Flamethrower - Maggie Estep [38]
Ruby found a seat in the bleachers. Doriana, the snake charmer, was onstage, a pair of albino pythons writhing over her light brown body as the audience sat rapt and very possibly horny. Doriana was followed by Bubbles, a thin, fortyish white man who drove nails up his nose and swallowed a sword, causing kids in the audience to erupt in grossed-out choking sounds. Finally, Lucio appeared. This is what Ruby had come for: eye candy. He was dressed in loose black pants and a tight black T-shirt. He grinned at the audience, then lit his torches and began arching his neck back, swallowing the flames. He had a beautiful neck. Objectifying the fire-eater made Ruby feel better than she’d felt all week. When Lucio finished, she got up and climbed out of the bleachers, heading for the exit. She was about to leave when the fire-eater materialized at her side.
“Thanks for coming to watch me,” he said.
“A pleasure.” Ruby pictured herself taking his clothes off. He was lean. He had long lovely muscles. Young skin.
“Come on.” Lucio motioned for Ruby to follow him. Since she could think of no reason not to, she did.
They walked in silence toward the beach. Night was coming on, dark overhead, pink at the edges. There were few people on the beach. A helicopter was passing, shining a searchlight at the sea, and Ruby idly wondered if someone had drowned of if contraband had floated to the surface.
Lucio took off his T-shirt, put it on the sand, and motioned for Ruby to sit. She glanced at his hairless chest.
“What’s going on with you?” He asked it the way an old friend would. Matter-of-fact, implying it was natural for him to notice she wasn’t quite right. He touched her face. “Come on, tell me.”
“Too much to explain.”
He nodded and looked away. A couple walked by hand in hand. Lucio started fumbling through his pockets. Ruby suddenly wondered if he was looking for a condom. Then decided this was an insane thing to wonder. She wished it weren’t. She wished she could lose herself in this boy. The young skin. He produced a pack of Marlboros and offered her one. She accepted. They smoked.
The sea lapped at the sand.
Ruby found herself resting her head on Lucio’s shoulder. She didn’t remember articulating the muscles to do this. It was just that her head weighed too much and it found a place on Lucio’s shoulder. She closed her eyes and, after a few seconds, felt his fingers on her face, tracing the shape of her jaw. Then his lips were on hers, and she felt herself opening up. She wanted him to fill her up.
She was lying on top of the fire-eater, biting into the beautiful soft skin of his neck. She felt hot and sick and broken. The sea was making its sounds.
Lucio dug his fingers into her forearms, up to her shoulders, under her T-shirt.
“Hey,” he said suddenly. He gently pushed Ruby off him and sat up. “Are you gonna use me?” he asked. His mouth was partially open, and she could see the tip of his tongue.
“Use you?” Ruby was incredulous.
“You got a man. I can feel him here between us.”
“That man needed some space,” Ruby said disdainfully.
“And the way you’re mad about it has a hold on you.”
Ruby invariably had the misfortune of picking virtuously minded men to try having fix-it flings with. Not that she’d done anything like this in a long time. When things had been going well with Ed, she hadn’t had a wandering eye. But things weren’t going well with Ed now.
“I like you,” said Lucio, “but I don’t want you when you got your mind on some other man.”
“What about sex for the sake of sex?” Ruby asked.
“Aw, come on, girl,” he said, touching her lips with his index finger, “you know it’s gonna be a mess.”
“Define mess.”
“Feelings,” he said.
She wasn’t sure if he meant he’d have feelings, she would, or both, but it was presumptuous of him. And she sort of liked that.
“Why’d you bring me here then?” Ruby asked.
“Seemed like the natural thing to do. Only now that I got my hands on you, I can tell there’s something unresolved between you and that