiled crayfish.

Reaching for the body wash–a no-name discount brand purchased with coupons at the grocery club–she quickly lathered up her arms and legs, then paused after the first pass of the sudsy cloth across her chest.

Something was different. The business-like act of cleaning herself had taken on an odd sensation. Perky brown nipples stood at attention, sending tantalizing sparks through her nerves as soap dripped from stiff tips.

Curious, she experimentally brushed gentle fingers over an engorged peak…

“Oh! Mmmmmm~...”

The sounds that escaped Clarita weren’t particularly motherly, but neither was the rush of desire that spiked her stomach. A second stroke produced the same result, thrilling flutters that reminded her how far away Mateo was.

Her husband was a passionate lover, fierce and possessive in their love-making. Clarita thoroughly enjoyed welcoming him home, especially with their son away most evenings, but she rarely did much for herself in his absence.

There was always too much to do. Too many concerns and pressures sapping her energy. A decent night's sleep was more important.

Only the needless lists of tasks and worries were melting away, dissolving under the steamy spray and the coalescing thrum of need clutching at her core. Sleep was the furthest thing from Clarita’s mind at the moment.

Circling the washcloth around her modest breasts pulled gasps and sultry moans from the Latina housewife’s lips. She tried to clamp down on them, biting her tongue, aware of her child in the bedroom across the hall.

Her grown child–practically a man now.

So tall and handsome like his father with that fire of youth she sorely missed. Driven to succeed, yet dutiful and conscientious of those important to him.

Her sweet Cariño.

“Aah! Dios mío… Oommph!”

Lines of soap trickled down Clarita’s belly. Iridescent bubbles slid over tensed muscles, seeking the bushy valley between her clenching thighs. She could feel them like the stroke of a feather, teasing toward parts untended for far too long.

Her tits were slathered with foam. Her hands squeezed and kneaded frantically at the tender sunkissed mounds. Raven hair plastered her blushing face and bunched shoulders, running with searing water like a conduit across her glistening wet skin.

Every rub and pinch was electrifying. Rising in amplitude as the temperature became stifling. She wheezed in short breaths, almost unraveling from the jolts of rapture her hyper-sensitive nips delivered. The moisture gathering in her loins was not from the shower, plump and aching, but she didn’t dare explore that prurient possibility.

“Gah! Ooooh… por favor, it’s too much! Hnnnh~...”

Clarita was a warhead primed to detonate, audibly and messily, with her son only a few thin sheets of plaster wall away.

Her darling Carlos was studious and striking with his masculine charms. Selfless and giving, never balking a chore or request. Humble. Apparently unaware of his rugged good looks and oblivious to the lingering stares chikas sent his way.

She loved him utterly. Adored the man he had grown into. It felt appalling to fixate upon her perfect, strapping boy at a time like this. While teetering on a highwire above a bottomless crevasse of sinful gratification…

Then the trail of slippery lather cascaded over her juicy nether lips, washing away the thatch of coarse hair and triggering a thermonuclear response.

“No… Oooh! Cariño–Mmmmff!”

The bitter, metallic taste of lye pervaded Clarita’s taste buds when she shoved the soapy washcloth into her mouth to muzzle a euphoric wail. Gigawatts of high-voltage bliss wracked her nervous system, lighting up her dizzy brain like a Christmas tree and paralyzing her with orgasmic convulsions.

When reality finally swam back into focus, she was curled into a tight ball in the tub, cold water bathing her body, with a deep glow of satisfaction radiating from her center.

Dragging herself up on shaky legs, Clarita nearly stumbled when she saw herself in the foggy bathroom mirror.

She looked… rejuvenated, as though the brief but tempestuous climax in the shower were the equivalent of a full spa day. Even soggy with water and fuzzy afterglow, her skin looked firmer and healthier, hair of the darkest obsidian shining wet on her shoulders. Wrinkles and the droop of time’s passage wiped away like chalk off a slate.

Clarita’s appearance was touched up, shored up, and the niggling pain in her hip was gone.

With the agility and balance of a woman half her age, she skipped out of the tub and spun into a fluffy robe. She felt giddy from that single release. Daring. It had been terribly naughty, thinking of her beloved Carlos when she came.

Giggling at the thought, she slipped another glimmering tart into her mouth.

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