The Salty Blonde

Previous Chapter: Debauchery

I meet Tessa at the bus depot. She has just the one small bag. No doubt she’s used to traveling light, just like me. It’s interesting, watching her walk toward me. Her walk is about as unlike Isabel’s as is probably possible, given the constraints of human anatomy. Isabel’s hips sway widely from side to side and she almost appears to be in slow motion, though that last part might be an illusion since I focus so tightly on her hips. Tessa practically walks like a man. Only the minimal swaying necessary for locomotion. Her exceptional athleticism is on display with every step and gesture. No wasted motion, direct and without subtlety. 

“How was your trip?”

“The usual. It’s a bus after all. Even the ‘express’ winds up stopping every hour or so. I wish I could’ve afforded to fly.”

“You should’ve said something, I could’ve got you some tickets!”

“Next time, then.”

We get in my rental and head to the cabin. I notice that she still keeps scanning the environment. I like that. Isabel, unfortunately, does the bare minimum when she’s off the job, though, as I mentioned, she follows the protocol when she’s on. It amuses me to think how we must look to an imaginary observer. We carry on our conversation, mostly about movies at this point, yet it’s as if we’re steadfastly ignoring one another, we’re so busy keeping an eye on our surroundings.

“You made a huge impression on Isabel, you know.”

“She made a huge impression on me! I’ve only just been able to enjoy my usual between jobs entertainment and it’s been over six months.”

“I’ve noticed that while she mentions you less as time goes by, she gets lost in thought a lot more often than she used to. I can guess she’s thinking about you.”

Flattering, in a way. I can never really be sure of the impact I have on any of my lovers. I can only go by their physical responses, and I know how easy it is to fake those.

“She’s been moving up the food chain. Just got another promotion.”

“Good for her! I’m sure she’s earned and deserves it.”

“It comes with a price, though. There’re a whole lot of misogynistic and chauvinistic people in our organization, and not just men. Particularly at the lower levels. Of course, those at the higher levels might just be better at hiding it. She tends to rub people the wrong way; she loves rules and the bureaucracy. She doesn’t seem to realize our business attracts socially maladjusted people, the sort that hate regulations and red tape.”

“I get that. I pretty much operate entirely outside the realm of law and rules. Though I can’t really be sure if that’s a result of my job or the reason I sought it out. She can handle it, though, don’t you think? She’s really smart and surely has to have factored that into her decisions.”

“I hope so!”

After we arrive at the cabin, we rapidly get to the point. We settle on the couch, a little apart. Then, over the course of the day, we wind up sitting side-by-side, as it’s cool in the evening. That night, we pull out the sofa bed and are lying under the covers next to each other. During some of the slower scenes, we cuddle, almost unconsciously (at least on my part). After each movie, we get up, stretch, sometimes go for a walk (that usually only during daylight, we didn’t want to alarm potential neighbors with our chattering at two AM in the inky black woods). Sometimes we’ll make something to eat, but most importantly, we discuss the movie. Our favorite part. I do believe discussing the movie is more fun than watching it, at least when we’re together.

The first night (well, sleep period; we’re up until almost dawn watching movies), she sleeps in the bedroom and I sleep on the couch. After we get up, we decide we should first exercise a few hours, since we’re basically blobs the rest of the time. We do some Parkour on the trails surrounding the cabins. She’s quite good, very challenging to keep up with. When I’m in the lead I have to work very hard to evince any stress on her part. After a couple of hours, we decide to do some sparring. I expected Tessa to be pretty good, based on the stories we exchanged back at that quarry waiting for the rifle to cool. Also, she was trained in the same program that trained Isabel and, as I’ve mentioned, I think the training “took” better on Tessa than Isabel. I was braced for a good workout.

It’s a great workout! Try as I might, I never get the upper hand on her. Even after I stop being “chivalrous” and use all my strength, weight and reach. Even after I start to “cheat” and use a lot of the nasty tricks I’d learned in the military. Techniques we generally never used on each other because they could seriously injure someone. She’s always calm and in command. Toward the end, I start to get desperate and perhaps flail a bit. I’m impressed! I hadn’t met someone who could teach me anything on hand-to-hand combat in a good long while. I’m going to use some of this time to pick up some new training.

After we quit (or rather, after I get exhausted from trying to beat her down) we take a shower. The cabin has the one bathroom/bedroom. We’d done this before in Monaco, so I didn’t think anything about it. I go first, assuming she’ll take forever like most women do, come out in a towel and start to get deja vu from my first experience with Isabel. Tessa takes her turn and is out in even less time than Isabel. She has short hair, though. No doubt that makes a difference.

She also comes out in a towel and we start picking at our lunch. The towels supplied with the cabin aren’t very generous; they barely reach down to the top of her thighs. I speculatively eye her as she walks around, my towel starting to “tent” as I enjoy the peaks of her crotch. She eyes me eyeing her and, evidently deciding she’s done with subtlety, takes her towel off. She’s just like I remember from our adventure in the countryside sighting in the rifle: very muscular, but with just enough padding so she isn’t scary like some of those women bodybuilders. Still with the “landing strip.” She is very sexy indeed.

Standing up, I drop my towel to show my approval. She comes to stand next to me. Looking me up and down, she reaches out to caress my chest. I reach out to caress her waist. Feeling the muscles play as she moves around is quite interesting. I lean forward to give her a kiss. She responds by wrapping her arms around me, pulling me tight and passionately thrusting her tongue in my mouth. Her back is also amazingly muscular, holding her makes me think about holding a panther: lithe, flexible, firm yet smooth and soft to the touch. She starts rubbing her torso against me. I enthusiastically return the favor.

Reaching down her back, I run my hands over her behind and thighs. She lifts one leg up and puts it over my shoulder. I knew she was flexible and strong, but this is quite impressive. She’s a little bit shorter than I am and has to stand on her toes for the angles to work. She seems very comfortable like this. I decide to take more initiative and lift her up in my hands. She puts her other leg on my other shoulder. This is certainly fun, but it’s a workout and, at least for me, too much effort to ever reach climax. I carry her into the bedroom.

As I lay her down and begin my ministrations, she also has an analytical look as she maintains eye contact. Since my first time with Isabel, I’ve been noting how much, or rather, how little most women look at my face during love making. I find it quite interesting they share this trait. Though not as amazing to look at as Isabel, Tessa is certainly easy on the eyes and I also enjoy looking her up and down. She’s on top for her first time. Afterward, she leans forward to give me a kiss. She whispers that she’s been waiting for this ever since Isabel first spoke of me years ago, after Isabel and I first met. I had cues that the two had talked about me, but this is the first confirmation.

As we cuddle in bed afterwards, I start to think this is going to be a very good week indeed. As I lay on my back, with her torso partially on my chest, it dawns on me that she doesn’t smell like Isabel at all. Yet I haven’t once thought anything was missing. Of course, she’s far away from looking like Isabel. The women I targeted, when I was on the prowl, were selected because they reminded me of Isabel in some way.

We continued our movie watching as before, though naked under some blankets. The cuddling was more overt this time, though our focus was on the movie, so little more than incidental caressing. Hours later, when we decide we don’t have enough energy to focus on another movie, we make love some more. It was slower this time and we probably wound up spending more time than if we’d watched a movie. She’s a lot more aggressive than Isabel and keeps at something until she’s accomplished her goal. Though the experience is quite distinct from loving Isabel, it’s nevertheless a fascinating and enjoyable experience. I didn’t really make a decision to sleep in the bed with her; we were cuddling afterwards and I just fell asleep. As with Isabel and the others, I woke up whenever she shifted around. As with Isabel, but unlike the others, I don’t feel disturbed, just cuddle a little closer and drift back to sleep.

This more or less becomes the pattern for the rest of our time together: watch movies, talk about them, exercise (I did manage to get her to teach me a few things, but it’s clear she isn’t going to give up all her secrets) and make love. We watch four or five movies a day and work our way about halfway through the stack. 

An interesting thing about Tessa: she has a foul mouth. Whenever she gets frustrated or irritated, she curses; sometimes going on for minutes. She’s at least imaginative. She uses curses from a number of different languages, though when she gets really upset she sticks with Portuguese. When I remark that she sounds like a drunken pirate, she glares at first, but shifts into a smile when she realizes what she’s doing. I started calling her cursing “salty,” as one of my more straight-laced fellows in the special forces used to complain about our endless cussing and called us all “salty dogs” when we got started.

Of course, it’s not like I don’t get all potty-mouthed at times. I try to shield my readers from that during the editing process. I picked up a lot of “bad” habits from my time in the military, and being “salty” was certainly one of them, so I’m not critical of her. Though I tend to use misogynistic words to describe women out of reflex, I don’t believe I’m like that at my core. Or maybe I am; perhaps I’m not the right person to evaluate that sort of thing.