Excerpt Day: The Cataracts by William Maltese

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Wet Skin by Laura Baumbach & William Maltese
Release Date: 06/2009
Publisher: MLR Press
ISBN# 978-0-9793110-9-3 (print)
978-1-60820-053-5 (ebook)
Publisher Link: http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=ANTHWS01

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Amazon: Wet Skin

Blurb: William Maltese again joins Laura Baumbach for several erotic tales that explore the first-time wonders of the flesh and water. From Maltese's intriguing The Cataracts, to Baumbach's playful Slippery When Wet, the amount of heat generated here will bring back the delicious pleasures of first-time experiences.

Excerpt:

From The Cataracts by William Maltese

THIS ISN’T THE FIRST time I’ve run.

At age fourteen, when my mother died of cancer, I ran. Oh, I didn’t get far. I didn’t have the money at my disposal, then, like now, to hop a plane to South America. Instead, I filled a paper bag with food from the kitchen and fled into the woods behind the house. My father found me, of course.

“Running never solves anything,” he said.

He was always able to cope. Coping is something with which I sometimes have a problem. Maybe it was because my father, or those people he hired (my father seldom around), were so good at coping for me.

Well, suddenly my father is dead; there’s no one to help me adequately cope with that.

Oh, Harold tries, but my being courted by an older man who is, also, the head of the modeling agency with which I’m signed, isn’t what I’m looking for; even if I have, for years, been contemplating sex with “some” man — thinking there has to be more than what I experience with my dick ejaculating up seemingly always available pussy (and being assured by more than one of my fellow models, gay, in the fashion business that that is the case). Harold certainly isn’t all that bad to look at and has never made any bones (although he has made plenty a boners) about his wanting to be my first.

I am, in a way, then, suddenly running from Harold, too. He seemed genuinely hurt when I told him I was going off alone and didn’t want him along for the ride.

“I’m a big boy,” I said, feeling anything but my twenty-one years. “I can certainly take care of myself for a couple of weeks. Besides, it isn’t as if it’s all pleasure.”

“But South America?” Harold moaned. “Couldn’t you go somewhere a bit closer?”

“The property is in South America.” I was more than a little piqued that I had to go through that redundant reminder. “I don’t want to go just anywhere and mope.”

I doubt that he really understands. I’m not sure I even understand — completely. My lawyer tells me the sale of the property can easily be taken care of without me going anywhere near it. International deals like this one are carried out every day of every year. Likely, I just hope the change of scenery will pull me out of my funk.

In the plane seat next to me, Cary Blight, whom I’ve met on the flight, stirs in his sleep, readjusting his position without coming awake.

I take a few minutes to scrutinize him closer. It isn’t the first time I’ve done so. I spent the whole first hour of our flight admiring his masculine good looks while spilling my guts as regards my in-process runaway. In the end, I was embarrassed by my diarrhea of the mouth, and I’d apologized.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” he said, his rugged features breaking into an attractive smile that immediately turned the man into a boy. (Why isn’t he the one trying to get into my pants?) “Any psychiatrist will tell you that unloading on a complete stranger is some of the best therapy around.”

“Good for me, granted.” I laughed. My right hand smoothed my light blonde hair out of my large gray eyes.

“Oh, I’m having a marvelous time,” he said, all gentleman. “Actually, you could probably talk anything and keep me interested.”

I’m used to veiled and unveiled compliments, by men and women, by gays and straights. Once, I’d been insulted whenever someone only paid attention to my physical veneer and had no interest in what was beneath it. In time, however, I’ve come to accept that I’m attractive; that in a world where youth and beauty are admired, it’s only natural that the first thing someone notices about me is how good I look. I was pleased that, up until then, though, Cary hadn’t treated me as just another dumb, good-looking blond. He’d rambled off the technical aspects of his job as if I understood every word; I understood very little except that it has something to do with mining.

Cary moves again in his sleep; lest he wake to discover me playing voyeur, I turn my attention back to the window.

Below is the jungle of Brazil: a deep green carpet that stretches for as far as the eye can see, interspersed with myriad ropes of waterways that curl, meander, and fold in on themselves until navigation of, and on, seems quite impossible.

It’s hard to imagine that the civilized city of Rio is only hours behind me. Lovely, lovely Rio. I had lingered there for over a week, losing myself in its exotic spell. I was enthralled by its towering huge crags up-thrust within its city limits. I was caught up in the turnabout of seasons that put me in tropical heat while it’s winter in London. The week of lying in my skimpy Brazilian swimming suit on the sands of Ipanema Beach toasted my pale skin a delightful shade of honey.

I would have stayed longer in Rio, had actually been almost out of my depression, but Harold started calling nightly. Disturbed that he can’t seem to leave me alone for just a couple of weeks, I’ve run even further.

Cary stirs again, stretches, and comes awake. I turn in his direction and smile. Sleepily, he smiles back and then checks his watch. He comes to a more substantial sitting position. He looks momentarily past me and to the window. He points.

“Thar she blows!” he says.

I turn back to the verdant river-veined jungle below.

There are volcanoes up and down the west coast of South America, but there aren’t any of them here to account for the sudden visible steam on the horizon.

“Foz do Iquacu,” he confirms in his slightly accented Portuguese.

I’ve picked up just enough of the language, in Rio, to know what he says. Frankly, though, I’ve not expected the spray to be visible from such a distance. “It must be huge,” I decide aloud.

“There are actually hundreds of waterfalls and cascades,” he says, “all plunging over the one escarpment. “One helluva sight, even from the air, as I think you’ll agree; unfortunately, that’s all the closer I ever seem to get, despite all of my intentions to the contrary. All a question of bad timing, I guess.”

The pilot announces our descent. Cary and I check our seat belts and then go back to watching the cloud of spray growing upon our approach.

I see no signs of civilization until the plane banks right; the runway and a parenthesizing small grouping of buildings come into view.

The plane lands, bounces twice before settling down to a fairly smooth glide to a stop.

“Well, good luck to you, then, William,” Cary says, standing so that I can squeeze by him and enter the aisle first. I find our brief mutual rub-by arousing in the extreme. “Maybe we’ll meet again.”

“I’ll be here for awhile,” I say. “If you’re back through in the next week or so, give me a call. I’m staying at a local residence called The Cataracts.”

“Are you now?” he sounds impressed. “Maybe I’ll take you up on your invite.” He smiles. “It’s about time I see the falls from closer than five-thousand feet; I hear the view from where you’ll be staying is genuinely spectacular.”

“By the time you’re back in the area, I’ll, perhaps, have enough bearings to give you a personally guided tour,” I, hopefully, further entice.

Up the aisle, a stewardess goes through the final procedure for opening the door. I give one final nod to Cary and walk forward to be greeted by the hot blast of incoming air that suddenly engulfs me.