It was like baking bran muffins, thought Marcos, smiling, as he methodically arrayed the tubes of oil colors to take an inventory of his needs. Combine a cup of wheat bran with a cup of flour, baking soda, canola oil, eggs, milk, molasses, and raisins; spoon the mixture into wells of the muffin tin, pop them into the oven, and thirty minutes later, they're done. Same ingredients each time. Same predictable outcome.
Making love with Maria was a recipe he had followed faithfully for nearly two decades: several handfuls of back stroking in the spoons position, a smattering of kisses, whisking with oral sex until she moaned in pleasure, and finally, entry with deep penetration, ejaculation, and body-rubbing in the afterglow to send her off to sleep.
She liked sex that way. It was predictable, and she was able to achieve an orgasm and post-coital relaxation every time.
He had wanted to try dates and walnuts or cranberries with orange peel, but she liked her muffins with raisins and nothing else.
Maria's foreplay made no time for role-playing or fantasy. She confessed to having no sensation in her breasts. Her anus was strictly off-limits. And aside from her scalp, which she loved having a hair brush raked through, her only sex organ was her clitoris. No wonder, justified Marcos to himself, that he sought sensual adventures with other women. Like now, with Cassie. Or, before her, with Randi, who had unexpectedly died three years prior.
"I'm going up to bed," Maria announced. "You coming?"
Depends on if you do, thought Marcos, then reconsidered before replying, "Guess I'm done here."
And he put down, on his studio table, the list of hues he would need to purchase for his next painting. He mounted the stairs with her to the bedroom for their nightly routine.
Would they make love tonight, Marcos wondered, as he watched Maria unbutton the day's tunic she had not bothered to change, slip out of her white pants, and throw them both into the laundry basket. She unclipped the clasps of her J.C Penney's vanilla bra and slid off her even more vanilla panties. He paused to ponder why, with so pleasing a form, she didn't flatter herself more with lacy lingerie. Or, probably more to the point, flatter herself for him.
Bearing two children had taken only a minor toll on her body. She had gained some weight in her hips, but still had that Bosc pear shape he had been attracted to so long ago. She bore the color of the fruit's skin, too--a rich Mediterranean complexion that could be rendered with pigments of yellow oxide, burnt sienna, raw umber, and white. Her hair was shoulder-length ivory black, with nary a gray strand, that framed her classically proportioned face so beautifully that he could have painted her day after day--if she ever had been willing to sit for him. Another sore subject.
It was early, so they might. Or would she be departing in the morning before the sun rose to make her rounds at the hospital and need to get right to sleep? He wished he knew.
For as long as he could remember, he had had to muster elaborate scenarios to have sex with Maria. After all, one can salivate for the same muffins only if really hungry. And now with Cassie on his mind so much of the time--and on his conscience--he was finding it impossible to dream of sex with anyone but her. She was so fresh, so new, so agreeably different...one night a spinach salad with tomato and mozzarella drizzled with olive-and-garlic-infused oil and balsamic vinegar; and the next, mesclun greens with avocado, mango, goat cheese, and toasted pecans splashed with lime juice and extra virgin olive oil.
She flossed. He flossed. She brushed. He did likewise.
He recalled having to conduct these same mental preparations for Maria when he and Randi had had their long love affair. The two of them had met weekly, to paint en plein-aire for a couple hours. Then, to celebrate their accomplishments, they rolled naked on the cool moss. Or frolicked bare in the summer rain. Or picked wild raspberries, and, shedding encumbrances of clothing, filled each other's mouths with warm, sweet-tart moieties--before smearing their red pulp on lips and over cheeks, squashing handfuls on their chins and watching the berries ooze crimson down necks, stain pale breasts, fill belly buttons, and tangle pubic hair with pulverized scarlet bits. Then, amid the bumbling bees and silent butterflies, cardinal strains and blackbird calls, they would nibble and suck every incriminating seed off nipple, vulva, and glans; slurping, squealing, tickling, giggling, panting, and startling all the meadow fauna with the succulently joyous sounds of a human love song.
So long ago. So clear in his memory. So different from Maria. So conflicting.
